Rabbity Goodness

A Christmas Story in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies.

A St. Paddy's History

Found this interesting article after the fact:

READING ROOM: St. Patrick’s Day

Authentic Irish "Shamrocks"

Or are they? Heck, we had clover all over our old lawn. I like clover!

Selling "Shamrocks" a Seedy Business

A Holiday of Home (and Homecoming) and Hospitality

St. Joseph’s Day fast approaches!

St. Joseph’s Day, on March 19, honors the foster father of Jesus. As the St. Joseph's Day Home Page explains, this is a large, popular holiday in Italy, especially in Sicily, but it is also celebrated here in the United States in Italo-American neighborhoods with parades and other festivals. New Orleans has a St. Joseph’s Day parade almost concurrently with their St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Some neighborhoods in New York City hold elaborate St. Joseph's Day get-togethers.

This Hallmark site explains a little more about St. Joseph’s Day.

Most of the articles mention as part of the celebration something called a St. Joseph’s Table, a tiered arrangement holding breads and other special items, especially used in Italy. I must confess that I’ve never seen one of these beautiful arrangements. The church I went to as a child, St. Mary’s, was the old-fashioned Italian church (as opposed to St. Ann’s, next door, the “Irish church”) and may have had these when I was very small; they followed the old ways until well into the 1960s. But after Vatican II and the English Mass rather than the Latin, these old customs were done away with, except for the Procession at the annual feast in July. I remember that St. Mary’s used to do a wonderful grotto-type nativity arrangement when I was very small, similar to the putz scenes used in German communities at Christmastime, with a mountain with various figures coming and going, miniature trees (as on model railroads), other flora and fauna, and the Holy Family in the center in a shallow cave, with shepherds and other figures around them. It’s possible they also had a St. Joseph’s Table back then. I think it’s sad that these old customs have been allowed to fade, since it is part of my heritage.

St. Patrick’s celebrations are usually thick with liquor; the Italian tradition for St. Joseph’s Day is to eat…”Mangia, mangia!” is the mantra of the day. Bread, fava beans, and frittate all have a place in the menu, but the food that most Rhode Islanders know best for St. Joseph’s Day is the zeppole. There are several different versions of zeppole, including a fried version a little like round doughboys (fried dough, elephant ears, whatever else they’re called around the country), but the most well-known version is pictured here on RI Roads St. Joseph’s Day page. This traditional zeppole has a cream-puff type shell filled with thick, flavorful yellow cream and topped with a ring of white cream with a maraschino cherry for trim. In the past the shell was fried, but now many of the bakeries bake them instead, to save a bit on the calories (although the cream is decadent enough!).

You can see by this recipe that they are extremely work-intensive, but the bakeries in Rhode Island (and I’m sure in NYC) turn them out by the thousands at this time of year. (In fact several RI bakeries now make them year-round because of customer demand). I noticed that the Providence Journal has an article this year telling people the best places to go for zeppole.

Italiansrus.com contains some links to other recipes for St. Joseph’s Day.

Another St. Joseph’s Day event is the annual return of the swallows to San Juan Capistrano Mission in California. These little birds make an amazing 15,000 mile round-trip migration every year, arriving at San Juan Capistrano on or around March 19.

(If you're in the Atlanta area, I believe the 48th Street Market in Dunwoody—off Mount Vernon Road—has zeppoles for St. Joseph’s Day; this is also a wonderful Italian deli which serves some other Italian pastries like sfogliatelles. Unfortunately they're not baked there, so you miss the authentic taste of an Italian bakery, but it's good for a sample at least.)

"Dust Thou Art..."

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Season of Lent. It is a season of penance, reflection, and fasting which prepares us for Christ's Resurrection on Easter Sunday, through which we attain redemption...[t]he ashes are made from the blessed palms used in the Palm Sunday celebration of the previous year. The ashes are christened with Holy Water and are scented by exposure to incense....[Catholic Online]

During Mass on Ash Wednesday, each attendee comes forward and is marked on the forehead by ashes from the priest's thumb, drawn in a cross, while the priest says "Remember, Man is dust, and unto dust you shall return."

The color for this liturgical season is purple, except on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, when the color is black to signify Jesus' death. On Easter Sunday the color becomes white, to symbolize His resurrection.

Some other links:

Catholic Encyclopedia: Ash Wednesday

BBC Religion & Ethics, Ash Wednesday

Ken Collins: Why Ashes on Ash Wednesday?

Ken also addresses the term "fasting." When I mentioned we used to "fast" on Fridays and often people "fasted" completely during Lent, many people interpreted that as not eating at all. Ken explains "Today the word 'fasting' means a total abstention from all food. In the historic Church, it means a disciplined diet so that your animal appetites become a sort of spiritual snooze alarm." We did not eat meat or other rich foods on Friday all year round before Vatican II, and during Lent you were supposed to observe this every day. After Vatican II, the requirement to eat only fish on Friday was lifted, except during Lent. Small children and the elderly were exempt from this requirement.

It is little known today, but there used to be other 40 day periods like Lent on the liturgical calendar. Advent, for instance, originally was a 40-day period, and fasting was observed, although not as strictly as during Lent.

The other tradition, of course, was "giving up something for Lent." Most Catholic schoolchildren remember giving up candy (or a favorite candy) or snacks for Lent; some gave up television altogether or at certain times, or eschewed comic books or something else they enjoyed. Some kids cheated and "gave up" foods they hated. I tried, but my mother said I was not allowed to give up spinach for Lent! :-)

When neighborhoods had churches in walking distance from their parishoners, many Catholics attended morning Mass every day during Lent. Churches usually had a 6 a.m. daily service back then and people would go before work.

The Lessons for Ash Wednesday, from the Episcopal Lectionary

Mardi Gras: It Isn't Just About Bacchanalia in the Streets

Shrovetide is the English equivalent of what is known in the greater part of Southern Europe as the "Carnival", a word which, in spite of wild suggestions to the contrary, is undoubtedly to be derived from the "taking away of flesh" (camera levare) which marked the beginning of Lent.

More about Shrovetide from the Catholic Encyclopedia

And more:

BBC Religion & Ethics: Shrove Tuesday

James Kiefer's Shrove Tuesday Page

All that drinking, eating, and partying in the streets originally came from an effort to rid your house of meat, milk, eggs, and the other rich foods you were forbidden to eat during Lent but which would spoil if left until Easter. In England, this meant the cooking and eating of pancakes, and there the holiday is usually referred to as "Pancake Day."

Woodlands Junior School's Web Page about "Pancake Day"

Elaine's Pancake Day Page

Domestic-Church.com's Pancake Day Page

The most interesting custom to come out of Shrove Tuesday were the pancake races. One, in Olney, England, has become world famous.

No one is quite certain how the world famous Pancake Race at Olney originated. One story tells us of a harassed housewife, hearing the shriving bell, dashing off to the Church still clutching her frying pan containing a pancake. Another that the gift of pancakes may have been a form of bribe to the Ringer, or Sexton that he might ring the bell sooner; for the ringing of the Church bell was the signal for the beginning of the day's holiday...[Olney Pancake Day Site]

Read more about the Olney races.

In 1950 the race became an international event. A challenge was received from the town of Liberal in Kansas, USA, where they had, after seeing press photographs of the race at Olney, conceived the idea of starting a similar custom. Olney readily accepted the challenge and, in a spirit of international goodwill and friendship, the two towns now compete annually and prizes are exchanged....[Olney Pancake Day Site]

More info from the city of Liberal and the International Pancake Day site.

"Will You Be My Valentine?"

I guess we were pretty typical as mid-60s elementary school kids.

The boys wore their hair short and parted to one side or the other. The occasional cowlick or bowl cut appeared. They wore button-down shirts—often "cowboy shirts" with piping—and pressed troussers (often courderoy in this winter season, or wool). The girls were in dresses, skirts and blouses, or jumpers. Short hair was popular (especially with moms who had to wash that hair), held back with a headband. They wore sturdy Oxfords or Hush Puppies, or strap shoes. A few extroverts whose moms allowed it wore patent leather dress shoes and might have had their hair permed. Ringlets were still popular, too, and hair bows. To stay warm during a long walk to school or at recess, the girls often wore snow pants under their dresses; these came off in the morning along with the thick winter coats and hats and scarves and rubber boots that fit over your shoes and were stowed in the chaos known as the cloakroom behind folding bulletin-board doors.

Valentine’s Day didn’t start immediately after Christmas as it does now. Yuletide was allowed to wind down past the new year before the candy started to appear, but it was only at the tail end of January and into February that schoolchildren started to gear up by surveying what classroom valentines were for sale in the eternal delight of the 60s child, "the five and ten"—Woolworths, Newberrys, McCrory, Ben Franklin, and whatever other local store plied the trade.

The least expensive Valentines, most endorsed by Mom, were just plain little hearts and cupids and other cartoon-like boys and girls or animals wishing each other a happy day or professing love or affection. Girls' Valentines featured dolls, flowers, cute animals, and lots of hearts. Boys' Valentines would more likely have their youthful protagonist in a train engineer's uniform or spacesuit, or would feature trains, cars, airplanes, or construction equipment. Specialty cards, like those with Disney characters or the cartoon heroes of the day like Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound, or theme cards involving real-life race cars or spaceships or television programs were pricier. There was always one, larger Valentine in the box reserved for the teacher; the most common design was some sort of a blackboard with the message written in white "chalk." These were purchased and (sometimes) laboriously signedover and over for twenty to thirty classmates until the day you could dump them in the big box on the teacher’s desk. (Mom always insisted you make out one for everyone in the class, even the kids you didn’t like, so it would be "fair.") In the lower grades, the teacher decorated the box herself, usually with white or pink construction paper. White was favored since then the hearts could be made in both pink and white, and on it in red crayon would be neatly printed the grade and the teacher’s name.

As you grew older the teacher would allow the best artist in the class to decorate the big box. It was an honor to encrust the box with layered hearts or tissue paper flowers, although some students always wanted input on the design.

One February art class closest to the fourteenth was always reserved for making Valentine cards for your mom and dad. Copious piles of white, pink, and red construction paper (sometimes black was added for a cool shadow effect) were plied into service. Sometimes the teacher purchased foil-like cupids or hearts to embellish each card, and lace paper doilies were always a favorite for backgrounds for mothers' cards. Some kids brought in magazine cuttings to further add to the decorative effect. Twenty-five children wielded twenty-five snub-nosed scissors, folding a red sheet in half and carefully reproducing the lopsided teardrop shape with the flat side that would open up into a really-truly heart. The more ambitious children cut odd shapes from the edge and the interior of the folded heart and what unfolded was a confection in "lace" design. These hearts, plain or cut-out, were layered with smaller or larger hearts and then stacked together permanently with the inevitable paste (the flicking paste brush sending bits of white everywhere, including on the clothing and hair of unsuspecting classmates) and cheerfully crayoned with greetings.

We also cut out hearts, again both the plain and lacy variety, to decorate the bulletin board at the back of the room or on the pivoting cloakroom doors, white or red scalloped edges surrounding our best designs.

Later, at home, you would happily hand the now-stiff hand-fashioned card to Mom and/or Dad with a proud "Happy Valentines Day!" and Mom and Dad would admire it and then set it on top of the television console or on the kitchen table, leaned up against the vase of flowers Dad had brought for Mom so everyone could see it. If you were lucky, Dad would take Mom out to dinner and you could come, too, although in most households this was postponed to the Sunday closest to the holiday. Still fresh in your Sunday dress or suit, you'd all troup out to a nice restaurant whene the waiters wore suits and there were cloth napkins instead of paper ones and white tablecloths.

In that Valentine afternoon at school, however, you had received your own haul. The Valentine box was opened and the cards distributed. A few girls shyly smiled at a few boys, and a few boys embarrassedly tucked special Valentines away. There was the constant squeal of a few girls who had received sarcastic comic cards from the few whose moms had not supervised their card purchases and were sticking their tongues out at the guilty, laughing boys. Afterwards, there might be cupcakes and punch or some chocolates Hershey kisses and then it was time to run home and show Mom your cards (after carefully anointing a chosen favorite classmate with that ultimate winter valentine, a snowball!).

"Conjunction Junction, What's Your Function?"

Now joining Conversation Hearts together!

There's also now a "to" as well.

Little Tokens of Love

Valentines Day is upon us again, its world done in colors of pink and red and a touch of lavender and white. Both the site Valentines Day at the History Channel and Story of Valentines Day relate how this "loving" holiday came to be—and no, it wasn't created by Hallmark Cards!

Here are just two Valentine customs from the past:

In Wales wooden love spoons were carved and given as gifts on February 14th. Hearts, keys and keyholes were favourite decorations on the spoons. The decoration meant, "You unlock my heart!"

In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.

The longest-running Valentine tradition (besides a token gift of sweets or some memento) is the Valentines Day card. One hundred years ago, it was considered an special token of your affection if you made your own Valentine cards. Young men and women would spend evenings with a paste pot, red paper, white lace, and the enduring Victorian colored illustrations known as "scraps" to make Valentine cards for their favorite people. But a thriving business existed for "boughten" cards as well. In Victorian times lace-paper Valentines were the preferred missive. In the late Victorian era, a new type of card called a "comic Valentine" was printed. These were printed on cheap paper and featured rude caricatures of people emphasizing extreme body parts (long, warty noses, fat, etc). They were mainly sent by young men who thought the humor was funny and most contemporary publications had some not-so-nice comments to make about comic valentines—they asserted that "good, manly young men" would not think to buy such things.

Here American Greetings presents a History of Valentine Cards.

And here's the story of Esther Howland, "Mother of the American Valentine."

And since sweets and Valentines Day have gone together for more years than anyone can remember, here's a history of one of the most beloved of Valentine candies, Conversation Hearts from NECCO.

Remember Valentine Boxes?

It's funny, I don't. Not individual ones, that is, as narrated in these two stories:

Celebrating Valentine's Day the Old-fashioned Way

Love in a Box

I remember there being a huge box on the teacher's desk. It had a large slot so many of the small, store-bought Valentine cards could be crammed in at one time. After lunch the teacher would open the box and distribute the cards. As they got older, the boys, of course, sent borderline nasty cards (apparently Mom wasn't helping them choose anymore), which really annoyed us girls. We tried within the limit of our budget to get the cutest cards we could, and those "darn boys" just ruined everything. :-)

Some Hilarious Christmas Memories

Do note what site this is on. :-)

"The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time"

Candlemas

From The Holiday Page:

...[T]his is really a very old holiday -- one that has its roots in astronomy. February 2nd is one of four cross-quarter days. It lies about halfway between a solstice and an equinox. Today's cross-quarter day was celebrated as Candlemas in England, where it marked the beginning of spring.

Try this old English rhyme -- "If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, winter will have another flight. But if it be dark with clouds and rain, winter is gone and will not come again."

Or here's another old saying -- "Half your wood and half your hay, You should have on Candlemas Day."

In Germany it used to be said that "a shepherd would rather see a wolf enter his stable on Candlemas Day than see the sun shine." A German badger was said to watch for his shadow. The National Geographic Society once studied the groundhog -- and found him to be correct only one out of every three times. One final note. It's supposed to be bad luck to leave your Christmas decorations up after today.

As you can see, the old English rhyme (and another, similar, Scottish rhyme) form the basis for Groundhog Day, which is chiefly celebrated in the United States. However, the folks in Canada also have a groundhog, Wiarton Willie. In the Southern United States, there is "General Beau Lee," who lives at the Yellow River Game Ranch in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Stormfax's Groundhog Day Site contains more info about Punxsutawney Phil, the "official" groundhog, the Candlemas rhymes, and even some info about the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day. And of course here is Phil's official site.

This is a Catholic page about Candlemas history and customs.

Circle Sanctuary's site covers all the different customs surrounding February 2, Christian, pagan, and secular.

More Voices of Christmas Past

About a month ago I wrote this post, about a CD of Victorian/Edwardian Christmas music. I commented on how the singers' voices sounded markedly different in those days (and not just to do with the technical aspects of the recordings).

Well, it turns out that George Nelson, the "proprietor" of The Antique Christmas Lights Museum site, also collects old phonographs and has added to his site two pages of links to .mp3s of late Victorian/Edwardian/WWI-era Christmas music recorded from his own collection of cylinders and disks. He comments about his amazement at these disks still being viable after being recorded without the use of electricity 100 years ago.

In listening to these recordings, you can not only hear the difference in singing styles and voices, but also, on the earliest recordings, hear the custom of announcing the name of the piece and the singer or orchestra before the music started. Nelson also has two later pieces, Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and "Jingle Bells" from 1942, played on a 1918 wind up phonograph.

(I love looking at Nelson's site, no matter what time of year, because I love looking at the technology of the time. I am not too young to remember when my mother's electric iron and other appliances around our house had thread-wrapped electrical cords instead of the plastic ones with a groove in it like today, and I remember the old lights with their two-color wiring. There were still some C-6 bulbs in the attic when we cleaned it out and I forgot to bring them home, to my regret. For the longest time, my parents kept as a "spare" an old toaster—with the thread-wrapped cord—which didn't "pop." Instead each side opened like the door on a toaster oven and you leaned the slice of bread against the wires and then had to watch it to make sure your toast didn't burn.)

...With a Compass in the Stock

Here's a fun site devoted to A Christmas Story. Follow the link to the site for the house, an actual Cleveland home which is being restored to the way it looked in the movie.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Here's a link I hadn't seen before about The Twelve Days of Christmas.

"What the Kings Brought"

A story for Epiphany by Ruth Sawyer.

Sawyer is perhaps best known for her Newbery-award winning book Roller Skates, about Lucinda Wyman's year as "an orphan" in gaslight-era New York City. Both Christmas and Twelfth Night play a significant role in the story. She did several Christmas-oriented books, including The Long Christmas, The Christmas Anna Angel and a collection of folktales called This Way to Christmas.

Here's a story of Sawyer's, The Primrose Ring, as a free e-text.

"Old Christmas"

It all happened in 1582.

The world at that time used the Julian calendar. But its calculation of time was slightly off when it was adopted, which added up to ten days by 1582. The spring solstice was falling, by the calendar, ten days too early. In that year Pope Gregory chopped ten days from the calendar and instituted other changes (such as leap years not falling on certain century years) to bring the calendar in line with the seasons.

The Catholic countries of Europe adopted the system immediately, but the Protestants wanted nothing to do with any Pope's proclamation--until the 1700s, when things were now 11 days off and posing problems. In 1752 in England and in the American colonies, September 2 became September 14. Many people rioted, demanding their 11 days back. (Think of it: rents and other monthly bills would now be due 11 days sooner.)

More about this calendar business. (And a scientific explanation.)

This produced an interesting effect in England re Christmas, related to the story of the Glastonbury Thorn:

"The Glastonbury thorn legend ties in Christ's death as well as the celebration of his birth. The legend goes that soon after the death of Christ, Joseph of Arimathea came to Britain to spread the message of Christianity. When he traveled there from the Holy Land he brought with him his staff. Being tired from his journey, he lay down to rest. In doing so, he pushed his staff into the ground beside him. When he awoke, he found that the staff had taken root and begun to grow and blossom. It is said he left it there and it has flowered every Christmas and every spring . It is also said that a puritan trying to cut down the tree was blinded by a spllinter of the wood before he could do so. The original thorn did eventually die but not before many cuttings had been taken. It is one of these very cuttings which is in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey today."

Note the reference to "flowered every Christmas." With Pope Gregory's calendar reform, the thorn that bloomed on Christmas "old style" now bloomed on January 5, so many people refused to believe in this "new" Christmas and continued to celebrate the holiday in January.

Here's more about the story.

And a link to Glastonbury Abbey itself.

Some Eastern Orthodox churches did not accept the calendar reform; therefore in those churches today is Christmas Day, with Epiphany falling on January 15.

Epiphany and "Old Christmas" have nothing to do with each other.

Here are some other Old Christmas links, several from the Appalachians, where people celebrated Old Christmas for years after the calendar change.

A British site, Christmas-Time's entry.

Telleco Hills "Old Christmas Eve".

Chuck Larkin's Old Christmas page, with links to other Appalachian Christmas tales.

"Old Buck," an Outer Banks Old Christmas tradition, with a photo of the celebration from the 1940s.

And here are some Christmas sites I hadn't seen before:

An antique Christmas ornament collector's site—check out the Gallery link for photos of beautiful antique ornaments.

Fashion-Era's Christmas Pages—this is a website of fashions; however, the Christmas pages also contain text, stories, and recipes associated with Christmas.

Also check out the entire Christmas-Time site.

"The Holly-Bough"

(Probably a little more appropriate a week ago, but I just found the full text.)

Charles Mackay

Ye who have scorn'd each other,
Or injured friend or brother,
   In this fast fading year;
Ye who, by word or deed,
Have made a kind heart bleed,
   Come gather here.
Let sinn'd against, and sinning,
Forget their strife's beginning,
   And join in friendship now;
Be links no longer broken,
Be sweet forgiveness spoken
   Under the Holly-bough.

Ye who have loved each other,
Sister and friend and brother,
   In this fast fading year;
Mother and sire and child,
Young man and maiden mild,
   Come gather here;
And let your hearts grow fonder,
As Memory shall ponder
   Each past unbroken vow:
Old loves and younger wooing
Are sweet in the renewing
   Under the Holly-bough.

Ye who have nourish'd sadness.
Estranged from hope and gladness,
   In this fast fading year;
Ye with o'erburden'd mind,
Made aliens from your kind,
   Come gather here.
Let not the useless sorrow
Pursue you night and morrow,
   If e'er you hoped, hope now--
Take heart, uncloud your faces,
And join in our embraces
   Under the Holly-bough.

"The Holiday Time Forgot"

Christmastide was a joyous period long ago. It began at dusk on December 24 and lasted through Epiphany. Twelfth Night, the eve of Epiphany, was a time for masquerade parties, a big feast, and the crowning touch, the Twelfth Night cake. A bean and a pea were traditionally baked into the cake; the man who found the bean was the King of the festivities and the woman who had the pea was the Queen. (Other little tokens were often put into the cake for "fortunetelling" purposes: a thimble symbolizing spinsterhood, a baby indicating the finder would become a parent, etc.) You had to be very careful eating a Twelfth Night cake!

Eventually the Twelfth Night cake because Britain's Christmas cake and Americans fell out of the habit altogether, developing a cookie tradition instead (the word "cookie" is derived from "small cake," so it still holds a bit of the meaning).

Many SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) groups still celebrate Twelfth Night and often have public gatherings at the time.

"Twelfth Night; or King and Queen"
Robert Herrick

     Now, now the mirth comes
     With the cake full of plums,
Where bean's the king of the sport here;
     Beside we must know,
     The pea also
Must revel, as queen, in the court here.

     Begin then to choose,
     This night as ye use,
Who shall for the present delight here,
     Be a king by the lot,
     And who shall not
Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here.

     Which known, let us make
     Joy-sops with the cake;
And let not a man then be seen here,
     Who unurg'd will not drink
     To the base from the brink
A health to the king and queen here.

     Next crown a bowl full
     With gentle lamb's wool:
Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
     With store of ale too;
     And thus ye must do
To make the wassail a swinger.

     Give then to the king
     And queen wassailing :
And though with ale ye be whet here,
     Yet part from hence
     As free from offence
As when ye innocent met here.

Here's a very informative article about Twelfth Night called "The Holiday Time Forgot"

Plus

"Fish Eaters" Twelfth Night Page

School of the Seasons Twelfth Night Page

Recipe for King's Cake/Twelfth Night Cake

Shakespeare's "Twelfth NIght"

"Viva, Viva, La Befana!"

Befana is one of the gift givers in Italian Christmas culture. She is usually portrayed as a witch, complete with broomstick (this is how she carries and distributes her gifts); images vary on how "witchlike" her face is. Her traditional day to leave gifts is on the eve of the Epiphany ("Befana" is a corruption of the word "Epiphania"). Italian tradition would leave Christmas as a sacred holiday and leave Epiphany for gift-giving and partying. But today of course many Italian children follow the "Santa Claus" legend (he is also known as "Babbo Natale," "Father Christmas" there).

Befana is also left a treat, the way American children leave Santa Claus cookies and milk and British children give Father Christmas a piece of Christmas cake and a glass of wine: she is given a goblet of wine along with an orange.

More about La Befana, and another interesting page about her—and a Canadian Italian page as well.

The story surrounding her origin is similar to the Russian Babushka.