John August Antonelli was born in Rochester, New York, on April 12, 1930. His father August was born in the municipality of Casalbordino, a coastal town on the Adriatic Sea, just north of the city of Vasto, in the province of Chieti, in the region of Abruzzo.

I hope that everyone is healthy and that you have made the best of a spring that was marred by the loss of so many lives and by the imposition of difficult limitations on those of us lucky enough not to be struck by the coronavirus. By the time that you read this