The “tramezzino,” the Italian version of the British tea sandwich, is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. Although first served in Turin, it owes its creation to Detroit. In 1919, with her parents’ blessing, 15-year-old Angela Demichelis left Turin and crossed the Atlantic by herself, arriving in Detroit to become the child-bride of 30-year-old fellow-Torinese Onorino Nebiolo. With his brothers and their families, he owned several restaurants and nightclubs.
The couple soon had two children, Felice, named for his paternal grandfather, and Gloria, for the actress Gloria Swanson, but motherhood didn’t stop the ever-enterprising Angela from becoming one of the first women in the United States to obtain a driver’s license. Ambitious and stubborn, she did so to help the families’ businesses, her responsibility being to drive alone to Canada to buy contraband liquor during the beginning of Prohibition.
