I wasn’t familiar with the story, but some comments I had heard led me to believe that there was an interesting backdrop to the meeting of my zio John and zia Catina, and my father had something to do with it. Over lunch dad recounted the story in Italian since all of our conversations now seem to take place in the mother tongue.
My zio John had left Italy for Canada after completing his mandatory military service. Opportunities were next to non-existent in post war Italy. While in Canada my zio met a woman named Maria (Aldo's high school sweetheart) who had moved there from Piano D’Arta. Maria spoke of a sister she had back in Italy and in the strange way that life sometimes works my zio was soon exchanging letters with Caterina.
In letters to my father, zio mentioned Caterina in great detail, which my father interpreted (wrongly) as an invitation to find out more about her. So my father boarded a bus, first to Udine, and then to Piano D’Arta to get the scoop (so to speak) on Catina as she was and is still known. First stop: the town’s church. After all, the priest knew everything about everyone. The priest had many nice things to say about Catina and before my dad knew it, the priest had summoned her to the church via another young man. However, the priest misunderstood and assumed that my father was the suitor which provided quite a shock to Catina when she arrived at the church.
The confusion was quickly cleared up, my dad reported his “findings” to my uncle (who claimed he never asked for such an investigation) and the following year zio John and zia Catina were married in Piano D’Arta.
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