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Although her grandmother passed away many years ago, Annette Valeo said it felt as if she was standing behind her in the room.

After hearing her grandmother's name and stories about her, Valeo looked up her grandmother on the Ellis Island Web site. When she found it, she said she felt as if she came to life.

Valeo, a Holmen resident, will be presenting the story of her grandmother, “An Italian Journey to Wisconsin,” to the Holmen Area Historical Society, 7 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 4, at the Holmen Village Hall.

The journey for this presentation started a few years ago, Valeo said. Her son Eddie Burgess, at the time a fifth grader at Viking Elementary, was studying ancestry in a culture class and came home with questions about his “roots.”

Valeo, an outreach program associate with the Office of Continuing Education and Extension at UW-La Crosse, said her husband, Ed Burgess, had two ancestors who were in the revolutionary war and there were rumors of some of his family coming over on an early ship - not the Mayflower - but one from that time.

And Valeo said she talked to her son about what she knew of her family history. She said she was a second generation American and didn't have the rich American history like her husband. But this sparked an interest to find out more about her family history.

That's when she got on the internet and the Ellis Island Web site.

“After seeing my grandmother's name on the Web site the history became real to me and she became a real person, not just a name I've heard,” said Valeo.

And what she learned prompted her to ask her son a question: “So Eddie, would you like me to talk to your class about your great grandmother?”

Valeo said she dressed the part of her grandmother for her son and felt she needed to do that to make her come to life.

She said her hope was that after her talk with the kids they would go home and talk to their parents. She wanted to give them an interest in their ancestors and the stories that come with them.

Valeo said her presentation is mostly the trip her grandmother made. “It's about the whole experience of making that transatlantic voyage and what she met when she got here -with some extrapolation of the experiences.”

The waves of immigration can be talked about and they are all different, Valeo said. But when the general trends are left behind and the stories researched deeper, the individual stories come alive.

And Valeo said there is universality here between her grandmother's story and those that are found in the coulee.

There are some general commonalities, but not all Norwegians are the same and not all Italians are the same.

Valeo said all the stories and personalities are worth looking at.

“They are worth plumbing for the universal human experience.”

Contact Tony Nelson at 786-6813 or tony.nelson@lee.net.