BURGIO, Siciliy - "When I found out Msgr. Terence Moore, pastor of Saint John the Baptist, was going on a pilgrimage to Sicily and Italy, I was so excited," said Tom Gudden, a parishioner of Saint John the Baptist. "For the past year and a half I have been doing my family's genealogy.
"All four of my grandparents were born in Sicily, and I wanted to be on the streets where they were grew up," he said. "Our tour escort, Laura Pagano, arranged a driver for me so I could visit Burgio, Sicily. When I arrived, it was amazing. All I had was the name of the street my great-grandmother lived on - Via San Lucia. My great-grandmother's name was Rosalia Musso. The driver offered to take me there. When we pulled up in town, my car door was open by Mayor Vito Ferrantelli and his assistants, who greeted me, even though none of them spoke English. I showed them pictures of my grandparents and the street name. One of the mayor's assistant's wives, who was from England, served as an interpreter. Word began to spread about an American being in town visiting with the mayor and a crowd began to form."
Gudden describes his great-grandmother's street as a small cobble-stone lane, and the town as being up on a hill surrounded by orange groves and olive trees.
The mayor took him to the municipal building, where he was able to get copies of his grandfather's and his siblings' birth certificates. It was a great experience.
"I left Burgio to go to Lucca Sicula in Sicily to my grandmother Mary DiGrato's hometown, which was smaller. She is my father's mother," said Gudden. "I went to the municiple building, but it was closed. My great-grandfather's name, Giovanni DiGrato, was etched on the marble list next to the door.
"Before leaving for Sicily, I had gone to the Whitmore Library and found an old newspaper with my grandfather's obituary in it, which led me to the grocery store he had purchased on 400 South and 500 West in Salt Lake City. His name was Calogero Guddemi. The name was shortened to Gudden. Guddemi's funeral was held at the Cathedral of the Madeleine and he was buried at Mount Calvary Cemetery in an unmarked grave. I was able to have a monument made by a cousin in Omaha who owns a monument company, and the head stone was delivered to Salt Lake City by another cousin.
"We placed the headstone on my grandfather's grave on July 4, and all the family gathered together," said Gudden. "My grandfather died when my father was 6 months old. He was buried Jan. 2, 1916.
"My grandmother's family in Sicily was poor, so they sold my grandmother in an arranged marriage when she was 12. She was one of two children, but they could not afford to keep her," he said. "She was widowed at age 17, and immigrated to the United States. She met my grandfather in Pueblo, Colo., and they were married when she was 18. They moved to Salt Lake City and he bought a grocery store. She became a widow again at 28, when my grandfather died of cancer. By then she had six children under the age of 10. My grandfather and grandmother were born two miles apart from each other in two separate towns in Sicily, but did not meet until they were in Pueblo, Colo."
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