OF THESE AND THEE I SING, AMERICA!"
Filomena (Phyllis) Minnitti-Bilbo
34114 Polk Ranch Road
Coarsegold, CA 93614-9503
Phone #: (559) 683-6001
OF THESE AND THEE I SING, AMERICA!:
Yesteryears’ Old-Frontier, Multi-cultural, Immigrant WOMEN. Their down-to-earth, unsophisticated, overtly covert contributions toward making the United States of America a richer, stronger nation, by far~
By: Filomena (Phyllis) Minnitti-Bilbo
"OF THESE AND THEE I SING, AMERICA!"
CONTENTS
Dedication 3
Preface 4
Prologue 6
STORY:
Chapter I: Life in San Vincenzo 7
Chapter II: The Crossing 9
Chapter III The Promise 12
Chapter IV Life Begins Anew in Carbon County, Utah.
Chapter V John's Lot in Life
Chapter VI Jessomina's Lot in Life
Chapter VII Problem Solving ala Jessomina
Chapter VIII The Circus
Chapter IX Family Life in the Glen
Chapter X Westward Ho
Chapter XI Family Life in Fresno, California, USA
Chapter XII Life after Papa
Chapter XIII A Coveted Moment Realized
Chapter XIV Verse and Music, Music, Music
Chapter XV The Enchantment of Tambourines
Chapter XVI Another Goal Realized
Chapter XVII Law and Order
Chapter XVIII The Gloaming
Chapter XIV "Life-After-Life"
Epilogue
ILLUSTRATIONS
"OF THESE AND THEE I SING, AMERICA!"
By: Filomena (Phyllis) Minnitti-Bilbo
DEDICATION
Their like will not be seen again. Else they be forgotten, submerged ora-e-sempre (now-and-forever) in the "River of Centuries," this telling of "OF THESE AND THEE I SING, AMERICA!†is dedicated to the countless, scarcely common/uncommon, otherwise obscure, old frontier immigrant women, who, although, for the most part, formally uneducated and professionally unskilled, they, like their male counterparts, made America stronger and richer, by far, by their having unerringly played their backbone parts, insignificant as those parts may have seemed, in fostering America's extraordinary greatness, goodness, and growth.
PREFACE
“Of THESE AND THEE I SING, AMERICA!" is mostly about my mother, Gelsomina Isabella Marchese-Minnitti, whom I knew, always respected, and loved at least 95% of my waking hours, during the 64 years we savored our parent/child, love/hate/love relationship. She, too, like Abraham Lincoln, ". . . plucked thistles and planted flowers where (she) thought flowers would grow.â€
This tribute to “Mama†is also a tribute to the countless other immigrant women of her ilk and era (i.e., those stalwart women who, often at an early age, left hearths, homes, and loved ones to begin life anew in a newly emerging nation, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, “the fastest growing and most successful democracy in the world.†The high qualities of “courage, character, service, companionship, loyalty, adventure, necessary to the preservation and protection of the fundamental institutions of our government and the advancement of American society" were ingrained in the hearts, bodies, and minds of these remarkably resolute women. As such, those same qualities of “courage, character, service, companionship, loyalty, and adventure†unquestionably contributed, immeasurably, to the strength and greatness of our society, and our nation, at a crucial time in our nation's history.
Grateful to be living in the United States of America, the keen commitment, high hopes, and personal sacrifices of these stouthearted, purely industrious, virtuous women, whether they realized it or not, were, also, instrumental in making America strong and free, great and grand. They, too, were AMERICA. They, too, were, "the wind beneath (America's) wings."
Yet, these steadfast women, regardless of their ethnicities/origins, are destined to live forever as earth bound shadows, unless their existence is also recognized as having played a vital role in helping the Mighty Eagle soar. One would hope, therefore, that this better-late-than-never tribute may yet provide the necessary thrust required for earning these otherwise forgotten, down-to-earth, multi-cultural Americans the recognition they, too, justly and richly deserve in the annals of American history.
PROLOGUE
Gelsomina Isabella Marchese, born on Thursday, March 24, 1898, in the southern-most reaches of Italy's mainland, weathered her childhood in San Vincenzo La Costa, a small village nestled among like villages that dot the foothill apexes, slopes, and valleys of the Calabrese Apennines.
On Friday, May 15, 1914, by parental decree, fifteen year old Gelsomina, her fourteen year old sister, Rosina, and their terrestrial parent, Rafael, departed their old world, bound for the new—THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!
On Friday, March 10, 1989 (fourteen days shy of her ninety-first birthday) having voted and completed her spring house cleaning, and, as commanded by God, having been “a good and faithful (earth-bound) servant†to family, friends, and country; ergo, God, "Jessomina" Isabella Marchese-Minnitti , this time by Divine decree, accompanied now by her guardians, Grace and Uriel, secure in the curule of the iridescent-hued chariot, sent by her heavenly Father to fetch her, sat in queen-like manner as her eagle-borne sleigh banked east-by-southeast, then streaked into the heavens where, after a 91 year hiatus, Gelsomina Isabella, “home†again, would, at long last, like her counterparts, be reunited with her extended celestial “family,†henceforth, to dwell anew in her long-ago paradisaic world where Gelsomina Isabella, too, would yet again savor life anew.
"OF THESE AND THEE I SING, AMERICA!"
CHAPTER I
Life in San Vincenzo La Costa
As the eldest of what was to become a family of fourteen, responsibility assumption came early-on and swiftly for Gelsomina—her childhood spent, for the most part, in helping her mother, Angela Baldanza-Marchese, "mother" eight younger sisters and brothers.
For Gelsomina early childhood, childhood, and adolescence meant mandatory baby-sitting; cooking; washing clothes in a nearby stream; carrying water in large earthen vessels (balancing one on her head, another on a shoulder) from the town spring to her home and those of her paternal and maternal grandparents and neighbors; gathering mulberry branches for the silk worms they nurtured; running errands; playing games like "Hide-and-Seek," "Hopscotch," Bottone ("Buttons"); and generally developing a sound body and melodic vocal chords which she used daily to rouse the inhabitants of her sleepy San Vincenzo village; a sunny, happy, outgoing disposition; and a quasi-mischievous, fun-loving personality.
In addition to her role of budding parent, Gelsomina rose daily, long before dawn, to accompany her mother; her circumstantially "widowed" maternal grandmother (whose errant husband had gone to Argentina to “better their lot,†yet never returned); and other townswomen and children, into the hills to gather sarcinas (bundles) of wood, which they carried on their heads and, strength permitting, beneath both arms—after their hands had been freed of the bread and, if Necessity deemed it, onion sandwiches that sustained them before their return home.
A portion of the wood Gelsomina and her mother gathered fed Vesta's flames that flickered endlessly in the cavernous hearth and that heated their rock and mortar home, even as they warmed and blackened the ever-gurgling kettles/pots swagged over them. The remaining wood fueled the fires in the corpulent, municipal forni (dome-like, out-door “brick†ovens) where Gelsomina and her mother, the village baker, baked the thrice-risen dough they pummeled daily.
While learning, albeit unwittingly, about becoming a housewife and mother, Gelsomina also learned about planting herbs and vegetables in accordance with the dictates of a waning or waxing moon, a skill she exercised seasonally and successfully throughout her life. Her New World friends and neighbors (and Carbon County, Utah Fair judges, too,) told her she had a “green thumb,†a term she did not understand, but delighted in anyway. Vegetables and fruit for the body/Flowers for the soul were the rules-of-thumb "Jessomina" understood and lived by.
CHAPTER II
The Crossing
On Saturday, May 15, 1914, shepherded by their father, Rafael, fifteen year old Gelsomina and fourteen year old Rosina, dressed in hostile shoes and long, white, bustled petticoats, sheathed by long, dark dresses and shawls that swathed them from their dark, tightly braided, chignoned hair to their alien Cuban heels, having said their goodbyes the day before, left home, family, playmates, and their old world, if not their familiar way-of-life, behind; and in pre-dawn darkness, with mixed emotions in tow, they traveled north, by horse driven coach, to Naples, there to board the ocean liner Caserta, bound for Ellis Island, USA!
Although consigned to the Caserta's alien-designated “steerage†section, despite her initial home- and sea-sickness, having once boarded the Caserta, Gelsomina's curiosity, sparked by inquisitive, adventure-seeking greenish-blue eyes, invariably led her (if not Rosina, who, by nature, was too timid/too shy to venture-out, either on her own, or otherwise) from the Caserta’s “Cabin†section to its upper deck—the Caserta's first-class/â€Saloon†section!
Over a period of approximately ten days, the time it took to reach their initial destination, an endlessly curious Gelsomina learned of the existence of an entirely new and opulent way of life. Though sent below when discovered, Gelsomina, like a passerine swallow, returned time-and-again to the upper deck for more exploration, at more opportune times.
Luckily for the crew charged with separating the classes, the awesome LIBERTY—book in left hand, torch, held resolutely high in right hand, eventually appeared on the horizon and finally within view! According to "Jessomina," whose name changed from “Gelsomina,†(which in Italian meant “Little Jasmineâ€) to “Jessomina,†upon arriving in America for reasons unknown even to her, the joy and wondrous excitement of everyone, including those of the deck hands, who, over the years, had doubtless seen New York Harbor bound LIBERTY many times over, was boundless, a memorable joy that for Jessomina spanned three quarters of a century--the remainder of her life.
Thus, having savored what was to become the never-to-be-forgotten joy of their having seen Liberty, now Gelsomina and Rosina eagerly anticipated experiencing the limitless freedoms and opportunities Liberty allegedly offered—especially to women, or so they'd been told. Yet, to hear the story, on occasion, jokingly/reminiscently recalled, some of the more outspoken women who had accompanied their husbands on the trip would perhaps never experience Liberty's limitless freedoms or opportunities. Those unfortunate pilgrims had, it seems, taken literally the hearsay "truths" about American women’s abundant freedoms; for upon seeing the majestic Liberty, they purposely, or perhaps jokingly, declared: "Now that we're in America, we women are the bosses!†Alas, some, if not all, of those outspoken wives experienced the unexpected shock of being shipped back to their ports of origin by their husbands―or so the story went.
As for Mama and Rosina, basic arithmetic tests, disinfecting showers, medical examinations, immunization shots, Customs' clearances, etc., were all that stood in the way of their experiencing liberty first hand.
Freed at last of the fear of failing entry formalities at Ellis Island's Great Hall, Jessomina, Rose, and Rafael, who as a visitor feared only that his immigrant daughters might fail the required arithmetic tests, were finally free to board one of the sausage-like sections of an eructing (belching), steam spewing, dragon-like "monster," idly savoring its fill—its entrails sated with a cacophony of foreign sounds and what the girls described as "strange souls garbed in odd costumes, engaged in strange customs, and speaking in equally strange languages."
