Many other sweet recollections of our first childhood trip to Italy come and go in a whirlwind, mostly my impressions of some of the people that we first met that summer, among whom, my grandparents. Because we didn’t know them at all, relations were a bit awkward at times. On the whole, they were a benevolent, albeit reserved presence: that’s what happens when children grow up far away from their grandparents, although I think Mario, with his innate curiosity and sociability, developed a stronger connection with them. In my particular case, my Nonna Rosaria and I never really warmed up to each other. I have a feeling we were both intimidated by the real or supposed difficulty in communication. I understood everything she said, but I was reticent to speak Italian. She, on the other hand, was simply a quiet person, so let’s just say we avoided getting into each other’s way that summer.
As typical grandmothers of that era go, she looked feeble and much older than her 67 years. She was bit curved when she walked, as if she had a bad back, and her hair was very long, thin and snow white. She braided it every morning and wrapped and pinned it in a low bun, using tortoise shell combs to keep it in place. Her skin had a worn look about it, as if she’d spent years in the sun, but her pallor indicated that she hadn’t really spent much time outdoors. To be honest I don’t remember ever seeing her outside, except to water her plants on the terrace and feed the chickens in the coop across the alley. She never went shopping or to Mass in the nearby church; she never visited friends or took a walk to the piazza.
Taking a walk (fare una passeggiata) was a national pastime in 1960’s Italy, especially on summer evenings, but she never did that. She was not ill, but I believe she just preferred the intimacy of her home. However, she was far from isolated – I noticed that people tended to gravitate towards her, visiting practically every day, either in late morning or after the siesta. Women would often sit out around the front stoop with their embroidery or knitting, others would just go right to the kitchen to have a chat and vent their problems. She was a gracious host and she was beloved because she was the one person that everyone, male or female, entrusted with their difficulties, knowing she would take their secrets with her to the tomb. She was a point of reference for many, a good charitable neighbor. To this day, some of her protégés make it a point to visit her grave often and leave a flower in gratitude for her friendship and discretion.
People in Fossacesia say that in the old days, there was much more charity and social cohesion. I suppose it’s true that people were more generous back in the day when everything was scarce, so what little was available was shared. My first experience of this type of scenario took place on a hot August day in that long-ago summer. A frail old man came begging on the feast day of the patron saint of Fossacesia, San Donato. My grandmother explained that it was common practice to share a meal with mendicants on feast days. There was no fanfare; humble was the hand that gave, humble the one that received. Another testimony to her capacity to love was my father in law, Nicola. He was my grandparents’ next door neighbor, and he was practically raised by nonna Rosaria. His mother died when he was only nine years old. When she was on her death bed, she called for my grandmother, asking her to watch over her children. Nonna took Nicola and his two brothers in for some time until their father regained his bearings and made arrangements for them. A short time later he remarried, because in those hard times, a man couldn’t care for three children on his own while having to work the fields. My grandmother helped the family even after he remarried, preparing home- made pasta so his new wife, Fiora, would find dinner started when she returned from the countryside. These two families always respected each other through the decades, even more so since I married into the Natale family. These stories about the past make me think alot about what life was like back then, in particular for women.
Fossacesia was mainly inhabited by farmers, merchants and artisans; of the three categories, life was especially difficult for farmers. Normally the men worked the land, travelling from town to field by mule and cart, while the women transported food for the mid-day repast, heading down to the valley on foot. Like many others, Fiora would get up before dawn to prepare the meal and then walk two or three miles down to the olive grove, or open field, or vineyard where the menfolk were toiling, with a large basket on her head. She’d prepare a towel wrapped in such a way as to form a flat, circular buffer that would protect her scalp and help her keep the basket balanced, without needing to hold onto it. Actually, women used their heads to transport all kinds of things, including the traditional abruzzese, two-handled copper vessels containing water or other liquids. When they would take meals to their menfolk, they had to pack everything into the basket: a large tureen of pasta, dishes, glasses, a tablecloth, fruit, flasks of wine, water and whatnot, all on top of their heads! Then they’d rush home with the same load minus the food, to do the dishes and prepare the evening meal, while the men took their time riding back in the mule-drawn cart.
Another tough task for women was laundry. Before the advent of washing machines, women washed their clothes at the community wash house and watering hole, a commodity that every town or village made available to the public. This was at times a covered construction located just outside the village walls, situated downstream from a creek with a piping system that conveyed the water first to a vat, where farm animals could be quenched, and then to an area where women would do their wash. In Fossacesia, the watering hole was called “Lu Vallone”. The ladies would carry a basket filled with dirty laundry in the usual fashion, taking care to get there very early in the morning to get a good spot. This is because, the further downstream she was positioned, the worse off she was, having to wash or rinse her clothes in other people’s soapy, filthy residue, not to mention the germs from the animals! First they would soak and soap up the laundry at home. They used home-made soap prepared with olive oil and sodium hydroxide, or made with water and ashes from their wood burning stoves. Both types of soap required repeated boiling of the concoction to refine it. Who could ever imagine that ashes or olive oil, or even animal fat could be used to wash clothes! Water from the nearby public fountain was brought into the house using the previously mentioned copper vessels (or if they were lucky they drew water from their personal well) and then the clothing was boiled in a cauldron with the soap for a time, then left to cool down. After the first step at home, when the laundry was cool enough, it was taken to the Vallone to rinse. Not only did one have to be careful to time her rinsing to avoid other people’s residual suds, but she also had to be on the ball enough to circumvent accidental or purposeful loss of property.
My father in law told me that one day, when Nonna Fiora got home from doing her laundry, she realized one of her sheets was missing, and she knew exactly who did it! It was a woman named Minga (short for Domenica), who was working nearby and who’d apparently taken advantage of Fiora’s distraction to furtively purloin the precious linen she had already rinsed. When she got home and realized what had transpired, Fiora ran right to Minga’s house and called her out. Minga, of course, denied the accusation, but Fiora, determined to get her property back, ran into her kitchen and found the ‘misplaced’ goods cunningly hidden underneath Minga’s other laundry. Fiora was by no means an aggressive person, but losing a sheet would have been a disaster because she didn’t have the money to buy a new one, and besides, she had personally embroidered her linens, a task which requires a great deal of time and patience. Luckily, the missing linen was retrieved without further consequences (Fiora could have been accused of invasion of property, or worse), and instead of acquiring a beautiful, new sheet, Minga procured herself a stern warning to keep her hands to herself.
Luckily, Nonna Rosaria didn’t have this kind of issue to worry about when I met her in 68, and I don’t know if she’d ever had to do it in the past, either. I know that her childhood home had a well, so procuring water had not been an issue while she was growing up. By the sixties, my grandfather had installed indoor plumbing and bought a washing machine, so whatever Nonna Rosaria didn’t wash in the machine, was hand washed in the privacy of her own home and not out in public, so she could calmly go about her business and not have to worry about losing anything! She did not, however, have a bathtub or a boiler, just a toilet under the stairwell. In fact, our baths that summer were taken in a big tin tub in the kitchen, with water heated on the gas stove.
Speaking of the stove, like all Italian women, Nonna Rosaria was a great cook. She would get up early in the morning to make her tomato sauce for pranzo, the noontime meal. She’d start with a small casserole in which she’d place some garlic or onion, extra virgin olive oil, a piece of chicken or other type of meat, fresh tomatoes, part of which would be strained and part diced. She’d add some parsley and basil and she’d let it simmer for hours. In my opinion, the best kind of pasta to cook with this sugo was gnocconi (proper name, mezzi tufoli), which are shaped like half rigatoni, but with a smooth surface. This is what she prepared for us every time we went back to Italy through the years, and it’s one of those flavors I’d give anything to taste again, but as any person of Italian origin knows, it’s one of those unwritten laws of nature: no two cooks’ tomato sauces have the same exact flavor. It’s a mystery…and a fact of life.
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