A Mamá By Any Other Name

In previous posts (like here and here) I discussed the tricky tradition of using nicknames in my mother’s family. Well, here’s more on that thorn in the side of this genealogist.

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When my mom and her siblings would talk to or about their mother they would often refer to her as Tere (short for her nickname, Teresa).  Their cousins also called their mothers by their (nick)names.   Weird that they didn’t just call their moms some version of “Mom,” right?  

Nonetheless, there was someone else that my mother, her siblings, and their cousins called Mamá: their grandmother, Catherine “Edelanive” Mondesi.  Though Catherine’s actual children were Julio (a.k.a. Papa Gil), Clemintina (a.k.a. Clemina), Fide (real name: Maria Sebastiana), Tere (real name: Maria Anastasia), and Isa (real name: Elizabeth Juana) it was Catherine’s grandchildren that knew her so affectionately as Mamá.