A STORY OF MY GRAND FATHER AND GRAND MOTHER…
Assuero Bendoni, Son of Raffaello and Margherita, was bon in Bibbiena on
7th august 1885, second-born son of six brothers and sisters: Bianca(=white), Assuero , Chiara (=light), Amedeo, Bruna(=dark).
Cecilia Giannini was born in Bibbiena on 13th april 1893 , third-born out of six
brothers —the last two from a different father: Pasquale, Gino, Cecilia, Emma,
Antonio (also called “Checco”) and Mirio (also called “Cadorna”).
Assuero was born soon after the epic deeds of the Risorgimento had
ended; he grew up in the little streets of Bibbiena: in winter people used to
run barefoot on the ice and in the snow to make feet inured to cold; there was
little work, families were big, they often had to write letters to the local
‘Podestà’ (=today, “major”) to ask for a reduction of taxes, or they could not
feed their children…
Assuero had brown hair, dark eyes, in imposing constitution; he was tall,
impulsive: at twenty years, betting with some friends, he had knocked a horse
down with a blow on the forehead…
In 1905 he left for the military service -that then lasted three years-
as a “grenadier” in Rome
In 1908, when he was twenty-three, he went back home but he did not
arrive in time to see his dying father for the last time.
During the journey he stopped in Arezzo Europe
in those days: he could see the famous challenge between Maremma (a little
region of south Tuscany
He was an orphan when he returned home; he was hardly able to find a job
in those miserable times, only occasional jobs, or even smuggling. So he left
for Germany
Meanwhile, his brother (nicknamed ‘minestrina’= little soup) had started
to run a small tavern in Bibbiena. One day, twenty-five-year-old Assuero
happened to be there when three drunks heavily molested a seventeen-year old
maid. Re hardly knew her by sight, but he took her part and soon the four men
started threatening, pushing and fighting; then one of the three drunks took a
knife from the watermelon bar. Assuero violently reacted and in the struggle
one of the men was wounded and lay down with his belly ripped up. Assuero ran
away, deeply frightened; for three days he hid himself, avoiding arrest; finally
he gave himself up, following his brother’s advice. He was soon tried and sentenced
to fifteen years’ imprisonment for homicide. From Arezzo Livorno
first, and finally to Asinara jail, in Sardinia .
In those years (1910-1911) the jail of Asinara was considered as a new model
prison, the most modern and avant-garde in Italy
Assuero was somehow lucky because convicts for homicide were usually
destined to work on the island during the day, only obliged to go back to their
cells in the evening. Assuero was assigned to the carpenter’s laboratory and
spent his conviction repairing doors, wardrobes, frames, carts everywhere on
the island.
The island: only the sound of the wind, of the sea, of the wild birds and dunkey…
Home was far away: to reach the island from the Casentino valley (here) people were compelled to travel for at
least 3 or 4 days. Bruna, his little sister, used to go and see him, the others
could not afford such a demanding journey. She brought news from Bibbiena, his
relatives and friends. Speaking was easier than writing, but speaking every
four or five months was too little indeed.
In those hard years the beauty of the island was perceptible only on
rare occasions; Asinara had then become the lazaret (=sea-“sickroom”) of Italy Asia
and Africa . People infected with the plague,
smallpox, yellow fever, cholera, malaria, typhus, were landed there; the
islanders were looked with suspicion by the Sardinians who feared infection.
Those were years of war, and nearly 30.000 Austrian, Croatian, Serbian
prisoners were deported to the island and lodged in temporary camps, in hot or cold
weather, thirsty, hungry, ill; one third of them died, and they were buried by
the convicts. All the island was a
mixture of different stories, fortunes, cultures; Asinara was in touch with a
much larger, harder and rougher world, sometimes tragically more poetic and
human than Assuero’s little valley in Tuscany.
Assuero became a trusty man for the prison director, and after eight
years he was released for good behaviour. But from the island he brought back a
gift that he would have certainly preferred to leave behind: he had tertiary
malaria and, for some years, every three days he was forced to bed, feverish,
taking quinine salt to reduce the symptoms of the disease.
But war had just finished, and the risk of dying on the battle front —
as it had happened to many of his friends and relatives — had vanished: all
things considered, his years at Asinara had been a gift from life....
In the meantime, Cecilia, the girl who accidentally had caused
everything, had been in service in a noble family of Chiavari, and she had
followed them to America Springfield Missouri
Now that Cecilia had come back, she started to work in the tavern gain:
after the war everything in Bibbiena, life itself, got back to the beginning.
It was about 1918-1919 when Assuero returned home; he was thirty-four years
old, and he had spent nearly ten years in another world. He was upset, and yet
he was happy to be home again. He met and had a good time with his friends, but
indeed, he found only few of them surviving. The war had caused too many
victims, and in the evening watches people used to tell stories of any kind.
Also Cecilia told her story at the tavern: she had been to America
America and Sardinia,
their stories mingled; their lives — which had already intersected in such a
dramatic way — got closer and finally they united.
Their future was
really uncertain, they had to cling to few basic things:
Assuero and Cecilia got married in 1923.
Elide and Jenny were bon from
their union in 1924 and 1927: maybe the first name was a memory of Asinara or Germany America
