From the province of Biella oh yes an embrace to all the chersini scattered throughout the world, together with the story of her family and of her long life, is her daughter Maria Giustina, with whom she lives, who submitted these writings.
The Memory: remembering, recounting…
the aches more as the time flies, distorts, cancels or fixes sharply the
facts, persons and objects…
and the pain of remembrances produces a strange mishmash.
The story of my family: from Venice then Cherso and on to America
With the happenings in my life one could write a romantic story with some historical background including some of it “yellow”.
We could begin from the first half of the 18th century when the grandfather of my mother, Maria Valentin, who was then in economic difficulty, left Venice and moved to Cherso. Shipping merchandise across the Adriatic sea with a sailing ship in such a poor shape that one day it sank with all its cargo,
Counting its dead and debts, a conflict between the widows and the only survivor (my grandfather). A contested store, a shoe making laboratory [from it the nickname Polacco (Pollack)?], a bar / pastry shop: the start-ups were many and diverse, the failures likewise… ever increasing mouths to feed and new misfortunes are adding up. Because my grandmother died young leaving six children at a tender age; my mother was not yet 12 when she had to tend her younger brothers.
My mother was a determined woman and, in 1906, father dead and the brothers all set, had no doubts: lock up the house and leave everything in order to accompany her sister Giuseppina to the United States, so that with her little girl who, while growing up, and was beginning to forget her father, can join her husband. She had the fortune of traveling first class because her brother-in-law saw to it that they should travel comfortably. She knew that she is going in a new world, whose language is unknown to her, but she also knows that she will live in a dignified house and be part of the family.. Anyway, she is a strong woman who is not afraid of the unknown because she has faith in the holy Providence.
During the voyage, however, she can not help not to see those who were crammed in the cargo holds, sleeping with the head resting on their possessions. They are mostly young men, but there are also women and children. On their eyes the silent tears shows the sorrow for what they left behind and the hope of finding what they are searching for.
My mother does not know it yet, but among those people is her future husband, Nicolo` Chersi.
Another family, another story: a piece of land so small and of low productivity which is not enough to feed everybody; the older son has no choice but to find bread someplace else. Born on the same land, leaving from the same harbor, on the same ship and have the same goal, but do not know each other. Their story intertwines after only several months, on the other side of the Ocean, because the brother-in-law of my mother works in a foundry and the two sisters, to make ends meet, rent rooms to some of her co-workers. He is among them.
Mother and father are getting Married
The marriage, my birth and then that of my sister do not change much the American life of my mother. She continues running the boarding house as a large family so as to lighten its compatriot residents load of being far away from their home. She is the one who reads to the men the letters which comes from Istria and Dalmatia and is she who, under dictation, writes back; she who always helps celebrates their traditional feasts…
And she does not like living in America !
She does not want her daughters to grow up in a society where it seems there is lack of work, and is a bit adventurous and, above all, does not like her surroundings and the climate. She misses the sun, the sea, the olive trees, fig trees, the odorous salvia bushes… and the northern winds (bora)…
The return to Cherso
In 1913, with the same determination with which she decided to leave, my mother decided to go back.
Repacks the suitcases, packs her good set of dishes, glasses, and her wedding’s linen, but agreed with her husband that within two years he will also rejoin them; takes her daughters and, without regrets, she makes the same voyage in the opposite direction.
The ship “Saxonia” glides on the Ocean’s waters which remains calm during its whole crossing. After a stopover in Naples, where my mother buys two coral necklaces, one for me and one for my sister, we arrive in Trieste where our aunt Antonia meets us.
She is my mother’s youngest sister. During her adolescence she was nearly adopted by the noble lady Maria de Zadro and lives with her, officially as governess and company dame, in reality a daughter. Spend their time between Cherso and Trieste with some brief sojourns in Vienna, where the Signorina (young lady Antonia), known to everybody as “Santula Marieta” who, for rights of House (as a member of the nobility), can frequent the Hapsburg’s court.
However, Santula Marietta does not care for frivolous living and prefers living in Cherso. It is there she prefers to live most of the year, in a refined apartment vis-à-vis the little church of San Gaetano.
From the rear of her apartment, through the garden, across a terrace, one can reach the house of my mother, the house she was living in before leaving for America. Here is where we are going to live.
I am just five years old and my sister three, and we are objects of curiosity: we are dressed differently than other children and when we go out everybody looks at us as “the Americans”.
While growing up, we maintain this “exoticness” partly because our aunt continues to send us, from America, the wearing apparels no longer needed by her daughters and above all their silk stockings: I am not exactly sure but I think we are the first ones, in the whole Cherso, to wear them.
The kitchen of “Santula Marietta”
I am fascinated by Santula Marietta and very curious of her apartment.
She iss a woman not tall and not a beauty, but very elegant of refined and gentle manners.
She never wanted to get married assuming that her dowry was more attractive to her suitors than she was…
She is always offering sweets and entertains me in her well padded boudoir. Among all the nieces of aunt Antonia I was her favorite because she says that I am quiet and educated, therefore I frequently cross the terrace, through her garden to reach the kitchen where aunt Antonia reigns supreme.
There is a large fireplace (foguler) in an arched niche in the wall; a sink made of stone with a wooden drain board and pails for water, which my aunt refills at the cistern. At its center is a large table and, leaning against the wall is an elegant cupboard with dishes storage. On both sides of the fireplace are some shelves on which are stored numerous copper pans, of varying sizes and forms, shined to a mirror like finish. Is a magic world of odors, colors and flavors. Frequenting this kitchen, a little at the time, I will learn the secrets of the culinary art and, as a young girl, will help my aunt prepare sumptuous cakes made with a dozzen eggs and half a kilogram of butter… and then pastries with various types of cream… the strudel… the prestiz… the fava and buzzolini… and then, during its season, fruits preserved in syrup “alcohol”, the “holy wine”… plus roasted lamb… pheasants and wild rabbit salmi`… and fish, lobsters, scampi and calamari….
The nice part of baking cakes and pastries is that for baking we have to go to a public bakery. Also the bread we prepare at home then go to the bakery - many years must go by before wood burning stoves with oven arrives in Cherso.
Meanwhile I like to help my mother when she roasts the barley (for brewing coffee) by rotating the long iron handle of the roaster over the open flame on the fireplace and I like then going to the cellar to grind it in the small stone mill.
The olives press (torcio) is in the cellar of the Tomaz: it needs several men to manually operate it… then the dazzlingly bright, and of a pleasant odor, oil comes out… we store it in the cellar in a large stone container (pila) from whence we retrieve in a small container and use it as needed. The remaining oil sediments at the bottom of the stone container is used as an ingredient when we make soap.
(To be continued)
Giovanna Chersi
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