One of the unexpected treasures of moving to Abruzzo is finding yourself surrounded by elderly people.  For those of us whose grandparents are gone, they slip almost seamlessly into that role, not just neighbours or friends, but guardians of memory.  They invite us to listen, really listen, even with our migrant’s Italian.  Advice, recipes, and fragments of lives are shared, and slowly you begin to piece together stories, no photographs.  Few families had albums, and photos were more often snapped by relatives from abroad and taken back with them.   Instead, the living archive rests in their voices.   To sit with them, phone tucked away, is to rediscover a way of listening we’ve almost forgotten: stories heard all the way through, questions only at the end, no need for distraction or clicks onto the next, next and next… a kind of sharing that is uninterrupted, emotional, and thoughtful.

On a recent visit to Poggio Umbricchio’s restored mill, once owned by the De Giorgis family, I caught a glimpse of this kind of heritage in motion, unusually, with a photo too!   I met Franco, pictured bottom left, who was there with his children and grandchildren, returning to the place where his family’s story had shifted course. After the 2nd World War, when the valley emptied and the water was drawn away for hydroelectric power, the mill’s heartbeat slowed. The De Giorgis left their stones behind and became bakers in Villa Lempa, a frazione of Civitella del Tronto up on the Abruzzo border with Le Marche at the foot of Monte Santo. Franco still bakes there today.  His cereali rolls were, without exaggeration, some of the finest I’ve tasted in Italy.  Easy logic is the notion that ex-millers bake the best bread; they care deeply and have such knowledge about their flour.

Franco opened a small jar he had brought with him, and the mood shifted from memory to taste. He spread a thin paste onto the rolls, and suddenly, cheese spread became something magical.   It was just parmesan grated into a jar, a dusting of ground pepperoncino, topped with white wine until it loosens into a cream, approximate ratio half and half! Simple, almost austere, yet pantry magic. On bread, it was divine, and later with the magic umami pot he gifted me, stirred into pasta, it lifted a tomato sauce, deepened some quick-fried mushroom-and-chickpeas, brightened the ordinary into something unforgettable.

And yet it was not only bread and cheese that lingered.  Later that day, Franco’s old childhood friends gathered too.  They sat in the shade with slices of watermelon, their eyes bright with nostalgic tears and laughter.  You could almost hear the echoes of their younger selves – unloading and loading donkeys with the sacks of wheat and flour alongside their families, chasing one another in the dust, the smell of freshly milled flour rising like a cloud around them.  Parents calling, the weight of hard years, the sweetness of play.  Watching them reunite in the place where the success of a family’s annual harvest was measured was heart-stirring: heritage revealed not as an artefact behind glass, but as a thread still binding lives and a generation together.  A water mill may not be grand or lofty, yet in its stones you can read the whole history of this valley, and the many changes the Vomano River has carried since the war.   I hope these men will record their stories so that children who visit can listen, and the families of those who migrated hear about their family’s life in Abruzzo.

Author: Sam Dunham

Sam is a freelance SEO content creator and IGCSE Geography and English teacher at Istituto Cristo Re in Rome. She also runs the Life In Abruzzo Cultural Association, sharing stories and insights about this captivating region.

Alongside raising a teenager, Sam hosts guests at her family’s traditional home, the Little House of the Firefly in Abruzzo, offering a warm welcome and insider tips on local culture, food, and hidden gems.