Some of author Michael DeMarco's fondest childhood memories are of sitting at the kitchen table at his grandparents' Erie home and listening to their stories of their ancestral roots in Italy. His grandparents emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1920s from Montenero Val Cocchiara, a secluded village nestled in the central Apennine Mountains in southern Italy.

They settled in Erie with their families and were married at St. Paul Roman Catholic Church in September 1925. “I like to say that Montenero is a little Shangri-La,” said DeMarco, 66, an Erie native who has visited Montenero, also referred to as Mundunur, four times. “It's surrounded by mountains, which make it very remote,” he said.