Our Family
Francesco Crinella
Anna Crinella
Domenico Zurlo
Teresa Zurlo
Marino Crinella
Marian Zurlo Crinella
Uncle Domenic
Uncle Lou
Aunt Marguerite
Cousin Marina
Family Photos
The Letters
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About the Crinellas •
Our Family •
Photo Album •
The Letters
Nona (Anna) Crinella
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Anna Azzeri "Nona" Crinella was born on August 31, 1863 in Monterosso and
lived in Sassoferrato until 1908, when she left for the United States. As a girl she
looked after the family sheep in the mountains, a lonely job that made her a keen
observer of her surroundings. These long hours in the pastures made her uniquely
self contained, a strength she would need to make the journey to America with two
small children. Her husband Francesco (and two older sons, Domenico and Luigi),
had preceded her by two years, and were already working as miners in Virginia,
Minnesota. Anna, Marino and Annetta contracted smallpox on board ship, and were
quarantined at Ellis Island in New York. All three contracted pneumonia during their
confinement, and Annetta died at Ellis Island. Anna and Marino were somehow
transferred to Columbia Hospital, where they eventually recovered after several
months in the hospital. Anna and Marino stayed in New York for another year, while
Anna worked as a domestic, to earn money to pay for the funeral and hospital
expenses and secure their passage to Minnesota, where they finally arrived in
1909.
Nona Crinella remained fiercely provincial throughout the rest of her life,
speaking only an Italian dialect and having little interaction with the larger
community. She claimed not to understand English at all, although most of us
suspected that she understood almost everything that was being said in English.
She was a tall (about 5'9"), imposing woman, who stood above most of the Italian
women, but was one of the gentlest, a jovial persons we have ever encountered.
Every family crises would evoke a rich chuckle from her, putting the whole matter in
perspective, she had certainly seen worse in her lifetime and she was amused rather
than judgemental about the human condition. She was the least-educated of our
grandparents, and did not read or write as was commonplace for most Italians at
that time but she was capable of characterizing each event in the life of our family
with a biblical proverb (e.g., "the tongue is the enemy of the neck;" "you might as
well be hung for [stealing] a sheep as a lamb" or "the clay is trying to form the
potter" or "as a dog returns to its own vomit, so a fool returns to his own folly." Our
mother, Marian, fondly remembered her at one of Aunt Fanny's huge parties, having a
Martini and a cigarette, and silently enjoying all the commotion around her when she
was well past ninety. She died on July 29, 1954 still wearing her plain gold wedding
ring which Frank Crinella had placed on her finger almost seventy years before.
In Minnesota, the Crinella men built a large one-room berm house of used
railroad ties, with a sod roof. In order to earn some extra money, Anna took in
boarders--miners, usually Italians or Finns--with hearty appetites. Meals with fresh
ingredients were cooked each evening, and a basic element of many of those dishes
(e.g., risotto, minestrone, polenta) was chicken or veal stock. A stockpot was
always on the stove, simmering a broth that was ready for the evening's meal. All
bits of meat, vegetables and spices were added to the pot--nothing was wasted.
Naturally, with Nona Crinella's basic recipe, having too much or too little of any of
these ingredients will not detract much from the stock, so use what you have
available.
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