Red, white, and green flags; porch lights and median strips; flagpole posters with pictures of local business owners and departed members of the St. Mary of Carmen Society — and temporary electronic police signs warning drivers to expect delays July 17-21 from 4PM to 11PM — announce Nonantum’s annual Italian-American Festival.
Each year, thousands of people from all over Nonantum — and from other Newton villages, all over Massachusetts and beyond — head to Pellegrini Park on Hawthorn Street to take the rides, play the wide variety of games (and win prizes), sample fried dough, sausages, fries, cotton candy, popcorn and ices — and listen to a variety of bands.
Members of the St. Mary of Carmen Men’s Society, dressed in blue shirts and black trousers, sit at booths selling chances to win $1,000 or a flat-screen TV or a remote starter, to raise money for the Society’s college scholarship awards. Some give buttons with a picture of the St. Mary of Carmen statue to people who make donations, or sell T-shirts with “The Lake” — Nonantum’s popular name — imprinted on them.
Society President Frank Battista and Vice President Carl Pasquarosa are on hand, serving as MCs, official greeters, and representatives of the Society’s enduring family tradition. This is the 89th year of the St. Mary of Carmen Festival — for many years called Festa — a four-generation salute to the many families who came to Nonantum from the village of San Donato Val di Comino in Italy.
At the entrance to Pellegrini Park, a booth introduces the year-old reconstituted St. Mary of Carmen Women’s Society, featuring some of its members — most in their twenties, and most from the “next” generation of Nonantum’s Italian-American community. Two of its leaders — Arrianna and Maria Proia, both fourth-generation St. Mary of Carmen Society members — are greeting friends and answering questions, signing up interested women, and taking…