Before embarking for Canada, let's situate where Galluccio was located and what was life like at that time. Galluccio was a community of many small groupings of houses maybe not even big enough to be called towns. We saw some of these towns in 1976. The people lived in these small enclaves and the lands that they cultivated often were some distance from their houses. The location of Galluccio is something like this, roughly fifty kilometres northwest of Naples, on the west side of the Apennine mountains. The altitude would be about three hundred metres above sea level for Campo, whereas Vaglie where mother resided would be about one hundred metres above sea level. From the loggias in Pietro's house by looking southward, Campo is visible to the naked eye on a clear day. The distance of Galluccio from the Mediterranean Sea would be about seventy kilometres.

This distance was close enough that they would often experience ash fall-out from the eruptions on Mount Vesuvious. Another natural disaster they faced were recurring earthquakes generally of low magnitude but still scary because the region had previously experienced serious ones and was susceptible to tremors without advance notice. The weather was generally pleasant with plenty of sunshine most of the year. Heavy rainfalls were experienced during some seasons and often resulted in washing away the top soil which was nefarious to the harvests and also loosening heavy boulders from the side of the mountain. The winters could be uncomfortable because the cold would penetrate the heavy stones structures. Heating of the interior consisted of open fire places generally located in the kitchen area where the cooking was done. Other open fireplaces were sometimes available in the other rooms, but the entire house would be very difficult to heat comfortably. When going to bed, bed-warmers were used. These consisted of copper pots with a lid and openings all around. Live coals or embers were placed in them. They had long handles so that the warmers would be introduced between the bed sheets and moved around to warm-up the entire bed.