Tony Antonitti had already planned his trip to the Museum, part of a tour of the Maritimes with his wife Tina. Living in Montreal, they were looking forward to returning to the place where their parents, like hundreds of thousands of others, took their first footsteps in this country. “We really wanted to stop at the Museum in Halifax because we wanted to go through all the stories and the archives, if we could find any, of our parents.”
An unexpected discovery
Then, a few weeks before their departure, a relative showed him a photograph in a magazine article about the Museum. It was a picture of his parents Donato Antonitti and Maria Zampini, and his Uncle Michelino and Aunt Sylvia on the day of their arrival, July 25, 1961. “When we first saw the picture, and when my mom saw the picture, it was very emotional. And it still is.” He and Tina visited the Museum in October of 2021. It was only once they were in Halifax that they realized that a large print of the photo hangs proudly on the wall of the Museum as part of the Pier 21 exhibition. It was overwhelming. “For us, it was always a sense of pride that Canada allowed this place to honour all the people that came through it. And now we have an even bigger sense of pride that my parents forever will be in the history of the Museum. That they are ‘immortalized’.”
A return to the site
With his father no longer alive, Tony wanted to make sure to bring his mother to the site of her arrival. He planned a return trip in July 2022 with her and with her kids and grandkids. “She doesn’t have a lot of recollection of that whole experience. From the moment she left her country - she was pregnant with my sister- she was very sick and ill because of the motion sickness. She was like a zombie. All she remembers is little flashes.”
Marking their history
For many, including Tony and his family, the Museum symbolizes something profound about their family history- something they want to memorialize. The Museum’s Sobey Wall of Honour is lined with commemorative plaques dedicated to people who have immigrated to Canada. Tony and Tina and their families purchased a plaque to commemorate his parents’ 1961 arrival, one to commemorate the arrival of Tina’s parents in 1967, and a third one to mark the arrival of Tina’s brother, who would have been just 4 years old at the time.
