Abruzzo News: 15 October 2000

In Villagrande, Tornimparte, on the occasion of the annual Fair, association "Fonte vecchia" reconstructed a true charcoal making heap (a carbonaia) which will be "farmed" by coalmaker Vincenzo Fusari. Polenta and roasted bacon for the visitors.

Ersilia Nepa, 71, has not seen her brother again for 48 years. She asked help from Raffaella Carrà, the popular showgirl whose program "Carramba che fortuna", aims at helping people fulfilling these dreams. Cesare Nepa must be 69, and for some years continued writing, then his letters stopped.

Giovanni Stante and Filomena Larghetti got married on 15 october 1930. They lived through hardship and sacrifice, the destruction of WW2, when they lost everything, then Giovanni also emigrated to Argentina for some years. Three daughters, Consiglia 61, Melania 58 and Rosaria 44, 11 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren will join them for the party.

"Sugli Appennini verso la libertà" by Martin Schou, tells of his escape from a German camp near Padua, his arrival in Villalago where, hungry and with pneumonia, he thought he was going to die there. Then 15-year-old Michele Gatta entered the hut where he had found shelter and said he had to follow him to his home, where the boy's mother and sister kept him for two weeks "mia madre e mia sorella insistono che vieni a casa con me, altrimenti qui muori". Schou has been here already five times, to find all the people who helped him. His hope now is finding the three sisters Lydia, Ginetta and Teresa De Laurentis, who kept him in hiding for two days. Revenues from the book will be donated to the San Martin Fund gruppo 78, an association of former war prisoners in Sulmona.