f a book were written about Love Stories from Val di Fiemme, the lives of Maria (Pallaver) and Arcangelo

Croce, my material grandparents (Nonna and Nonno) would be prominently represented. Theirs is a a love story for the ages. At a young age, Nonnas parents arranged for her future marriage ot the son of a middle class couple in Castelfondo (Val di Non). What custom and the two families did not anticipate, however, was that Nonna had a mind of her own. When she became of age she met Arcangelo, a hardworking stonemason from Predazzo in the Val di Fiemme. Family legend has it that, while owkring in Castelfondo, Arcangelo secretly watched Maria as she washed clothes in the town square. He obviously liked what he saw, and one thing led to another. Love is rarely bound by contracts made for someone by others. Thus it was with Maria. One the eve of her arranged marraige, she and Arcangelo eloped in 1914 across the Alps to Stengen, Austria, where they were married in St. Martins Catholic Church. They settled in the Alpine beauty of Predazzo. When World War I began, Arcangelo was inducted into the army of Austria-Hungary and went off to war, attaining the rank of colonel. He and Maria were separated for the duration of the war, a test of their young love. Arcangelo and his unit, forced to surrender to the Russians, spent time on a prison farm in Ukraine as a forced laborer on a family farm until the war ended in 1918. Upon his return to Predazzo, he and Maria resumed their lives together, and had three children including my Uncle Eugenio, Aunt Pia (Buffone), and my mother Clementine (Flaim). Severe economic conditions and no work forced Arcangelo to leave his Alpine village and his family for the United States, where he found work in the coal mines near Hazleton, Pa. In 1928, Maria and her three young children boarded the S.S. Saturnia for the long trip to join Nonno in the United States. They settled in Fern Glen, a small village near Hazleton, where trhey lived the rest of their lives. Their fourth child, my Uncle Albert, was born in the United States.

Family Stories: I Nonni Croce

a television in 1964., the year of the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, close to the town in which they were married. Via the miracle of television, their lives seemed to have come full circle. Shortly after their 50th Anniversary that year, Nonna suffered a stroke and she passed away at age 80 in September. Holding his arm as we both said our final goodbyes over her grave, Nonno looked at the casket with tears streaming down his cheeks and said (in Tyrolean) Goodbye Maria. I will be with you by Christmas. That evening he spoke of their lives together: their meeting, the challenges they faced, their love for one another and theri family, and the Old Country, Val di Fiemme, which they never fully left behind. Over the next several months, Nonnos health declined as life without his lifelong love must have seemed without meaning to him. His vow to Maria to be with her by Christmas nearly became a reality, as he rapidly declined, taking his final breath on December 29, 1964, at age 83. Yes, the love story of Maria and Arcangelo Croce is truly a love story for the ages.

Nonna and Nonno were devoted to one another and shared a love that was palpable and obvious to anyone who knew them. Their family was the center of their very simple lives. They never owned or drove an automobileor flew in an airplane, nor did they have an indoor Written by their grandson, Richard Flaim bathroom until I was a teenager. They were gifted with 15