On April 21, 2001,
PIP Chapter 22 met at the Italian Community Center, 631 E. Chicago Street,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin at 11:00 a.m.
On a perfect spring
day in Milwaukee, we had our largest meeting ever.
The following were in attendance: Ginny Balistreri, Nancy Bushman,
Kristin Bushman, Lois and Stan Cozzuli (220), Bonnie Dompke, Tony Dompke, Tina
Favero (4452), Mave Freyberg, Elsie Fucile, George Koleas (1527) Filomena Lee,
Josephine Loch, Jackie Maggiore (4391), Rudy and Marlene Magnarini, Pat Moon,
Susan Petta Nokes (4128) and her Father, Andrew Phillip Petta, Mamie Podewils,
Barbara Roberts (1201), Marie Roth (766) Margaret Schultz (2149), Pat
Therkelson (2356), Susan White.
New members:
Michelle Giuliano (2357), Mary Horne, Elizabeth Houtz, Gloria Monreal, Tana
Salvaggio, Kathy Sojkowski, Ann Voge.
With the large number of new members, each person present
introduced himself or herself and told what surnames they were researching.
George Koleas and
Jackie Maggiore attended a speech by Professor Rudolf Vecoli, Director of The
Immigrant History Research Center, on the subject of Italian immigrants to
Wisconsin. He described
immigration patterns and Italian communities in Milwaukee, Greenbush and
Kenosha. He recommended the
following books by Catherine Tripalin Murray:
- A
Taste of Memories from the Old “Bush”, Volumes 1&2.
This is a combination of a cookbook and memories of the Greenbush,
Wisconsin Italians.
- A
Taste of Memories from the “Columbus Park”, Volumes 3.
This is a combination of a cookbook and memories of Kenosha, Wisconsin
Italians.
- Grandmother’s
Book.
Pat
Therkelson brought a book entitled Josephine and Lusana, Love and Marriage
in Renaissance Florence by Gene Brucker. It will circulate among members.
Susan Petta Nokes,
our most distant member, joined us from the State of Washington with her
father, Andrew Phillip Petta. She
shared pictures of Andrew as a little boy and of the Petta family.
Susan is working on the microfilmed records of Our Lady of Pompeii
Church. Our chapter now has roughly half of the records copied, thanks to
Susan.
Margaret Schultz
brought old issues of POINTers to recycle among members. This is a great use
of old copies of the magazine. Thanks Margaret.
Festa Italiana will take place July 19 – 22, 2001 at
Milwaukee’s lakefront. It will
be a great festival. Planners are
creating a recreation of an Italian Palazzo. We are still in discussions with
Festa planners to determine if there is a place for us that is consistent with
our purpose statement. Last year, we have a very successful tent where we
spoke with hundreds of people about how they can research their Italian family
history. Our members are willing to volunteer to participate, but we want to
fill a role that is in keeping with our purpose. At our meeting, we discussed
options. George Koleas will continue discussions with Festa.
We discussed other
genealogical conferences and displays that we may consider participating in.
Members will get details and we will share them with the members at future
meetings.
There
are two projects that we are considering.
First, we could act as a repository for family history stories of area
Italians, who may want to record their family history, but have no interested
family members to tell their stories to.
Second, we could compile passenger lists and naturalization papers from
our members and send them to the Immigrant History Research Center to become a
part of their collections. Members should provide feedback to George Koleas
about these ideas. We will
discuss them further at our next meeting.
Our
website, located at www.geocities.com/point11_2000
has all of the surnames we are researching and links to many resources for
researching Italian family history. When
typing our website address, please remember that there is an underscore
“_” in our address (/point11_2000). If you have suggestions about the
website, please contact George Koleas.
Our next meeting is
September 15, 2001 starting at 11:00 a.m. at the Italian Community Center, 631
E. Chicago Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
