The Italian Cultural Center at Casa Italia in Stone Park unveiled a restored and enhanced Italians in Chicago exhibit at an open house from 6-9 p.m. on May 12. Archivists Terry Quilico and Barbara Stasell began work on the project two years ago under the direction of the exhibit’s creator, ICC Library Curator Dominic Candeloro. “The exhibit was renovated in the 1990s, but due to the deterioration of some of the displays, we decided that further renovations were needed,” Candeloro says. “As work progressed, we realized that there were significant aspects of the history of Italians in Chicago that were …
Read More »My dad, Aaron Judge and me
I am writing this the morning after Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees hit his 62nd home run of the season, breaking Roger Maris’ American League record of 61, which he set 61 years ago. I immediately thought of my dad, his youth, my life as his son and our relationship with the American pastime. Anthony Quilico was born in 1901 in the coal mining Italian enclave of Seatonville in Bureau County, Illinois. His dad worked the mines until 1909, when the mine fire in nearby Cherry, Illinois, convinced him to take a job with the railroads. Many miners …
Read More »Landmark book enjoys a stellar second edition
“Reconstructing Italians in Chicago — Thirty Authors in Search of Roots and Branches” was released in 2011 as “a sampler of the best writing on the subject of Italians in Chicago,” according to Dominic Candeloro, who spearheaded the book’s publication by Casa Italia. The first edition has sold out, and a 10th anniversary edition has now been published by Amazon at a much lower price, both in print and on Kindle. The new edition includes an introduction by Candeloro and Fred Gardaphe, an associate editor at Fra Noi and professor at Queens College. References have been updated, some of which …
Read More »IA Literati heads for the internet
This year’s IA Literati seminar was held as a virtual gathering on June 13. The event was different from any of the previous 16 instalments, according to Professor Dominic Candeloro, curator of the Florence Roselli library in the Italian Cultural Center at Casa Italia. “Authors could not gather in person due to COVID-19 so we were presented with the challenge of meeting electronically over Zoom. I must say that we all missed gathering together but we were able to expand the scope of the event beyond the Chicago area to across the country and to Italy, with more than 100 …
Read More »Ron Giordano lends a hand across the border and back
In the course of a 50-year career at Huntley-based H.S. Crocker, Ron Giordano has helped turn a money-losing plant into an award-winning operation. He is now CEO and president of a business that specializes in food packaging, producing items such as foil lids for yogurt containers and individual-dose pharmaceutical products. His remarkable career achievements are mirrored by his philanthropic drive. As a volunteer for the Chicagoland Radio Informational Service, he has read the news to the visually impaired, and as a member and past president of the Columbian Club of Chicago, he has organized fundraisers to assist more than 70 …
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