43
Brier Hill Festival reunites community
By Kalea hall
YOUNGSTOWN
Memories of learning how to play morra, being a part of the close-knit Italian neighborhood and family came back to Yetta Marian as she stood on Victoria Street, where she grew up, on her way into the Brier Hill Italian Festival.
“We played under the streetlights,” Marian said. “Everybody looked after everyone.”
Every year for the past 22 years, like many other former residents and newcomers to the area, Marian and her brother Richard Michaelian come back to their roots for the annual four-day summer festival. Sights of bracciole, sausage sandwiches, cavatellis and cannolis mixed with the sounds of Italian music might be some of the reasons why Victoria and Calvin streets on Youngstown’s North Side are packed, but the main reason is to reunite with family and friends.
“This is a reunion,” said Joseph Naples, one of the festival founders. “A lot of families get together.”
Naples started the festival with the late Dominic “Dee Dee” Modarelli.
The festival was supposed to be a one-time event, but both Naples and Modarelli, who grew up in the area, did not want it to end.
“Every year we see new people coming down, and they really like this festival,” Naples said.
Tony Trolio, owner of Trolio’s Silk Screening and Embroidery and a former resident of Brier Hill, has been coming as a vendor since its beginning. Growing up in Brier Hill, Trolio said everyone knew one another since many of the families immigrated to America from Italy together and moved to the same area.
“I thought everybody was Italian,” Trolio said.
Trolio has piles of Brier Hill merchandise, mainly T-shirts promoting the love he and many others have for their home, but also books he wrote on Brier Hill and other Italian- loving items. Trolio could not name his favorite part of the festival because he “pretty much likes it all.”
“I got my Italian friends and food,” Trolio said. “What else could I ask for?”
What most people seemed to be asking for at the festival were “cannoli, cannoli, cannoli,” Riccardo’s Sweets and Eats operator Kerri Rickard said. Kerri has been working in the vending business with her family since she was a child and looks forward to coming back to the Brier Hill event every year, even though the lines for her pizza and cannolis are never-ending when the festival picks up at night.
“It just keeps getting better and better,” she said. “People are taking more and more pride in their heritage.”
Kerri’s uncle, Randy Rickard, sells Pasquale’s Famous Sausage Sandwiches and other items next to Kerri’s booth. Randy and “Papa” Pasquale, Randy’s father and Kerri’s grand-father, have several memories of the Brier Hill Italian Festival, and reuniting with people every year always makes for the fondest memories.
“It’s nostalgic of the original neighborhood,” Randy said. “It’s like going back in time.”
Randy’s suggestion to anyone who hasn’t been to the festival: “Come become a part of the family.”