Home | Valente and DiRenzo Family History - Family Photographs
From the viewer's left to right: Giovanni Valente, his sister Maria Vittoria Valente (b. 1896), and his wife Nunziata DiRenzo. August or September 1967.
Because Giovanni Valente left Gambatesa in 1911, the last time he could have seen his sister before his first return visit to Gambatesa in 1960 was when she was 15 years old. Maria Vittoria VALENTE was married to Giovanni Salvatore LEONARDI (b. 1891); both were alive in August 1971 (see photograph below), but they are now dead.
The house of Maria Vittoria VALENTE was on the second floor of a village block and consisted of a large single room. As shown on the table in the above photograph, in Gambatesa they often drank their wine "cut" with water, like the ancient Greeks; a glass of wine given to a child might be diluted half and half with soda.
Maria Vittoria Valente and her husband Giovanni Leonardi were standing at the top of the steps to their house in Gambatesa with Nunziata DiRenzo (center), in August 1971. Giovanni Leonardi was eighty years old and said that he was surprised to meet an American who did not smoke. (There is also a photograph of Giovanni Leonardi from August-September 1967.)
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