POINTers IN PERSON Minutes
Chapter # 10 Central Texas/Austin
Submitted by: Sherry PACELLI Haddox (4883)
Lin ONOFRIO Brinkman (1388) opened the monthly meeting on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 with 12 people in attendance including 1 visitor. Lin told us about the Cosmofest World Festival which will be held April 2 - 3 at the Old Settlers Park in Round Rock. POINT representatives will be at the I.C.A. table for people interested in genealogy. Lin also mentioned that our meeting room at the library will not be available after the end of this year. We will need to make other arrangements.
Our visitor was Connie Cabezas. Her husband's maternal grandfather was Vincenzo GRANIELLO RUSSO who was born in Viggiano, PZ BA. on December 3, 1891 to Carmine GRANIELLO BRANCO and Maria Caterina RUSSO PACIELLO. GRANIELLO is the primary name they're researching.
Jeanie MARSALIA (#4251) ordered two films from the Family History Center for military records from Torino. She is still waiting for a reply to her request for naturalization papers on her grandfather, Giuseppe MARSAGLIA.
Joe MASTRANGELO (#2614) is continuing with his record extraction from Putignano BA, AP and has currently completed the 1900 Marriage records. He began
with the 1805 records.
Regarding his Dual Citizenship status:
1. He is waiting for his father and his grandfather's Death Certificates and his Birth Certificate. He will then need to get Apostille's applied.
2. His Birth Certificate and their Marriage Certificate will have to be sent to the New York Italian Consulate for translation.
Finally these documents will have to be sent to the Houston Consulate for completing the process.
Joe was contacted by Calegero (Kelly) Martino regarding the dual citizenship process and invited him to our meeting.
He mentioned that Joe Battiste from POINT copied PIE on an e-mail from Keith Rose regarding copying records from the individual towns in Naples Province
by the LDS. They are hoping to complete the process in about 3-5 years.
Joe will be assisting with the genealogy booth at the Cosmofest World Festival in Round Rock.
He heard from Ernie & Gloria SILVA (#4858). They are settled in their new home and send their regards. Ernie said he hoped they could join us at the
Pot Luck in May.
Don VILLONI (#3985) related a recent happening regarding his Grandfather, Domenico VILLONI, who was a composer of Italian Symphonic marches in the late
1920's and early 1930's. He was a Bandmaster and taught many musicians in Cleveland, Ohio. His works were well known throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania and
the Northeastern states.
In 1992, in commemoration of the 500th Anniversary of Christopher Columbus discovering America, a celebration in Philadelphia included several Italian
marches played for the occasion. The first of the three marches was called "Little Italy", one of his grandfather's marches.
In the latter part of 2003, Don was contacted by Mr. Steven Piermarini, the Conductor of the Leominster Massachusetts Colonial Band. This band started in
1910 as the Banda Regione d'Italia, a group of Italian immigrant musicians.
His e-mail to Don explained that he had done a web search and found out that Don was the grandson of Domenico. He was preparing for a Christmas concert
and was looking for any background information, the identity of the marches that he composed, photographs, etc.. He said "I have played in the Colonial
Band for 30 years now and your grandfather's compositions (also "Pluto" and "Little Italy") have been a staple of our repertoire".
Don provided him with all of the information he requested.
As time progressed, Steven Piermarini mailed Don a DVD, entitled "Marcia Sinfonica". Two of the six marches were composed by Domenico Villoni. They are: "Pluto" and
"California".
Don passed around the following letter at the meeting (the letter was included with the DVD and expresses Steven Piermarini's feelings).
"It is with great pride that I also inform you that this film recently won first place in the Professional Arts division of the Alliance for Community Media-New England Video Festival. On November 6th, our band manager and I along with our wives, attended the awards ceremony at Cambridge's Brattle Theater where my brother Carl, the producer and director of the film, accepted the award.
This film marks an important milestone for our band. The band was founded by Italian immigrants whose music was their common bond as well as the gift they gave to their new community. Although we've never stopped performing this music throughout our 94 year history, the band has never been formally or professionally recorded. With this project, we have now created a permanent, accurate record of what our forefathers contributed to American culture, which preserves not only the music itself but the unique character of the performance.
Back in February, when this was recorded, the results were so successful we decided to have another recording sessions to create enough tracks to produce a full-length CD. For this session we utilized the entire band (about 8 more folks than are on the DVD) and recorded music from our concert repertoire. The CD, to be entitled "Number 17" will include most of the tracks from the DVD along with the additional tracks of the concert music. We expect this to be available sometime in the Spring.
I sincerely hope you enjoy this film. As I had mentioned to you last year, I had researched unsuccessfully for information about your grandfather for many years. The
fortuity of discovering you on the internet and the information you've provided has helped me and our band to understand that your grandfather was very much like our own grandfathers ~ a passionate, talented, hard-working immigrant who saw an opportunity and seized it, even using hand labor to do it. These were the people who made this country great, and whose efforts should be remembered and recognized for future generations. It is hoped that this film will do just that."
The meeting adjourned at 8:30 PM. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, April 27th at 6:30 pm to 8:55 pm at the Round Rock Library.