Extracted from a note from William Consoletti
My uncle Willie DePalma was a Vice-President of Porter Shoe Company in Milford. He often traveled to Italy and the Balkans to promote sales of these shoes in Europe. At least that is what I think he did there on behalf of Porter Shoe Co. He would visit Casalnuevo and the remaining Parentes still alive there. Mamanine's sister Natalizia lived until 1970 and I know Uncle Willie visited her. His visits started in the 1960's, I believe. He would have known Maria Parente as well. The story that came down was that he was introduced to Egidio when he Egidio was 18 which would have been 1964. I am sure Egidio was very impressed with an American cousin who was rich by his standards and would take him out to dinner and drinks and hang out with him. Uncle Willie often talked about Egidio when we started discussing family history and encouraged me to visit him when I got back to Italy. I specifically remember him telling me that in 1988 at my niece Donna's wedding. That was probably the last time I talked to him for any length of time. He died in 1993. He treated Egidio like a nephew. Willie also paid for a tombstone for one of the Parentes or possibly a Minchillo who died in Casalnuevo when the family could not afford the stone. This made him a hero to the people in Casalnuevo. Janet and Bill visited him in the early 1990's. I believe they simply traveled down to Casalnuevo from Venice where they were vacationing and looked him up. They mentioned Willie DePalma and were welcomed into their house. Later Janet's daughter, Tara. visited Egidio and family.

When I visited in 1997 with Chris, Sarah and Louis, we were given a royal welcome. Egidio drove over to Lucera where I was staying twice. I had moved from one hotel to another and he made two trips to pick us up. We spent the day at his house. His wife served us an amazing dinner. He had his wife's nephew present when we visited because the nephew spoke English. My son Louis, then 12, played soccer with his two sons. They had another house on the edge of town where they took us for dessert. It was great.