Fresagrandinaria in the world
Many Fresa native lives or had lived in different part of the world, doing different jobs, and it has happened quite often that their reached important target and position of high responsibility and culture.


This page is dedicated to those people , who belong to our history, because even thanks them, fresa people redeemed themselves and went out of a secular material misery and mental indolence. Even thanks their influence, houses were built and many managed to get the diploma and degree.
The emigration from Fresa started after the Italian unification, about in 1870. As a mass case it lasted almost one century, with only a break between 1930 and 1945 due to war and his restrictive laws. Until 1930 people were directed to America, by means of steam -ship; the trip could last one month and some times they didn’t come back.
They left lo leave poverty or debts, they were stowaways, without education, no money, no job, and they even didn’t know the language of the Country where they were going to.
When they arrived, they accepted every king of job, the most hard and dangerous in railway or build works. We know that in 1885 Angelo Ottaviano and Giovanni Cieri, emigrated in Argentina, died for a work injury, and maybe they were the first of a long list.
From 1910 to 1926 population counted a little more than two thousand inhabitants , about 504 of them had the passport: 493 were countrymen and 11 artisans. 430 of them of which 86 women) were going to New York State and 70 (of which 12 women) were going to Buenos Aires State, as it was said at that time. Many of them didn’t come back home, and today we have neither memory, nor any trace of them. In spite of this we are sure, that also them, like many others, built another Fresa in the world, maybe wider and that works for human wellness.
Then came the war, with his mourning and tragedies. At the end of it, both winners and beaten needed to rebuild and raise again. There were the first official calling for manpower in the Belgium mines, and in the farms and stone quarries in France. The request of manpower was not enough for everyone, so that there were always more and more stowaway emigration, especially towards France and from here to Saar.
A quite similar case happens nowadays for those people coming from East Europe, even towards Fresa.
During 50’s others citizens of Fresa left for Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, USA, Canada, Australia, but also Roma and Milano. From 1956 there were really many people abroad, many of them were in Saar, to rebuild that German town.
Becouse of emigration , many country houses were left, metayer system disappeared, and the village depopulated: from 2.388 decreased to 1997 in 1961, and 400 of them were seasonal workers.
The Municipal Administration, as respects to those people, named one of the street of Fresa “The Emigrant”, and every summer it organizes the Feast of Return , and it has started up official relation, cultural exchanges, with the German city of Puttlingen. This one dedicated a street to Fresa, Fresagrandinariastrasse, whereas we have titled the arena Puttlingen Square. Fresa emigrants have not forgot their home country and they still keep it in their heart.


Here we have some evidence: “Always I will look at you from the Crocetta Arch; A sweet deside of tears invites me to you, oh high hill where I was born, crowned with poor houses, and with the Temple of Lord on the top of it. The houses are close, one over the other, and it seems they want to help each other. The rock, covered with grass and musk, reminds that from a granite temperament come out tender blossoms (…)Pollen rich of prosperity, bees of others richness, your sons are pioneers of a fabulous remote civilization, they seems to be thankful to you, fruits of a dear poorness (…) Hail, my dear native country, saint because of your strength, love and faith.
(Tommaso Di Petta, da Milano 1920)
“In this far edge of Abruzzo, just on the border with molise, where crags and steep slopes, where deep subsidence, wild stream, high picks, the wood’s green, a strong people lived, and during the centuries they managed to prosper through the thick and the thin .
(Vincenzo Terpolilli, da Firenze)
“Oh Fresa! You are in our hearts, sweet village of the happy moments when I was young, when , thoughtless and cheerful , we used to play hide- and - seek in those dark roomsof the houses, or behind those old plaster white walls. (…) Forced by an unrewarding life, we left you and you sadly were looking at us leavinng (…) Your sons, oh Fresa, can’t forget you, your image will always remain graven in their heart (…)”
(Gabriele Evaristo Di Stefano, da Vibo Valentia, 1967)
“I love so much my home town, I’m proud of it and I thanks my mother Concetta and my father Pasquale, who wanted me to born in this wonderful place … so dear to those, for different reasons, had to leave it and live faraway (…)”
( Piero Paganelli, da Bastia Umbra, 1997)
(translation from the Fresa dialect)
“(…) I don’t know what I have in my mind, that I feel like speaking in the way of my people do, in my home country. The scene is exactly that; a church with a tower and a clock on it, a little mountain, a wood and the country, faraway the big mountains, and a slice of seas, a river over the plain. The Cuccette over the graveyard, a green that charms you , and the fizzy air makes you hungry, ventricina with bread, how could I forget such a wonderful place?(…)”
(Luigi Terpolilli, from Roma 1978)
“I will never forget that stone”
(Emilio Longhi, from Mexico City)
“ (…) father, your youth was here, in pebbly streets and lost hills, you left with big expectations and a never-ending homesickness.”
(Renato Terpolilli, da Vasto 1983)
Old families, that still live there, other extinct or emigrated (from the church registers of Baptisms , weddings and deceases from 1709 to 1808):
Albanese, Caruso, D’Alessandro, D’Aletto, D’Amico,De Aloysio, De Lellis, Delle Donne, Del Negro, De Martinis, De Milla, De Nardis, De Santis, Di Biasio, Di Domenica, Di Lello, Di Nardo, Di Paolo, Di Petta, Di Primo, Di Santo, Di Stefano, Fabrizio, Finamore, fingo, Floritti, Francese, Frisco, Galizia, Gasparra, Gentile, Giammichele, Giangiacomo, Giosuè, Gizzi, Granata, Iannone, Iavicoli, Lalla, Lamanna, Larocca, longhi, Longo, Macerolla, Manzi, Mastrangelo, Maurizio, Messere, Minichilli, Ottaviano, Pantalone, petrucci, Pompa, Ràcano, Romano, Sisti, Terpolilli, Tilli, Tribano, Troilo, Tufillaro, Valenyini, Verri, Vespasiano. (from the civil registers at the Town Hall from 1809 to 1900)
Arielli, Baldassarre, Bontempo, Bruno, Chiavaro, Ciampaglia, Ciancaglini, Cicchini, Ciccocioppo, Cocci, Colamarino, Conti, Crisci, Croce, D’Acciaro, D’Addario, D’Alfonso, D’Aloisio, De Innocentis, De Lizia, Di Falco, Di Giglio, Di Gregorio, Di Rocco,, Di Salvio, Di Tillo, D’Onofrio, D’Ottavio, D’Ugo, Fanghella, Fiore, Franceschelli, Gabriele, Gaeta, Gaspari, Ghiandi, Giampiero, Grimaldi, Guzzetti, Ialacci, Izzi, Lammanda, Lanuto, Larcinese, Leonelli, Liberatore, Lizzi, Lombo, Lucci, Maiale, Mancini, mariani, Martella, Mattioli, Mattoscia, Melchiorre, Monaco, Muscio, Olivieri, Pedone, Pesa, Pomponio, Porreca, Rocchio, Ruggieri, Sabatini, Salomone, Salvatore, Santilli, Sarchione, Steàno, Stella, Subranni, Taddeo, Tomino, Toro, Tracchia, Travaglini, Turco, Verrone, Zillotti.
Oh Fresa my beauty
(music and words by Bruno Di Domenico)
Smiling upon this hill
The sun makes you shining in the morning
The sea and the Maiella in the distance
Sing this song with me
Oh Fresa my beauty
Night and day I think about you
You are in my heart
As the first love.
The Trigno valley smiles you
The air of Cuccete’s pick smells you,
Upon this hill what a freezy air
If I’m abroad I think about you.
Oh my beauty Fresa,
An old nice church gives you value
The fountain with three taps is refreshing
The square in the centre is a treasure
Crowd of people fills your heart.
Oh my beauty Fresa…
Youth is so nice
Village people are so good
Kindness is in everyone
Who has came here, will come again
Oh my beauty Fresa…