My Italian Mamma and her Childhood Fun~

My mom grew up along the shores of beautiful Lago Maggiore, where the summers were spent at the lake and the winters were cold.  My mom learned to swim when she was a small child!!  This is a big deal because alot of women her age never learned this very important skill!  But being that she was raised on a lake, she spent her summers at the “colonnia” ~ a sort of summer camp!  Here they learned the side stroke – and this is the only stroke she has ever used!  She never put her head under water, but gliding along above the water became her forte!  Very elegant, I must say!  But….it was strictly forbidden to enter the water less than one hour after eating!  This was a big no no, which she carried on to me as a child…and boy was it hard having that restraint when all my friends would go swimming right after eating!  Part of this summer camp included embroidery lessons, too.  The nuns from the convent would teach these girls the fine art of embroidery, and they made some beautiful things.  Most of the items they embroidered were to be put away for their dowries!  Sheets, towels, pillow cases – all with beautiful stitchery.  A lot of these embroidered fineries had monograms on them…luckily my mom’s initials remained the same, even after marriage!!

One winter, my mom’s friend got a sled and, of course, the kids wanted to try it.  So they dragged it up one of the steepest hills in their town.  This was the slope of a monument that went from the main road in town all the way down to the lake – a nice long run.  The only problem is that at the end of the slope, where it met the lake, there was a decorative railing with cement posts.  Of course, being children, they just saw the huge hill and knew it would be a thrill!  But, they didn’t look at the end of the path…One behind the other on the sled, with my mom in front, they took off down the hill!  When they got down to the bottom, after picking up quite a bit of speed, they found themselves heading right for the cement railing!  My mom’s guardian angel was definitely on duty that day because my mom’s head aimed right for the space between the posts and avoided a head on collision with the cement posts!!!  Needless to say, that was the last time she went sledding!!

Summertime view of the "deathly" sled run

My mom seemed to get herself into physical trouble quite a bit (or maybe these are just those memories that make for good stories), and she has the scars to prove it.  One day, while her and her sister were walking to school, hand in hand, a person riding a bike and with a chicken coop on the front of the handle bars came up behind them.  Because the chicken coop was blocking the person’s view, he did not see my mom (since she was small and not tall enough to be visible above the coop!)  He knocked her over while the chicken coop fell and all the chickens fluttered about!  My mom has a pretty good scar behind her ear from this mishap.  Her mom actually passed out when she saw her from all the blood gushing from the back of her ear 😦

And then, the last mishap occurred with a bunch of big dogs!  My mom has always been afraid of dogs and it probably stemmed from this incident.  She was riding her bike home from school and came around a corner.  As she turned the corner, two BIG dogs came out and attacked her!  I’m not sure what they did to her, but obviously she fell off her bike and gashed her head…once again.  She has some scars, luckily close to the hair line in the back, from this incident!

It’s a miracle she survived her childhood…but, like all of us, these are those memories that make you remember those childhood days 🙂

My Italian Mamma!

Those I tell my stories to about my mom say that I should share them!  So, over a series of several posts, I will pass on some tidbits about her:  her life in Italy before she immigrated, and also her life now as an Italian/American.  Her stories always mesmerize me because they depict so vividly what life was like before all those modern conveniences we so take for granted – how much harder, but at the same time, how so much simpler it was back then.  It’s like a living history movie, and because I know the locales she talks about, it brings it to life for me.  I have been to the home where she grew up – it is still there and it is in the “old town”.  Therefore, the insides can be modernized but the outside has  remained the same as when she lived there.

My mom is turning 80 this year, so if you do the math, she was born in 1931.  Her early childhood memories are not as vivid as those of her teenage years, but interesting to say the least.  She was the youngest of 3 daughters, and by far, the most vivacious.  Because she was the baby, she was also a little bit spoiled!  (Well, about as spoiled as you can be when there is barely any food to go around!)  She was actually the only one of the girls born in a hospital because her mother suffered from asthma (or at least that’s what they called it then).  During her early childhood, the family moved from the Veneto region to Lombardy, on the  shores of Lago Maggiore.  This is where all her memories are from.

When she was nine years old, her mother passed away.  Her father was left raising three daughters on his own.  Grandpa and an uncle lived with them at that time – now,whether that was good or bad is hard to say, because my mom’s oldest sister, who was only 15 at the time, had to wash and clean for all these men and her two sisters.  She instantly became the “mother” of the family.  Fortunately, her father was a good cook so he took over the cooking duties of his family.

When my mom was in the 2nd grade, she had an unfortunate accident.  Her sister and her were in charge of cutting some wood to use in their wood burning stove (which heated their living area).  While my mom was holding the wood, her sister chopped off the tip of my mom’s middle finger!!!  Ouch!!!  Luckily, the bone was fine – fortunately, she had only gotten the tip.  But because it was her right hand, she couldn’t write until it healed.  Schools were tough back then, and because she couldn’t write, they made her repeat the 2nd grade!  (as a side note, my mom told me that if someone was left handed, they would force them to learn to use their right hand – left handedness was NOT ALLOWED!)  To this day, my mom reminds her sister of this incident and shows her her shortened middle finger!

Another story deals with food and the rations that was put on food around the time of World War II.  One of the food items rationed was jam.  This particular day, her and her sister were in charge of going to pick up the month’s supply of jam.  It just so happened that the jam being given out was cherry jam.  Yum! My mom and her sister were kind of hungry, so they thought it would be OK if they sampled some on their way home.  One bite for her, one bite for her sister….and before you know it, all the jam was gone!  Gone was their ration for the whole month!  I’m sure they got an ear full when they got home, but maybe it was worth it 🙂

I wish I had some photos to post of her as a little girl, but unfortunately, the only photos they had were some rare professional ones – AND HER SISTER THREW THEM AWAY!!!  I can’t believe that these would not be treasured items!  If only I could have them now!  So, instead, I will post some pictures of the town she grew up in the shores of Lago Maggiore.  What a gorgeous place to live…and so many of her memories center around this beautiful lake.

The Art of Majolica Painting….and Me :)

Majolica painting in Deruta  Spring City, UT this past weekend!  What an experience it was!  Gina from Art and Alfalfa was my teacher – and what an inspiration she is.  Gina studied with the great masters in Deruta and is an expert in the art of majolica!  Her home, which she and her husband built, sits on a large alfalfa farm…and it looks just like a Palladian villa in Italy!  Stepping into her home, you feel like you have been transported across the Atlantic Ocean!

My lessons with Gina began with learning the necessary brush strokes and the use of liner brushes.  We progressed to transferring patterns to bisque, and then using pigments to color in the design.  I learned techniques to create depth, shadow, and even age, to the design. I also learned ways to use the tools I already had at my disposal when I do my cuerda seca tiles! 

During my all day lesson, I created five beautiful tiles (even if I do say so myself) and two bowls!  I cannot wait to see the finished products after they have been fired in the kiln!  Thanks to Gina for her wonderful guidance – and thanks for all the hospitality 🙂

Here are some pictures of my unfired pieces.  I will follow up with pictures of the finished product 🙂

Death at La Fenice…A Book Review

Death At La Fenice by Donna Leon is part of series of detective novels featuring the endearing Commissario Guido Brunetti. This particular story involves a world-reknowned conductor, and his death by cyanide poisoning during the intermission of La Traviata at La Fenice in Venice. As Brunetti tries to piece together evidence to find the culprit of this crime, he learns more and more about the famed conductor’s life. He comes to realize that he had many enemies, and his past was filled with heinous secrets. There were many who could be responsible for wanting to see his demise, despite the reverence that the musical community had for his conducting genius.

The book was fast paced and kept me interested throughout. The descriptions of winter in Venice, with its bone-chilling dampness and thick pea-soup fog, were so realistic that I could feel the chill coming through the words.

I can highly recommend this book, and look forward to more stories about Comm. Brunetti.

This book was read as part of Italy in Books Challenge 2011.