Entry 30: Moschilla Descendants

Location: Calabria, Italy

Date: 1950’s

Salvatore Moschilla and Concetta Trimboli’s eight children grew up surrounded by grandparents, aunties, uncles and a massive number of cousins, all living within walking distance or a donkey ride from each other. If lines are drawn on a map connecting the three towns of Siderno Superiore, Siderno Marina and Locri, the area within this triangle and the nearby outskirts is basically where the majority of the extended families lived.

The pictorial diagram below focuses on Andrea Moschilla and Cecilia Pedulla's branch of the family tree including the descendants of their children Maria, Salvatore, Domenico and Francesco. Unfortunately, no group photo exists of Giuseppe's family.

To get a sense of the extended family, the best approach is to allow those in the photographs to speak for themselves in their own dialect:

Ieramu na famigghia randi. (We are a very large family.)
Ieramu vicini di casa e criscimma assemi. (We lived near each other and grew up together.)
Pa mmia, iera comu natta soru. (To me, she was like another sister.)
Ieramu nta stessa classi a scola. (We were in the same class at school.)
Iera comu nu patri pa mmia. (He was like a father to me.)