Last night I dreamed I was in Sicily again. In my sleep I could smell the oranges ripening on the trees; see the snug little villages in the dips between the mountains; hear the neighbors calling to each other from their windows, the familiar cadence like a song from my youth.
It was just a year ago this month that I ventured across the Atlantic to visit the home of my Sicilian ancestors. It is warm in Sicily in October, warm enough to see beach goers in the waters off Punta Secca down south as well as Cefalù in the north. The street vendors in Palermo are still selling lace parasols to tourists in October, not to keep dry from the rain, but to block the unrelenting sun.
It is said that a man named Frank Barone wrote to folks in his hometown of Valledolmo, Sicily in the 1880s, encouraging them to join him in Buffalo, New York. Over the years, some eight thousand Valledolmesi reportedly followed his lead and many settled on the West Side where they owned grocery stores or worked in factories along the waterfront, and went to church at St. Anthony’s where priests conducted mass in the Sicilian dialect.
Many thousands from other small towns in Sicily—Montemaggiore Belsito, Serradifalco, and Villalunga to name a few—made their way down the mountains to the port cities of Palermo and Catania, and eventually found their way to Western New York as well.
Some Sicilian immigrants traveled south of Buffalo, to Fredonia, Dunkirk and the small towns and farmland along the Lake Erie shore that probably reminded them more of home. Sicilian families that did settle in crowded Buffalo neighborhoods would often travel to these towns and villages in the summer, to pick fruits and vegetables alongside relatives with a plot of land in places like North Collins and Silver Creek.
What a shock it must have been for my great-grandparents, along with thousands of others who fled Sicily, to experience their first October in Buffalo. Only a few tenacious oaks are typically holding their leaves at the end of October, and I remember more than one Halloween when I wore a winter coat and rubber boots beneath my costume.
For those who are descendants of these brave Sicilian immigrants and have never had the good fortune to visit Sicily, I offer you these photos for a taste of what your ancestors left behind—a place with few jobs and opportunities, but also a place of great natural beauty and charm.
For those who have visited, I hope you will join me in dreaming of a future time when we can celebrate our heritage in sunny Sicily once again.
Do you have ancestors in Sicily? Where are they from? I would love to hear your stories, especially if you have visited or want to visit soon.
Moxie Gardiner is a writer and gardener who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates and practices yoga. She is almost ready to publish her first novel, set in Buffalo.