Italians find fellowship in Cheyenne Group allows those with ties to motherland to build friendships By The Associated Press
CHEYENNE - "Wanted: Competitive bocce ball players, wine connoisseurs, a desire to make the community of Cheyenne a better place, must love to cook or eat Italian food and have a love for all things Italian."
That could be the slogan for the Sons of Italy Mia Maria Chapter 2813 of Cheyenne.
The Cheyenne chapter started a year ago and is seeking members.
Its members hope someday to have an Italian festival on the order of the Saints Constantine and Helen Eastern Orthodox Church's Greek Festival, so the chapter held its first public bocce ball tournament Saturday in Lions Park.
Chapter members have participated in community events such as Race for the Cure, a fundraising garage sale.
Jim Rauzi, president of the organization and owner of Poor Richard's, holds the group's meetings at his restaurant.
His son, Marc Rauzi, is one of the reasons that the Sons of Italy Cheyenne chapter exists. Rauzi was invited to a Sons of Italy meeting in Denver, where he sat around with a bunch of old guys telling stories about Italy.
Marc said he has always been interested in his heritage.
"It's human nature to want to know where you've come from," he said. "It's more interesting when you find out about it."
He said a couple of the men told him about how they immigrated to the U.S. and how they worked in the fields and the mines in the U.S.
"It reminded me of a story about my grandpa who worked in the fields and the mines," Marc said.
Jim's father, Oreste Rauzi, came to the U.S. in 1922 from an area around Bolzano, Italy.
"Originally he went to Pennsylvania then to southern Colorado and eventually to Denver," Jim said. "My mother was born in the United States, but her mother, father and brother came over in 1906 from Castellamonte, Italy."
Jim has cousins who are apple farmers in the Bolzano area and another cousin in Florence.
Jim likes to go to Italy to see the places where his parents lived and went to school and church. He also goes to the cemetery where his grandparents and their parents are buried.
"It just brings you back to the history of the family," Jim said. "I've traced my family in Cloze, to 1460. It's much more interesting to me than my cousins. They live with it every day. The cemetery is right down the road."
Dennis DiCampli and his wife, Ellen, were at a recent Sons of Italy picnic at the Murray home. Italian music played in the background and members sampled Italian wines and courses of Italian food.
Dennis said he's in the Sons of Italy group to share the members' common heritage and to keep the Italian recipes and the experiences of going to Italy alive.
"My grandparents emigrated from Italy in the 1920s - all four of them, maternal and paternal," he said.
Dennis said his maternal side of the family came from Sicily and settled in New York City.
His family's paternal side is from Abruzzo, Italy, settling in Philadelphia. They didn't speak English very well all of their years in the U.S., so he grew up in a bilingual household, where English and Italian were spoken.
His mother's family worked as dressmakers and tailors in New York City, sewing wedding and evening gowns, and custom tailoring men's suits.
His father's family worked in trades as railroaders for the B&O Railroad and as welders.
"They had to have sponsorship and a trade," Dennis said. "They couldn't just show up and say, 'I'll do whatever you want me to do.' "
Dennis' family lived in Brooklyn, and their traditions revolved around food.
"On Sunday morning we made sauce before mass and let it slowly cook," he said.
Everything was homemade, including the meatballs.
"We'd have an early supper at 2 p.m.," he said.
He said as a child his first job was to skim the oil off the top of the tomato sauce.
Sunday's meal had several courses that included baked chicken; browned flank steak stuffed with cheese, parsley and garlic; a salad; loaves of bread; noodles that were sometimes homemade that went with the sauce; and seasonal fruit for dessert, like watermelon. Then there were the beverages - black coffee, demitasse, or ice coffee with milk and sugar in the summer or brewed Italian ground coffee.
The real dessert would either be a spumoni ice cream treat or Italian pastries, like canolis, eclairs and cream puffs, he said.
"Pretty much by then you're wasted, and you either took a walk or you fell asleep in a chair," he said. "It's like a Thanksgiving meal."
Dennis still follows that tradition every Sunday.
Sons of Italy members talk about recipes.
"What their grandmother used to cook," Dennis said.
He said he's also in Sons of Italy for the camaraderie.
"The Italian population is kind of small in town," Dennis said about Cheyenne. "I know most of the Greeks in town because I cook at the Greek Festival."
He said the Sons of Italy talk about their grandparents' habits, brought with them from the old country.
"They worked in factories and foundries," he said. "They worked in harsh conditions."
Dennis also played bocce ball as a child with wooden balls, but he had forgotten the rules until he was reintroduced to the game through the club.
The game is similar to croquet and shuffleboard.
"They get pretty heated about it," Dennis said. "Some guys get out a measuring device ... and say, 'My ball is an inch away. You have three quarters.' "
One member of Sons of Italy of Cheyenne is in his 70s and plays bocce.
"There's a certain amount of finesse. Some people roll the ball, some lob it up in the air in an arc to get more accuracy," Dennis said.
Dennis is in the military and will be deployed to the Middle East soon.
"I'm hoping to land in Italy because I want to talk Italian with the locals," he said.
Bruce and Diane Twine spent four years in Naples, Italy, when Bruce was enlisted in the military. Neither of them is Italian, but they're still local members of Sons of Italy.
They, too, have visited Italy with the Rauzis.
Jeff and Nola Thompson aren't Italian.
"We joined Sons of Italy for the fun of it, but since we've been involved, we got involved in the scholarship fund and the bocce tournament," Nola said.
These are things, she said, she wouldn't have normally gotten involved in.
"The group has helped me live outside of my little box," Nola said. "It has been interesting and exhilarating."
Jeff said the food is great. The club lends itself to meeting people that the couple normally wouldn't meet.
"The history of Italy is incredible, and in the group you get to learn more about the Italian heritage," Jeff said. "I want to take Nola to Italy."
Jeff added: "Oh yeah, everyone shares their recipes."
Copyright © 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Published on Wednesday, September 27, 2006.
Last modified on 9/27/2006 at 12:14 am
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
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Me too!
wrote on
September 27, 2006 6:00 AM
I wish Billings had one. I'd join! Some of the stories could easily have been of my family. Grazie tanto.
 
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