Nancy Catherine D'Anna

NancyDAnna

• General Notes
  • Alabamy Bound
    Added by Nancy on 2 May 2007
    When I was eight years old in 1955, we moved from California to Huntsville, Alabama. I think my Mom, Cathy, found out that her mother had some type of cancer and she wanted to be close to her. My dad, Babe, was in between jobs so they decided that my Mom would take the four of us kids—Phyllis 10, Cynthia 2, and infant Carlo—on the train to Alabama while my Dad would prepare the house to sell, pack things up and drive the car with our family dog, Captain, to Alabama later. The trip was actually fun. Cynthia and Carlo were little angels which was a relief to Phyllis and I since it was our charge to help out with the little ones. I remember fellow passengers helping my Mom out as well many times and Phyllis and I had many Gin Rummy tournaments scheduled with other people throughout the trip.
    
    Well, my grandmother’s cancer eventually disappeared but we stayed in Alabama for five years. Michael was born there in 1956. Being in the south during that volatile time was certainly an experience for us all. We were quite sheltered since our parents enrolled us in St. Mary’s, the Catholic School that my Mom went to as a child. St. Mary’s had many southern local children but it also drew children from the Redstone Arsenal who, of course, came from all over the states—so there was at least one other Italian name in my class, Spinelli—but that was it. We learned from the children in the neighborhoods that I-talians were mostly called by other not so nice names there—and to be Catholic and I-talian was even worse. But we quickly collected another nickname when we moved to a quiet little Magnolia-lined street with cute little 1920’s and 30’s well kept homes. There was only one Catholic Church at the time in the downtown area. But there was a wonderful black Mission at the end of our street and across a field that was actually walking distance. My Dad had met the pastor there and became friends with old Fr. Messina, who came for Italian dinners at our house several times telling us stories with a thick Italian accent of his home in Italy. Most Sundays, we would all get dressed up for Sunday Mass and the seven of us would walk down the street and through the field and attend a wonderful, lively, music-filled Mass at the Mission. Then we would walk back and have our long-awaited-for Sunday breakfast with my Mom’s buttermilk biscuits, salt-cured ham, and eggs. Before long we noticed quite a few people hanging out on their porches in their swings and rocking chairs watching us as we walked by on Sundays. It was soon after that the other children gave us our nickname of “N-Lovers”. I remember even at ten years old, I wore that name proudly and I would respond to them…”Yea, so what?”
    
    We were starved for all things Italian and missed the D’Anna’s terribly. Food at my grandmother’s was different derivations of ham-hocks, creamed corn, hominy or grits, country-fried steak, okra, black-eyed peas, butter beans and white gravy over biscuits or cornbread. The Piggly-Wiggly had never heard of ricotta cheese, eggplant, swiss chard, artichokes, cardoni, and zucchini and only carried Golden Grain spaghetti. They had heard of “Pizza Pie” from Dean Martin’s song that made it famous, but you wouldn’t find it south of New Jersey. Nannie and Uncle Mel came to the rescue. Once a year around Christmas time, we would get this huge shipping barrel, freighted by train, of Italian goods that I think all the Aunts and Uncles contributed to—we called it our CARE package. Parmesan, Romano cheeses, sticks of salami, prosciutto and other dried meats, imported tomatoes and dried pastas in different shapes (I almost cried when I got my favorite Farfalle-shaped pasta), fresh-dried oregano for our pizzas, sardines and anchovies (for my Dad), a cheese grater, red peppers and capanata in jars and many other delicacies that only my Mom and Dad could appreciate. One year, low and behold, we pulled out a ravioli rolling pen! Now we were in business! That began our tradition of the family ravioli making marathons. My Dad made sure that we all participated—probably even toddler Michael was rolling dough balls around the table (a premonition of things to come). What a feast we had with our first mouth-watering, meat-filled, tender ravioli, tomato sauce from imported tomatoes, with freshly-grated Italian cheeses. Yummm! I can taste them in my mind now—they were better than any ravioli I have ever had to this day (although Michael has come very close to duplicating it, something gets lost in mass production—plus like I said, we were starved!)
    
    Then there were Nannie’s visits—Nannie and Charmaine came to visit us a couple of times while we were there. We couldn’t wait for them to arrive. She arrived with all kinds of cookies and Italian treats for us to enjoy and, of course, she was the designated cook! Chicken Cacciatore, eggplant Parmesan, breaded veal cutlets, foccacia, pizza—we were in heaven. Nannie was always a good sport about being in Alabama. We were living in this old 1900’s house on one of her visits. It had holes in the floors and the walls and it had a huge furnace standing in the middle of the dining room that was fed coal from the basement. It was always too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. Air conditioning consisted of this huge window fan that filled the top half of a 12 ft. skinny window in the kitchen. When turned on the whole house shook and it felt like we were going to take off into the wild blue yonder. The weather in the summer was hot, sticky and brought out all sorts of strange insects and bugs. Nannie coped with all of it like a trooper—except one night she got up to get a glass of water and we were all starkly awakened to hear Nannie’s blood-curdling shrieking in the kitchen with crashes and bangs and thumps that made us all run to the kitchen. We thought she had accidentally interrupted an intruder. Well, in a way, she had. What we saw was Nannie standing on the table still screaming, with our large kitchen trash can turned upside down and our heavy cast-iron skillet on top of the trash can. My Dad went to the trash can and checked under it and there were two of the biggest cockroaches I had ever seen—about the size of my fist. Nannie said she started with the trash can and when the trash can started to move she found the skillet. I remember my Dad had no trouble inviting the cockroaches outside—they seemed to be frozen in place for a few seconds and then quickly headed for the nearest exit—I think Nannie surprised them as much as they surprised her.
    
    When it was time to return home, it was actually hard for me. I made wonderful friends there (one I am still in contact with today) and this made it hard for a twelve-year old to leave. We packed everything we could on top of an open trailer which we hauled with our 1955 Dodge station wagon. We piled in the car with our dog, Captain, and started our trek back to California with the Virgin Mary on our dashboard. She must have performed miracles for us on the way back because there is no other answer as to how we made it safely back with the load we were pulling. (I will post a photo.) People would stare in awe as they passed us on the highways. I mean if it had a rocking chair on top, it would have rivaled the Beverly Hillbillies load. And there were a few times my Dad commanded us to all take out our rosaries and pray as we were trying to get the car to the top and through treacherous mountain passes. Our arrival to California was a momentous homecoming. The hill was right off of Monterey Highway which I believe was also Highway 101 at the time—I remember one of the relatives, I think it was Uncle George—was on the lookout for us (he couldn’t miss us) and in Morgan Hill (the little town before San Jose) we had to stop for gas and suddenly there he was leaning into the car window ready to escort us up the hill where most of the family was waiting to celebrate our arrival!
    
    All of us learned a lot during our trip to Alabama and we did get to get to know and learn to love my   mother’s side of the family. I know it shaped our lives in a lot of ways so I never regretted our stay there. But we did miss a lot of growing-up time with the cousins and when we returned most of our cousins were grown up or in those awkward teen years (myself included) so it felt like I could never quite recapture the closeness I felt with a lot of them before our departure. But we did rekindle our family ties and the Sunday dinners, holidays, showers, weddings, births, baptisms, etc., were always a cause for a celebration of family—a D’Anna/Dana tradition that will no doubt carry on throughout the generations with our own families.