Roots in the Boot

This blog post is a little departure from food and gardening but I wanted to give you all a little background. Vazzano, Italy is our family's ancestral home. It is a small rural agricultural village of about 1,100 in Calabria, the southernmost region of Italy, the "toe" of the boot. The town dates back to the Roman Empire when it was called Subsicium. My great grandfather, Bruno Fuscà, came over in 1895 with his brother and two friends. He worked on the Pennsylvania railroad doing grunt labor for the next three years and saved his money. In 1898 he sent for the rest of the family - my great grandmother Marianna Nicolina DePalma,and my grandfather Domenico Antonio and his two brothers,Giuseppe and Francesco. They settled in Pittsburgh where Bruno bought a building which he converted into a combination grocery store and home. The store was on the ground floor and the family lived upstairs. At some point early on, due to an error in some important paperwork, our last name was mistranscribed from from Fuscà to Fusia. They decided to keep the new American name.

 

Vazzano, Italy

Panoramic video of the olive tree filled countryside around Vazzano

Out on a walk around Vazzano by Micuccio Caloiero

Just in case, some day, someone might want to visit Vazzano by flying to Naples and driving to Vazzano, here is a link to the directions - 
                                           

Driving Directions from Naples to Vazzano