October 2007 Archives

I once asked Grandad F about his relatives in Italy.  He said that he had a cousin, Ernesto Fortuna, who was a hospital administrator and living in a town outside of Rome - that was in the 90's so the guy may still be around.  The town had a short name that I THINK began with a P.  I would recognize it.  You know already that Gr Gramom Fortuna was in fact a great AUNT.  Grandad's mother died during the influenza epidemic, and his fathe rmarried her younger sister, which was the custom.  The sister raised grandad and had Helen et. al.  Mom knows all of their names.  I don't know how they ended up in Philadelphia, they obviously came to America through NYC.

Rita told me that Gmom F's heritage is partly Hungarian.  Accoridng to Rita, her family was more genteel, from Florence, and supposedly connected somehow to the makers of I THINK Bertoli olive oil.  They ran a grocery in DC, not sure how they ended up in DC.