The Frommeyer kids – one girl, five boys – loved Sundays when they were growing up. That was the day for dinner at their grandparents, the Bonavitas, who lived on the West Side. "You'd have to make a couple of stops up and down the street first," said Matt Frommeyer. "We'd get something at Uncle Lou's and Uncle Joe's and then stop at Aunt Annie's, and still have to eat everything at Nona's." It didn't matter what else was going on. "Sunday was for family dinner," said sister Michelle Eubank.

They'd listen to their elder relatives tell stories of the old country. About life in Fuscaldo, the small Calabrian town that their mother’s family, the Bonavitas and the Vilardos, had left to make a life in the United States. Their aunt Anna, who came when was 9, shared memories of the beauty and the poverty she grew up in. They'd learn to keep straight who was who in their family and among their family's friends.