Jim Distasio hasn’t missed the Feast of Maria SS. Incoronata in what is now Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood since he was a little boy. At first, it was top avoid incurring the ire of his grandfather, who expected every family member to be in attendance at the yearly tradition started in 1897 by emigrants from his ancestral hometown in Italy.

“We had to make sure we were all there at the feast — cousins, aunts, uncles,” Distasio recalls. “If you didn’t show up, you better have a good reason why, because that was my grandfather’s day.” Nowadays, the longtime president of Club Maria SS. Incoronata e San Cristoforo di Ricigliano says tat he wouldn’t dream of missing the feast, dedicated as he is to carrying forward his grandfather’s efforts to preserve this 128-year-old tradition.