Finding Keys To My Past

My Grandma Lorenza's house keys hang in my home on a door I have distressed, antiqued, and 'altered' with art...it rests in a corner near our table in our kitchen-dining area.

My memories of Grandma Lorenza (Lombardo) Mamola are vague...but I am thankful for the ones I have. I was around age four when she passed away. I remember it was a cold and rainy night on the day of her funeral. My siblings, cousins and I all stayed at our home. It was so cold that the older cousins made fudge candy and set it out on our front porch to cool and harden rather than the refrigerator. And this was southern California!

My most vivid memories of Grandma Lorenza are two things:

1. Her height - or lack of it... she stood 4' 9".

2. I can still see her attaching a hand-crank meat grinder to our pull-out bread board in the kitchen and grinding beef to make her meatballs for the pasta dinner we would have that night.

Grandma was born in Palermo, Sicily. She came to America by way of Ellis Island, N.Y., arriving on the ship named Verona...
on July 29, 1913 at age 30.