I've been reading everyones replies to this topic and have found so many things in the responses I can relate to.
Both my parents & grandparents were born in Floridia,which is a town in the Sicilian Province of Syracusa,Italy. First my grandfather came to America,then my grandmother. My grandmother owned a rooming house & my grandfather was a bootlegger.Then my mother ran the rooming house & my father worked delivering furnature for G Fox & Company and made homemade wine.
I was pretty much born speaking Italian(Sicilian) because my grandmother did not speak a word of English.In those days people would visit each other & always get together with freinds.
How things have changed.
My parents are gone now and all I think is how my kids will never speak fluent Italian and nowadays people have to find time to visit with freinds and don't even know or speak to their neighbors.
How things have changed.