There once was a woman named Carmela Borelli who was out in the hills with her kids and two donkeys laiden with goods when it started to snow unexpectedly.
She ran back to safety, but it was so cold that one of the donkeys stopped and gave up. So she continued with just the one donkey, dragging it and eventually carrying her children, but they were starting to suffer from frostbite so she took off almost all of her clothes and put them on her kids to protect them. she finally abandoned the last donkey and when she got to a church on a hill below Sersale, she covered her kids with her body
and died. Both of the children survived thanks to her.
There is a monument in Sersale honoring her. I always wondered if it really happened or if it was just a fable. Well on this visit I met one of her descendants, Graziella Talarico. One of Giuseppe Mercuri's sons is married to her. She pulled out a photo and said "this is my grandmother Costanza" Costanza was the little girl whose life was saved by Carmela Borelli's last act. Here is a link to the whole story.
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