:: Angela Fungone D'Alessandro, 1933-2009 ::
We said goodbye in October 2009 to the parent and friend who gave us life, protected us in our youth, looked after us throughout our lives, introduced us to our cultural and culinary heritage, fed us sumptuous meals and spoiled us with yummy sweets, and gave us unconditional love and laughter for 76 wonderful years.
:: AJ ::
My pride and joy, no longer a boy, not yet a man, and oh my gosh, he's now a teenager!! :) Strong-willed, opinionated, competitive, funny, moody, occassionally contemplative, energetic and warm. A nice mix of two families, cultures and personalities...my son Andrew Jose - AJ.
:: Happy 1st! ::
The Fonfrias and Garcia clans gathered with family & friends to celebrate the first birthday of Linda & Alex's cutie-pie of a daughter, Nelinda.
:: Merry 2007 ::
A relaxed, quiet, holiday celebration with family this year...
:: Croton BBQ Picnic ::
Hailed as the most fun since Beatlemania hit Broadway in the late '70's, the Fonfrias family & friends Beatlesfest barbecue picnic party was successfully held under warm, sunny skies at Croton Point Park, at Croton-on-Hudson, Nuevo Jork. Interesting permutations of friends of friends meeting family and friends, all soothed by the harmonious croonings of Beatle Jumbi and his Beatlemaniacs.
:: Elliot's Baptism ::
A perfectly lovely day, and weekend, to bring family and friends together for the baptism of you master Elliot Delany D'Alessandro, not quite three year old progeny of Chris and Mark, at the handsome late 19th Century Episcopal church of St. Mark's, just across the street from one of the buildings of the Library of Congress, in Washington, DC.
:: Easter 2007 ::
Always an opportunity to celebrate the lovely Christian holiday along with Mom's birthday, this year found all three of us siblings, and our kids, assembled with our beloved matriarch to celebrate her...ummm, 54th birthday, was it...? ; )
:: Christmas 2006 ::
Our holidays in Staten Island & Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
:: Thanksgiving 2006 ::
Another year, another scare for the D'Alessandro family and our ailing matriarch, but she's still with us, and this Thanksgiving we truly had thanks to give for her resilience and strength. We also were able to celebrate the birthday of one of the new generations, young Steven, turning six this week, and were joined by our extended family - son number 4 - Dan Mason and his young family.
:: Reunion for Aunt Mary's funeral ::
Never mind weddings - almost all of us have had more than one ourselves - our family rarely gathers together from three corners of the country except for the traumatic event of the passing of a loved one. As a stimulus for family reunion, it's a very strong, compelling one, the need to comfort each other, and particularly those most directly affected by the loss.
Unexpectedly, we lost our sister-aunt-mother, Mary Fungone Williams, this August 4, 2006, and thus another extended Fungone family reunion was held. A sad event, yes, but there's still joy to be shared being among those with whom we share blood, genes and history.
To see my last photo of Mary, visit http://www.pbase.com/ambadale/image/33377380
:: Nifty 50 ::
With a positive attitude, no birthday has to feel like the pell-mell rush towards the bottom of the hill, and our cousin Doreen threw a birthday barbecue bash to vibrantly celebrate her half century gracing this green, brown & blue rock with her buoyant, ebullient joyfulness. We were very happy to join in the festivities on a lovely July Saturday afternoon.
"Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative."
-Maurice Chevalier
:: Memorial Day 2006 ::
Yardwork + barbecues + a father-son baseball catch = family reunion
on a suddenly warm holiday weekend, in Staten Island, NY
:: Easter 2006 ::
Mom's finally given in to her natural gray, and it looks good. We're all glad to be able to celebrate another birthday, and Easter, together, young,old, bald, gray or moptop.
:: 2006 Events & Environs ::
The year to date has been extremely busy - so much so that I hadn't even visited this website in over a month. Now, with only a short pause to reflect, I post some photos of our environs, our friends and some of the events we've been involved in. The first row of photos are of our new apartment atop one of DC's suburban metro stations - literally two minutes walk from door to station platform. So convenient.
:: Christmas 2005 ::
Like a marathon runner making it across the finish line, everyone made it reasonably happy, and almost all healthy to this Christmas of 2005. We have much to give thanks for.
:: Richmond Town & the Greenbelt ::
As a relief from all the food consumed during the Christmas holiday, we visited historic Richmond Town, Staten Island's first European settlement, established in 1661...! It was here that John Adams & Ben Franklin met and tried to negotiate with British officials before the beginning of hostilities between the 13 American colonies & the British Empire in 1775.
The Greenbelt is a sliver of wooded land remarkably set aside during the poltergeistic-building frenzy of the mid-1970's so that Staten Islanders would have a natural setting within which to breathe fresh air (difficult during the heyday of the world's largest landfill just a mile downwind at Fresh Kills...) and retract sharpened elbows from the daily battle with the Island's 450,000+ & the city's 8 million+ denizens. On this day, we enjoyed 2 hours of peaceful, scenic hiking on the Greenbelt's Red trail, which begins close to the Richmond Town sign you see us photographed next to.
:: 2005 4th of July ::
Sore muscles and happy memories were generously accumulated this weekend in Staten Island as we spent the holiday with family, doing yard work, firing up the barbecue grill almost daily, watching fireworks from the beach and visiting the Great Kills* unit of Gateway National Recreation
area, albeit without swimming because of an e-coli bacteria infestation in the waters off the island. Ahhh, some things haven't changed in 30 years!
*An explanation of the use of the word Kills here. Staten Island was originally colonized by the Dutch and thus many place names and geologic or hydrologic features reflect this early Dutch influence. Kills is a dutch word for river or creek, of which many can be found in and around Staten Island and greater NYC.
:: Mother's Day 2005 ::
A splendid family reunion in the lovley northern neck of the great Commonwealth of Virginia, home to George Washington and the Lee family. This weekend mixed celebration of Mark's 40th and Eliot's 1st birthdays with Mother's Day, with Mom and Suzy coming down from NYC to join us.
:: Christmas 2004 ::
While I was in the swing of things, I realized I hadn't posted any photos from Christmas 2004,
so apologies for the oversight and tardiness
.
:: Summer 2004 ::
By happy coincidence, we were able to assemble our small, but growing family this August for a mild summer afternoon barbecue. What also made the family reunion enjoyable was the visit of our close friends Dan and Mindy, with their lovely infant daughter Jennifer.
We also had a reunion of the Barone-Esposito family, during a special picnic to remember John Esposito and Frank Walter, brothers-in-law, who passed away within four months of each other in 2003, leaving many sad family and friends from New York and New Jersey down to Florida.
And the end of August brought more sad news, of the passing of my uncle, Mike Fungone, age 61, who had never failed to bring a laugh to anyone he met.
:: Mothers Day 2004 ::
We took Mom out for a visit to Staten Island's Botanical Garden, also known as Snug Harbor Cultural Center, the former home of retired seaman - Sailor's Snug Harbor it was formerly called. Mom had indicated an interest in seeing the Chinese Scholar's Garden that we had seen dedicated some years back but hadn't seen the finished product. Lovely weather guided us around the grounds, even as Mom expressed mystification that what she was seeing was a garden. Just another reminder of the differences in translation between East and West...
:: Mom's 70th Birthday April 2003 ::
We were able to all gather together in DC this year to celebrate Mom's 70th birthday, on the weekend after she hit the big 7-OH! Suzy and Mom drove down on Friday and the special treat she enjoyed was having all three kids and both grandsons together for two nights of dinner, fun, Uno and celebration. Oh, yeah, there was the uninvited guest at Mark and Christine's early Saturday morning, but he didn't nab any of the birthday cake, fortunately!
:: Mark & family ::
Days as lovely as this are a rarity to be fully enjoyed, especially on the first weekend in November in DC. We enjoyed the day at Mary McLeod Bethune Park in the Eastern Market section of DC. Tons of babies, tots, and expectant moms.
:: Miscellaneous Photos of us ::
Photos of our various meanderings around DC and the world
:: Wedding Party in DC ::
Actually, this was the third celebration of our union. We got married in a Christian ceremony at the Sendai Kokusai hotel, Sendai, Japan, then obtained a marriage license one month later from the Prince George's County courthouse, and finaly two months later we hosted this party for family and friends unable to attend the wedding in Japan. This party was hosted at our friend Leon Harris's home, in downtown Washington, DC.
:: Sendai Wedding ::
Satoko and I were married in a Christian ceremony in the northeastern Japanese city of Sendai, four hours drive north of Tokyo, and the Matsuoka family home for four hundred years. Our officiant, curiously enough, was an American minister who had lived in Sendai for the past 20 years and in Japan the past 25 years. The bride changes from traditional white dress into another dress after the ceremony, for the wedding reception.
:: Family Archives ::
These are photos of my immediate family, as well as aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents
from the D'Alessandro, Barone, Fungone & Mazzei families from whence my siblings and I descend.
All four families emigrated from southern Italy - Napoli, Altavilla Irpina, Spinazzolla & Cosenza,
respectively, in the 1900's-1910's, to New York, cross-pollinating in the then sleepy,
not-yet-poltergeisted hamlet of Staten Island during the 1940's & 1950's.
Last night my wife & I happened to watch The Godfather on Bravo and the music was the element that really captivated me. When I first saw this movie, I was 9 years old in 1972, on a family vacation, and my very conservative 2nd generation Italian-American parents, completely unaware of the subject matter of the film, thought this an excellent film for the family to watch... Yet, looking back, and feeling the loss of grandparents, great aunts and uncles, the diaspora across America of my first and second cousins, lost in the melting pot, the score for the Godfather reminds me of a time of my own innocence, of a time when large family gatherings were the norm, when every Sunday evening meant hour long haircuts by my 85 year old grandfather and delicious Italian meals cooked by my 70 year old great aunt. It took a long time to accept the loss of family as one by one that generation died off in the 1970's, to realize that life was not going to be a cocoon of large, warm, loving family relations. Yet, way back in 1972, this magnificent, mournful music presaged that tragic realization that life in America was no longer going to be so cozy for those who choose complete assimilation into the melting pot. The fictional Corleone family were Sicilian; my own were Neapolitan & Barese, but for anyone of southern Italian heritage, whether on the mainland or Sicily there is a chill of genetic resonance and recognition when you hear Rota's haunting mix of Neapolitan & Sicilian sounds and rhythms. It's the motherland calling, the soul yearning, ignorant of the original grievances that caused the rift that sent whole communities and solo immigrants to the shore of a new world that was often no warmer a welcome mat than the hidebound, superstitious and vendetta-plagued hilltop farming communities they sought to escape from. Tears of what...joy? or tears of sorrow demand to be exuded from my being when I hear this film score, crying for a warm, fuzzy fantasy of youth, yes, but one that did indeed contain the seeds of my being, and the cocoon of loving family that sheltered me in my growing years. Let me call these tears of joy and appreciation for Francis Ford Coppola and Nino Rota for awakening in me the dormant love of an ancient homeland with many faults, but big enough to give birth to those who gave life to me.