Epic reunion: Sicilian brothers connect on Facebook after 52 years

It’s easy to imagine Calogero “Todd” Iannelli’s life as an epic movie, one that spans generations and cultures, from the ancient castle city of Caccamo, Sicily, to the urban jungle of Chicago and finally to the mountains of Montana.

A mother who hemorrhaged to death seven hours after his birth, an orphanage where he was beaten and starved, an abusive stepmother and kindly uncle in America, a stepbrother jailed for murder — all are parts of Iannelli’s life story that began at his birth 55 years ago in a hovel so barren it was called The Stable.

Iannelli’s happy ending came shortly into this new year.

It was then, in the predawn darkness of a sleepless night in his Kalispell home, that he turned on his laptop and got the news he’d waited 52 years for — a way to reconnect with his older brother, Antonino, who had stayed in Sicily after Iannelli, at age 3, was sent to live with an uncle in Chicago.

They reunited on Facebook, and for the past week have been spending time via the webcam program Skype — electronic face to electronic face — getting to know one another and meeting family members for the first time. And while the Italian relatives don’t speak English and the Kalispell Iannellis don’t know much Italian, they communicate through gestures, smiles and blowing kisses through cyberspace.

Iannelli’s family in Italy had tried to keep in touch and made several serious attempts to find him, even going so far as to travel to the Chicago area at one point. But Iannelli’s stepmother, for whatever reason, he said, didn’t want his family to reconnect with him and went to great lengths to keep him hidden.

At one point his family, at his stepmother’s insistence, moved to Florida for 18 months to evade any connection.

The language barrier was another hurdle facing Iannelli’s Sicilian relatives.

Now Iannelli, his wife, Tessa, and their four children hope to raise enough money to travel to Sicily to meet his long-lost brother and dozens of other relatives.

“I’d do anything to be able to meet him,” Iannelli’s son, Justino, said. “I see my uncle and he has the same facial expressions as my dad. We have to make the connection. It would mean the world if my dad could see his brother, after all these years we’ve lost.”

The poignant story begins in 1955 in a poverty-stricken area of Sicily, an island off southern Italy.

In less than a month that year, Iannelli’s mother and his aunt both died in childbirth. Iannelli has been told that at the time, an unexplained blood disorder seemed prevalent in the ancient community, causing a number of mothers to hemorrhage to death as they gave birth, he said.

As her sister lay dying, Iannelli’s mother promised to look out for her sister’s newborn, Maria. But just 24 days later, his mother, too, would perish.

Maria eventually ended up in the Chicago area with the same uncle and stepmother who adopted Iannelli. She was renamed Claudia, he became Todd. For years they thought they were twins.

In another sad twist to Iannelli’s story, Maria ran away at age 17 to escape the abuse, and he has not heard from her for more than two decades.

Unable to care for Iannelli and his siblings, his father sent him to an orphanage and sent his brother, Antonino, off to a boarding school. Iannelli’s two older sisters were raised in Italy.

After 3 1/2 years in deplorable conditions at the orphanage, Iannelli left for America with bruises, rickets, infections, a heart problem “and basically six months to live,” he said.

“It was hard to get children out of Italy after World War II,” he said, explaining why he was left to languish so long in the substandard orphanage. “Sicily was a very backward country then.”

Iannelli grew up in a Chicago suburb, with an uncle he remembers as “a wonderful man, very gentle.”

He had a much different relationship with his overbearing and abusive stepmother. Still, he found ways to excel, becoming an accomplished violinist in his teenage years. He was so gifted his music teacher asked if he’d consider playing with the Chicago symphony orchestra, but his heart was set instead on following his older stepbrother to the Flathead Valley, where he spent a summer working on a ranch near Ashley Lake.

When Iannelli’s stepbrother, who had by then been released from prison after serving time for murder, threatened to shoot him one day, he retreated to Chicago.

There he became a target for a gang of thugs who had stabbed his friend to death and aimed to kill Iannelli, too. He escaped and headed back to Montana, but stayed away from his brother.

Not able to find a job, Iannelli served in the Army National Guard and worked for a time in law-enforcement security in Sacramento and San Jose, Calif., before returning once again to Montana.

“The Flathead Valley is a lot like Sicily, except without the sea,” he observed, pondering why he always was so drawn to this area.

Iannelli made a good life for himself in Kalispell. He married Tessa, now his wife of 27 years, and they have four children: Vincent, 26; Justino, 22; Nicholas, 19, and Tenessa, 14. He worked for Plum Creek for 10 years at the Evergreen sawmill.

Not long after he settled here, his stepparents moved here as well, and his stepfather also worked for Plum Creek for many years.

Iannelli was 33 when he received some family photos and saw for the first time a picture of him as a baby. But throughout his entire life, he wondered about his connection to Sicily.

He logged onto Facebook on Dec. 6 last year on a whim, searching for clues about his family.

By Christmas Eve he had connected with some relatives in Canada, and by Jan. 5 things fell into place and he had found Antonino, now 63 and retired from a top executive job at the Fiat automobile plant.

“He was a big shot,” Iannelli said proudly.

A newspaper in Palermo chronicled the touching story and quoted Antonino, who said it was “almost a miracle” that he reconnected with his brother. Ilaria Iannelli, the eldest daughter of Antonino, told the Palermo reporter that they don’t have the money to bring the American Iannelli family to Italy for a reunion.

“Our dream is that someone will help us to tackle this last step,” she said.

The Kalispell Iannellis have that same dream.

“After all these years we’ve lost, it would be really nice to have some help,” Justino said.

In addition to embracing the family members from whom he has been separated for so long, Iannelli has another wish: “I want to see my mother’s grave.”

Anyone interested in helping the family financially can e-mail calogero07@gmail.com.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.