The man shown in the Ufficio photo is the clerk who staffs the 
Ufficio di Stato Civile office in the Municipio building in Celle.  
At this point during my March 1997 trip, he was resorting to the 
card index because he could not find an entry in the ledgers 
for the birth of my grandfather Antonio.


The next photo of his office shows one of the typical ledgers 
containing the original entries of data for the birth records, 
this one was probably 130 years old.  Note the typewriter, copy 
machine in the background, and steam radiator behind the desk.

 
The SnowDay photo was a shot I took out of the office window with 
the snow coming down.  Celle is officially at 2411 feet above mean 
sea level.  The field in the distance is the football (soccer)field.
In 1995, Celle was isolated by a hugh snow fall and the only way medical 
supplies and other necessities could be brought in was via helicopter. 
I've seen photos taken by the natives of the helicopter on the snowy 
field.  This day the snow only amounted to a few inches, and when
I left the office, I returned through Lucera on my way 600 miles
north by car to Milan for the flight home.

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