The small things are what make us who we are.
My little old
Italian grandmother stood perhaps, only, four feet 7 inches tall,
yet she was a little power house of passion. Her name was
Rosa. We grandchildren called her Mamma Rosida, a Sicilian
pronunciation. She looked absolutely sweet and harmless, as she
sat, eyes lowered with her arms folded, or her hands
clasped. The only clue of her real mental activity was that
sometimes her thumbs were twiddling in expectation and awareness of
some opportunity. It was when she opened her eyes
and looked at you that you felt like exploding from the energy that
came shooting out of her eyes. Me, she could wither with a
glance. She had amazing peripheral vision. I stayed with her all
summers during school vacations because my mother
worked. I would be transported by car with some cousin from our
New York city apartment to her coal town Pennsylvania house as soon
as school ended in June. There was no discussion about it, it
just was, and I went.
Needless to
say, I learned most of what I know from her. There was no
fooling around. She was all business. Whatever she was
doing she was totally focused and distractions were dealt with
immediately with a swift click of her middle finger against some
part of my head, or a pinch anywhere she could reach. On the
other hand, she had a great sense of humor and could tell stories
that would leave her listeners doubled over with
laughter. Usually the stories were about members of the family
and their peculiar eccentricities which were exaggerated, as needed,
for the telling. I loved her stories. Every night I would
sit on a little stool, near her chair and listen to her regale about
her life growing up in Italy, falling in love with my grandfather,
and finally her trek to America with him.
She had a
peculiar way of always being ready for anything that could
happen. In those days, some women still wore corsets, the ones
that laced up. Every morning, after washing up, and the arduous
lacing of her corset, she would layer herself with the clothing she
was going to wear throughout the day. I could tell what her
agenda was by what she put on. She wasn't shy, she was Italian,
so, she dressed and undressed in front of me quite without
self-consciousness. I was only a child after all, like a piece
of furniture that didn't have eyes. Truthfully I would rather
not have seen the show, but there she was. She had had 10
children and everything sagged and overflowed. Over the corset,
she would put a great big bloomers. Next came a
slip. Around her waist she would put a homemade belt that had
little purses attached to long strips of material. That's where
she put her coin money, and other secret items, besides the dollars
she slipped between her breasts in her bra. Over the bloomers
and the belt and the slip, she would put the first layer of
clothing, which is what she would be wearing in the evening, if she
was going out or having company. That would be her dressy dress
which was always black. She always wore black in
public. Over that, she would wear her afternoon dress that
would meet and greet visitors to the house. Over that she would
put her house apron which she would wear to tidy things up and
general housekeeping, that's keeping her under dress
clean. Over that she would put her cooking apron which she only
wore while she was cooking or baking. It could get wet or full
of flour and taken off quickly if someone came to the door. So
there she was layered up for the day. As the day wore on, she
peeled. I always marveled at even why she did
that. I guess she figured she didn't have time to keep dressing
and undressing with all those babies she raised crying and fussing
most of the time. .
A day in the
life of Mamasi, which is what we ten grandkids called her, began
early in the a.m. I could hear her from the bed, which I
couldn't get out of by myself because it was so far from the
floor. I needed a foot stool to climb down on, so she took that
away until she was ready for me to come out of the bed, or I would
have to make a jump for it. I wasn't an adventurous little
tot. I could hear her splashing the water as she washed in the
only big kitchen sink. There was only cold running water
so she had to heat the water on the coal stove She began
her day with prayers sitting in her chair beside the coal stove she
had just replenished. Her book of prayers was all I ever saw
her read. She couldn't read English, she could hardly speak it
but she could add a column of figures before an old fashioned
calculator finished it’s crank. She would be in a kind of
meditation for about a half-hour before she slapped her thighs and
got up and went to work on the day.
She was like
a little bundle of dynamite as she scurried around the kitchen and
pantry down the hall. The pantry was in the inner wall
alongside the dining room and it contained all the staples like
flour, sugar, spices, smoked meats and sausages, and the
device’s used to cook and clean the house. There was also
a little special corner devoted to the medicine she gathered and
concocted. She would put on her cooking apron over the day
dress which was over the black dress which was over the corset and
she collected all the ingredients on the long dining room table
which was near the pantry wall, in order to start her baking and
cooking. I could guess what she was going to cook or bake by
the ingredients she assembled. The baking of bread and little
biscotti of all types was the usual fare. I was deemed her
assistant because I was there and couldn't be idle --
ever! There is where I learned never to say I was bored, even
in a time of no TV and when the radio only came on occasionally in
the evenings. If I said I was bored she would begin to shout
out in her Sicilian accent "wash the walls" or "sweep
the floors". Did I mention that she only spoke Italian
dialect? I spoke Italian, which my father taught me, but it was
Tuscan, what they taught in schools. She never went to
school. Understanding her was another laborious task that had
to be accomplished quickly or I was pulled over to a bucket or a
broom and then I got the idea. I kept busy helping her until
she sat down, which seemed like never.
Perhaps her
eyes spoke such volumes because she had to use her energy some way
to be understood in English. My cousins who, unlike me,
understood no Italian, learned to understand her,
however. She'd make an Italian proclamation, accompanied
by the relevant hand gesture and we went scooting off to do her
bidding, such as getting a bucket of coal, down in the basement, or
picking some basil from the garden, etc.
The company
that usually stopped by in the afternoons were women, mothers who
went to her for advice on their children's or family's
health. She was a midwife and a wise woman of sorts. She
had potions which she would concoct for specific ailments, so in
those days of few doctors, she was called on
frequently. Everyone knew her healing ways. The afternoon
visitors would come and I would watch as she cured a kid’s
worms or as she combined elements from the medicine portion of the
great pantry to create a salve to comfort a wound. Most of the
herbs she mixed together were from her garden. The people, who
were grateful, often didn't have money to pay, so they did each
other favors. They traded services instead of
money. Sometimes I would get a coin or two pushed into my hands
and my grandmother would object and tell me not to take it. I
reluctantly obeyed, at the time, but now I realize that a debt paid
with money is cheaper than the obligation it incurs without
payment. It was an Italian culture lesson.
When the
people had gone, at dinnertime, Mamasi, would take off her day
dress, and put on her cooking apron and sauté a small piece
of meat with salt instead of expensive olive oil, and make a salad
for dinner. When dinner was over, I washed the dishes and she
took off her apron and we sometimes went to visit one of her
daughters, as I was struggling with getting a little dress
on, she was all dressed and ready to go in her little black
dress, helping me.
When we got
home again, driven by one of my witty cousins, we would take off our
day clothes and put on our bedclothes, get washed and ready for
bed. She would sit in her easy chair by the coal stove and I
would perch nearby on the foot stool and listen to her say her daily
prayers in Italian from the book. After all the daily
recitations, I learned to read them also. I asked her why she
had to do it and she said that since her husband Carmino, died, when
she was in her thirties, she had devoted herself to God, like a nun,
but stayed in the home because she had children and grandchildren to
care for. She lived frugally and in a holy way all the days of
her life. The only luxury I ever saw on her was a pair of
diamond stud earrings that grandpa gave her. They were her
trademark, to me. A real diamond in the rough she was. The
best part of the evening was when she would tell me stories about
her life as a young girl in Italy. She could capture my
interest and then wield my emotions as she wished, in the
telling. She also told fables like parables about people, and
the dangers of life and the morals you learn from them, just
to scare me into being good. Storytelling was important in the
days that writing things down wasn’t common. You should have
heard the one about the devil hiding behind the mirror!
The small things are what make us who we are
