Could someone help...

JamesBianco · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:15 pm Post subject: Re: Could someone help...

I wish I could read Italian, Luca has posted quite a message!! Can anyone help me with what he is saying?

Thanks!

Very Happy

Carole · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 5:45 pm Post subject: Re: Could someone help...

JamesBianco wrote:

I wish I could read Italian, Luca has posted quite a message!! Can anyone help me with what he is saying?

Thanks!

Very Happy

Never fear James - Here's what Luca wrote for you...

TRANSLATION

I'm sorry Carole if I insist (and if I write in Italian, perhaps you can translate for me)

The sense of the letter (at 99%) is this. James had been ill and he had to distance hmself from home (possibly in a sanatorium). But at the moment that he wrote the postcard he was feeling better and he told his son this:- Dear son, don't worry I am feeling better and will return (implied: to you) 'o rait'

Here is the presumed dilemma. I think that the first letter isn't one to, but one or and therefore it can't possibly be "I'll return to gasp for breath (that wouldn't have a logical connection as he is now feeling better: one who gasps fro breath doesn't feel well) and not even return to Rait (a town that I don't think exists anywhere in the United States; there is a Rait, but it is in Dundee in the UK).

The only explanation is that he wanted to be 'likeable' by using an american expression heard many hundreds of times (probably) but never written. This american expression is ALL RIGHT that to the ears of an Italian immigrant sounds exactly like this: O RAIT'.
So:
Dear son, dont' worry I'm feeling well now and I will return all right (I'm in good health) and I won't abandon you again. James Bianco.

If however, as our friend James says a little above his great grandfather was not mentally well then it is possible that he found himself in a kind of mental hospital and probably in the past had really beaten his son: in this case the exact transcription could be:

Dear son, dont' worry I'm feeling well now and I will return all right (I'm in good health) and I won't beat you again. James Bianco.

The X could be kisses (but I'm not certain).

Ciao a tutti

Luca

Luca · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 5:55 pm Post subject: Re: Could someone help...

Carole sei una fantastica "spalla" Wink

. Le tue traduzioni mi... emozionano (per la rapidità e la precisione).

Luca

JamesBianco · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject: Re: Could someone help...

Thank You Luca and Carole, this is really bittersweet. So much of my great-grandfather's life was shrowded in secrecy after he died in 1934. Nobody spoke of him. They spoke of his mother, who died aged 98 the year I was born and of his father Paolo, who raised my grandfather, but never of Diego (John), their son.

This small postcard (and your amazing examination of his only surviving written words) give me a new dimension the few photographs we have can not accomplish.

I feel like a door has been unlocked, regardless of what is on the other side, I am so very touched. I called my dad's sister and told her all about this thread.

Thank You so much

Jim

Carole · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:49 pm Post subject: Re: Could someone help...

Luca wrote:

Carole sei una fantastica "spalla" Wink

. Le tue traduzioni mi... emozionano (per la rapidità e la precisione).

Luca

Love you too sweetheart kiss

Flattery will get you everywhere! (well almost...)

JamesBianco · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:30 pm Post subject: Re: Could someone help...

For a moment Carole I thought that you were talking to me, since I posted just before your post. My Bad, I see this thread went in a different direction.

But that is the fun of a forum, it is truly "anything goes" once a dialogue begins it can (and often does) take its own direction.

In any case, I wanted to post a picture, so that those who have been reading this thread can appreciate how important this postcard is to me. Remember the photograph I posted of my grandfather Paolino Bianco?

well, here he is in later life with me (to the left) my Aunt and my recently deceased Gram.

I wanted to share this very special photo.

Smile

Aether · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:29 am Post subject: Re: Could someone help...

WOW! James!

Great photo, I mean ... well, I mean... good for the yes!
Thanks!

Sophia Wink

ACCOUNT DEACTIVATED

Carole · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 3:50 am Post subject: Re: Could someone help...

Quote::

By James: "I wanted to share this very special photo."

Thank you so much for letting us see this James...

They both look like really nice people! You are a very lucky young man.