Vanchella Vagabonds

  Emily has completed her doctorate at the University of California, Santa Barbara . Her dissertation, "Honey Pie, Colors of Dreams, and Inner Light: Stylistic Expertise and Musical Topicality in the Beatles' Mid and Late 1960s Songs," is summarized at the end of this post. Emily also earned her Master's Degree at UCSB, where her major field of study was Music Theory. Dr. Vanchella has accepted a one-year visiting professor job at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas , where she'll be teaching courses in American Popular Music.   We were so happy to learn that Emily would be able to participate in a graduation walk  (at 1:01:14 and/or in video below) and that we would be able to attend!  The pins and rings all have special meaning to Emily One of the historical functions of the hood was alms collection Regardless of major, the Ph.D. hood is a velvet royal blue. The inside colors are those of the institution granting the degree. Ro...

  This is the story of discovering the family of Giuseppe Ciacchella's mother, Giuseppa Moschitto. Giuseppe Ciacchella is John's paternal grandfather.  Photo from Giuseppe's naturalization papers and wedding photo As an outsider of the family, Giuseppe always appeared to be some kind of mystery to me. No one seemed to know much about him, aside from his birth and death dates. When I first started working on John's / Emily's genealogy, I received a little bit of oral history from one of John's older cousins, Frank. He told me the story of how Giuseppe and Benedetta met in Utica, New York. He also told me the background of how the Ciacchellas were connected to his grandparents (his mother and John's father are siblings; his father is the son of Agostino, a good friend of Giuseppe's). According to the oral history, Agostino and Giuseppe worked together at Ford Motor (around 1918). After the Depression (presumably their jobs were no more), they decided to go...