My grandparents were born in the 1870's. My parents often spoke of their
life in the Tuscan hills. My grandparents were sharecroppers as were at
least 90 percent of the people of their village. They worked the soil for
the "padroni" and were given a place to live and a share of the crops. They
were often cold and hungry. My father told me that the whole family would be
out working in the fields and when the village bells sounded the "Angeles"
(Noontime), they would look at their mother. If she stopped working it meant
they could stop working because that day they had something to eat for lunch.
If she continued working, that meant they had no lunch. When they did eat
lunch it consisted of a cold piece of polenta and if they were lucky, the
polenta might have been sprinkled with a little olive oil. My father slept
on a cornhusk mattress with three of his brothers. They slept on the bed
width wise rather than length wise because there was more room that way.
When my dad made his First Communion he had to borrow shoes from a neighbor.
He carried the shoes until he got to the door of the church and then put
them on so he would not damage the shoes in any way. The family lived in a
small village high in the hills and eventually had to move to a village lower
down the hill because there was more workable land there. When they moved
they walked down to the new village with their belongings on their backs.
They had very little furniture to move. Only their beds, mattresses, a
table and chairs. They had no dresser or "guardaroba" because they didn't
have any "roba" to "guardare." A few pots and pans and chipped dishes
completed their possessions. And still, I am told that when they all sat
down to eat their poor meals my grandfather would look at all of them and say
"I'm the richest man in the village." When my grandfather and grandmother got
married he approached her in the morning and asked her if she wanted to get
married telling her that the loft of the padrone's barn had become vacant and
they could live there. They went and got the village priest, he married
them; they went home to her parents who gave them a small sack ("un
sachetto") of chestnut flour and to his family who gave them a small piece
of cheese. These are my roots -- and they probably are very similar to
yours.
Nonna Velma Pagliassotti
