ANNA TERESA ZAPPI

This page is the only in the entire Website without any ornamentation or graphics.

This is no mistake, but intentional.

Because Anna Teresa’s life--or "Tia Ana," as we all know her--transcends any embellishment.

If I were Leonardo, I could paint Gioconda without problems. Yet, I wouldn’t be able to find a way to depict Tia Ana because her inner beauty so overwhelmed her outward appearance that tinctures which could do the job properly had not been invented yet.

Even the aggregate advanced technology we possess today hasn’t been able to capture the soul, the heart, of a person. And Tia Ana was all heart.

She was the one who kept this family a family. The one who came to the rescue when things went sour, the one who aided those who couldn’t and rejoiced for those who could. Always the strong, independent, self-reliant woman, she never asked for anyone’s help even when she desperately needed it.

We all took her abnegation, and services, for granted because she made light of them and soon enough, they were almost expected from her. She was Tia Ana, after all. An icon, an institution. They did cost her, however. Not only financially, but in her personal life. She was the best thing that could happen to any family and we were lucky enough to have her in ours.

No stranger could fathom what she means for us. Unfortunately, neither can those of you who are flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood, but never had the opportunity to be the object of her affection, her profound wisdom, or her boundless altruism. You never had the opportunity to measure her true significance. For you, our descendants, Tia Ana is just another name in the "tree." But, let me tell you, she is not just "another name," she IS the tree.

Because, without her, we would have been, like many others, scattered to the wind like ashes. She was the one who kept us together and made a family of what, otherwise, would have been a loose collection of unknown relatives.

In reading these pages, you’ve all learned what our traditional family names are. All of them are male names because females, who marry into other families, seldom have the opportunity to impose their choice and, even when they can, it’s lost for the family annals geared as it is, as in most families’, towards the male-line descent.

I have no children of my own, yet I regard each of you as one. Would each generation be as lucky to have an Anna Teresa in its midst. Therefore, I beg of you, male Zappi: let the name Anna Teresa become as common as other names are, and I’m certain this family will prosper to greater heights than it already has.

We all love Tia Ana. We love her far more than we told her. Yet, I'm sure she knows we do, even if we didn't tell her as often as we should have. And that's Tia Ana in a nutshell: it didn't matter whether we cared for her or not, all that mattered was we existed.