Rossetti

In 1937, our parents Angelo and Antonietta were sweethearts planning to marry and live on the family farm in Ceolini. Plans halted with the start of WW2. Conscripted in 1939 to the 3rd “Julia” Alpini mission, Angelo fought in Albania and then Greece, where he was imprisoned. Once freed in 1942, he fought again in Russia, and was one of the few from the “Julia” division to return to Italy. He remained silently disillusioned with the wreckage of war: poverty, scarcity of resources, and a diminished hope for a better future for his family.

In 1949, on the Saturnia ocean liner, he immigrated alone from Genoa to Halifax and into Toronto. After 1 year of gruelling work as a masonry, he had saved enough to pay off his own voyage and that of his wife and 5-year-old daughter. In May 1950, the “girls” travelled alone from Genoa to NY, and then through Buffalo to Toronto. Here, they joined Angelo in a two-room rental, sharing one washroom, stove, and sink with the English speaking owner’s family below. In 1952, they co-purchased a home with our mom’s brother, wife and infant; sharing one kitchen, a vegetable garden, and a well-stocked cantina, full of homemade salami and wine. Our parents joyfully welcomed their 2nd daughter in 1955.

Our parents immigrated for us all to have a better future, particularly via educational opportunities. We completed university degrees and had successful secondary school teaching careers, with marriages resulting in 3 gifted granddaughters. Mixing Italian traditions with the “Canadian” way, life for the Rossetti’s has proven to be ever so good.