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| Philip Corrigan and his sons |
Ambruso cousin,
Philip Corrigan, is in the U.S. Military and stationed in Italy. He and his wife and three young sons live in
Naples. They have been there for about a
year, and now that the pandemic has subsided somewhat in Italy, they decided to
take a family road trip to Matera, with a stop in Salandra along the way. Salandra is the ancestral home of four
branches of the Ambruso family that came to America.
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| Salandra, Matera, Basilicata, Italy |
Philip's grandfather
was Rocco Bonelli, who was the son of Maria Ambruso and Pasquale
"Patsy" Bonelli from Garfield, NJ.
Maria was the oldest child of Rocco Ambruso and Pasquarosa Corrado. She married Pasquale in Salandra and was the
first of her family to come to America with Pasquale.
He sent me the
pictures I have included with this post.
I'll let him describe the experience in his own words:
"The town is a
hill town and the hills are all sand colored at this time of year since all of
the grass is burnt out. It almost reminds me of Texas. My kids thought it
looked like a desert. The road to get up to the town was an adventure - classic
windy Italian road with room for 1.5 cars. We only stayed in
the town a few minutes - had time to grab a frozen lemonade and take some
pictures. I think the American family in the big car walking around
during riposo was quite the novelty for some of the locals."
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| Church of St. Rocco |
Philip also sent a
photo of the World War 1 memorial plaque showing the names of the local
war dead. No "Ambruso", but
one "Bonelli".
It is interesting to think that one family from this sleepy little Italian mountain village has multiplied into hundreds of descendants, from all walks of life, here in America.
