Grandma's Journal

My paternal grandmother took a trip to Italy to visit relatives and attempt to complete or come closer to completing our family tree.  She kept a journal during her travels and I received a typed copy after she went to be with the Lord.  It was beginning to fade and becoming difficult to read so I have typed it up, saved it in several places and am sharing it here.  My grandmother's trip to discover the family tree:

My Trip to Italy

by
Luella Motto ******

Wednesday, June 17, 1981:
     We left Montrose on time; also Denver. Because of possible air controllers strike in Italy, we sat on the airplane in New York nearly two (2) hours before we took off.


Thursday, June 18, 1981:
    We made up some time, but were still over an hour late getting into Milan. We missed the train and had to wait an hour to leave Milan for Turin. The next train out of Turin to Ivrea was nearly an hour late. Instead of arriving in Ivrea at 3:30 we arrived after 6 p.m. Rina Motto Chiono and her daughter Laura and grandson, Martino, met us. They had come to meet the train three times.
    Rina has two children – Laura, (pronounced with an ou sound like “ouch”) is married to Ignazio Sarlo; they have one child, Martino. Rina’s son is Giacomo (pronounced Jackamo), his wife is Paula (also with an “ouch” sound)). They have two children; daughter – Maura, and son – Walter. Laura and her husband both teach and Giacomo works for the telephone co. They all live in modern apartment buildings. Rina has lived in hers for thirty years and owns her own apartment. Her son and family live in the same building. Her daughter and family live across the street. Rina’s husband worked for the Ollivetti Co. The company built the apartment building and sold the apartments to employees reasonably, it was like paying rent. Her husband died in 1974.
    The apartment is small but very comfortable. The steps are made of marble. The stove is combination gas and electric, with a cover for the top so you can use it for work space. Rina says she mostly uses gas because it is cheaper. There is what looks like a cupboard over the sink, but it is really the dish drainer. You wash and rinse the dishes, let them drain on the drainboard a minute; then put them in the cupboard drainer to finish drying out of sight & out of the way. There is an automatic washer in the bathroom. A small bathtub with a built in seat and a shower on a hose. You sit on the seat and shower yourself off. The bidette sits next to the toilet.
    There is a little balcony that you can go out to from the living room and also from the master bedroom. There are clothes-lines just over the balcony rail. When we were coming along on the train, we thought people hung their clothes on the balcony rail, but we found at Rina’s the clotheslines extend just past the rail. Rina also has some clotheslines inside the balcony.

Friday, June 19, 1981:
    We had turkey steak dipped in egg then bread crumbs pressed in, rice cooked in broth and tomatoes and seasoned with herbs-mmm, salad of cooked string beans and potatoes with tomatoes, onion and garlic and vinegar and oil dressing.
    In the afternoon we napped and then went into the city, “uptown”-Ivrea’s town square, on the bus. We shopped in a department store much like any of ours and saw lots of specialty shops, quaint barrow streets-stone paved, and side walk café’s.
    In the evening we had supper with Paula and Giacomo-very good.
    Rina reminds me slightly of Katherine.

Saturday, June 20, 1981:   
    We were across the street to Laura’s apartment. It is larger than the ones in Rina’s building - has a full size bathtub, a large balcony and a small one. Then a man came in his new Renault and took us to Issigiio, Canavesi, where Rina’s family home is, and where my grandfather Motto grew up. Rina’s two bachelor brothers, Guiseppe and Peppino Motto, live in her family home. She has one end of it that is hers. It is in three parts, sort of apartments. The first is Rina’s, then the brothers’ place, then another that I think they have sold to some other people.
    This place is just like it has been for probably centuries. It is just like going back in time. The cows are kept on the ground floor, under the living quarters (upstairs); then the hay and “what have you” is stored on the third floor.
    We went to the cemetery where the ancestors are buried, but after so many years they dig up the graves, bury the remains deeper and bury more in their place.
    This country is full of Motto’s (pronounced Motto). There got to be so many that some of them changed Motto to Mottino to keep them separate.
    Rina got sick – (we had ice cream in the square yesterday and she shouldn’t have); so another cousin, Maria Motto – daughter of Placido Motto, Grandpa’s brother, took us to Carbogna. Carbogna is the name of the home on the hill where my Grandpa and his brothers and sisters grew up. His niece, Maria, Alta’s mother also grew up there. It is the last place up on the mountain. We walked up the old trail. The home at Carbogna has not been kept up. Rina and her brother, Guiseppi, say they don’t like to go up there because it is so run down. Madelina Motto, the crippled one, that grandma wrote to, lived out her life there. Grandma, Pete, martin, and Maria all deeded their shares of the property to her so that she would have a home there. Giovanni Guido, whose mother was a Motto and grew up in another part of the house, now lives there with his wife and two children. He is starting to fix it up. His mother and father still live there, too, but we found no one at home.
    The town of Issiglio is marvelous; just like it has been since granpa lived here. However, there are wealthy or well-to-do people who are building or fixing over old homes for vacation homes. So, I suppose in the not too many years, the charm of the olden times that is so prevelant now will be spoiled.
    We see very little of Peppino Motto. It seems he has a drinking problem and keeps to himself. However, he has been cutting the grass for hay today. They cut the wild grass, flowers, weeds and all for hay with a scythe, gather it in large squares of cloth and bring it in. The growth is lush with all kinds of flowers, grasses and weeds; when they get through cutting, the fields and hillsides look like mowed lawn. They cut it twice a summer.
    We eat on the lobia, a sort of combination porch and patio, very pleasant, but a little chilly. The table is old, home-made with a marble top, very heavy. The kitchen has a sink, gas hot plate and a coal-wood stove. The stove is modern looking, all white with a cover for the top for work space. The “bath” is on the ground floor, has a sink with cold water and a portable chemical toilet. I presume they empty it in the out-house nearby. The toilet seems to be for company; they use the out-house.
    So far, all of Italy has had very clear air. In Ivrea there are no screens on the doors or windows and not a fly, bug, or even an ant inside. There are no screens here either, but some flys and bugs, and I guess they get bad later in the summer.

Sunday, June 21, 1981:
    Alta’s cousin, Dante’ Cassietto, came to take us to his place. Just as we were ready to leave, Giovanni, his sone and mother and father came; so we got to see them for a few minutes. I was glad they came, because I did want to see Giovanni since he had written to Karen for several years and then to Gordon, too.
    We drove through more beautiful country. Dante’ took us to the top of a mountain where we could see on both sides, but it was foggy and we couldn’t see too much. There has been clouds and a haze, but they say it doesn’t rain very much. However, the dense greenery show that there is plenty of moisture. Dante and his wife, Marcella, have to little stores. One is in Vico and one in Trausella. They have a son, Sergio, and a daughter, Imra. They are very nice people.
    We went to see another of Alta’s cousins in the morning who is a lawyer and some more of her cousins in the afternoon.
    Marcella is a marvelous cook. We ate in courses, and they kept giving us food until we felt we could pop. We had rabbit and polenta for the main course at noon and fish that were filleted and fried in deep oil at night.
    There are living quarters with both stores. We ate at one and came to the other to sleep. They live in the one we ate in. Dante also works for the Ollevette Co. He reminds me of Larry.

Monday, June 22, 1981:
    Breakfast is almost non-existant in this country; they have some of their strong coffee and a sweet roll. Alta and I scrounge for what we can find.
    Alta and I helped Marcella get the store in order. I sorted fruit and stocked shelves. Produce is just set out in boxes, bread is brought in from the bakery, unwrapped, and put in bins. It is all hard crust and no one cares how dry it gets. When it gets too dry to eat, they set it aside and then grate it for breading.
    Dante’ took the day off and we went driving. We stopped for an older lady, cousin of Alta and Dante’. Then we went way up in the mountains to a place called Santuario D’Oropa, The Madonna of Europe. There is a statue of a black modonna and baby in a fantastic temple way up in the mountains. The lady said no one knows when the temple was built. Another newer temple that took thirty years to build, is sixty years old.
    It seems the temple and statue were build in honor of a lady who came from Africa during the plague. She took care of the sick and saved a lot of lives so they honored her in this way.
    The scenery going up to that place was so marvelous that words can’t describe it, a whole panorama of dense green with a castle on every hilltop and then a collection of houses with colored tile roofs below each castle. We also went through a beautiful resort place on a lake called Viverone.
    They dropped us at Rina’s on their way home. If we were to go home now, the trop would have been completely worth while.

Tuesday, June 23, 1981:
    We left Ivrea on the train early in the morning. I still can’t get over how green every thing is and how much indergrowth. The grasses, trees, and wild flowers grow right up to the railroad tracks. We had hoped to see a lot of the mediterrean coast, but we spent most of the time going through tunnels. We saw marble quarries, and lots of marble from little scraps to huge chunks to some ground up. Very interesting.
    We stopped at Pisa and went to see the leaning tower. It really is learning! I climbed to the next to the top place. It leans so much it makes climbing difficult and coming down is worse. From Pisa we came to Florence. We shared our compartment with a couple who had been stationed in Germna and are taking a trip before going home. It was nice to hear English for a while.
    We were heading for a taxi when a man asked what hotel-Alta told him and he led us to a mini-bus. We came to the hotel in it.
    For supper we walked down the street and had soup. I stopped at the desk and asked about calling home. The man said he would put it through and call the room. By the time I got there, the phone was ringing. Hope to have a restful night; we’ve had a long day.

Wednesday, June 24, 1981:
    Slept like a log; took an invigorating shower (the water was barely warm).
    We took a morning tour – very interesting. We saw the statue of “David”, and also a copy of the original; lots of art and fantastic buildings. The chapel is supposed to be the third largest in Europe. The Pitti Palace is really something. It and all the art work was left to the city by the last member of the Pitti family. We had planned to look into the local shops in the afternoon, but there is some kind of local celebrations and everything is closed, so, we did laundry and rested.
    The traffic in Italy is something. In the mountains so many people are walking and they walk al over the road; the reads are narrow and winding, so every time you go around a curve you honk the horn to warn the walkers to get out of the way. In the towns, the streets are also narrow and winding, and it is everyone for himself. If there is a speed limit, it is a fast one. Everyone goes scooting along about as fast as they can; if you want to cross, you wait for a break and then run. Only on the main streets of the cities is there an occasional traffic light. I have read about the Italian drivers, and it is true, Dante was a very good driver however.

Thursday, June 25, 1981:
    Today we took a full day tour. We went to San Gurnegnano, a town known for it’s towers, at one time it had 72 towers, now only 14. every family that could, had themselves a tower. It was once quite a city, but the plague killed off most of them and it never built back up. Then we went to Siena and saw a lot of statuary and art. The art is fantastic, especially when you think of the medium they worked with.

Friday, June 26, 1981:
    Woke up to rain. The hotel took care of our bus ticket to Venice. Either they didn’t schedule us right or the driver eliminated the trip to stop at Revenna. We arrived in Venice four hours early with rain coming down in sheets. We were on the bus with some people from Columbia, South America, who were coming to the same hotel. With so much confusion, we were glad to be with a crowd. The water taxi was like being in a sardine can – people packed tight.
    This room is smaller than the one in Florence. We did some walking, shopping, and a lot of looking. We can look down on a gondola “parking place” from our balcony.

Saturday, June 27, 1981:
    We had two tours, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The morning was of the square, the old government building, the afternoon, we took a gondola ride down the canals and then walked around to some old buildings and an old church.
    The fellows who steer the gondolas that dock below us are a noisy, happy bunch. It is interesting to watch them come and go. Accordion players who go along sometimes and play and sing – I suppose if you pay them.
    The bottoms of out feet are red from walking on the stone. Everything here is built on the water. There is either stone walkways, buildings or water – no ground. The city square is large and paved with marble.

    Venice dates back to the first century. It was built for protection from the barbarians.

Sunday, June 28, 1981:
    We took a boat trip to the Lagoon Islands – Marano, where they make glass; Burano, where they make lace; and Torcello, which is now mostly ruins. In Torcello there was a beautiful old church all decorated with flowers inside, also there was grass and trees on these islands. Here, where the hotesl is, everything is stone or marble. The only place anything grows is in window boxes. There are no vehicles, not even bicycles, in Venice. Gondolas glide along the canal streets; with an occasional small motor boat going along slowly, and ships on the grand canal.

Monday, June 29, 1981:
    We spent this day shopping around. I decided to buy a hand-made table cloth for myself and vases for gifts.

    We’ve wandered around enough that we pretty well know our way, now that it is time to go. We have enjoyed watching the people getting on the gondolas from our balcony.

Tuesday, June 30, 1981:
    We left Venice on schedule, but arrived at Desenzano one half hour late. We traveled through some prosperous looking towns and farm land.
    We thought we were taking a bus to the lake to take a steamer to Sirmione, but the bus took us to Sirmione. We could see our hotel from the bus stop so we walked to it.
    Lake Garda is beautiful. There is an old castle with a mote all they way around it. There was a big, beautiful swan swimming and taking a bath in the mote.
    We are back to where there are cars and motorcycles. We didn’t realize how nice it was to walk the streets without them until we got back to where they were.

Wednesday, July 1, 1981:
    We have a balcony looking out over the lake, very nice. We went into the old castle. It has walls two to three feet thick. The window opening start large on the inside but taper down to small slits in the wall on the outside. There is still a pile of the round stones they used for their catapult weapons. We took a walk along the shore and up the hillside to a park. This place is nice but a little boring. It seems to be a place for the rich to come and play. There are mineral springs that people come to for baths.

Thursday, July 2, 1981:
    We took a streamer up the lake to Riva and back. There are some fantastic, majestic peeaked mountains up at that end of the lake. It was a very enjoyable trip. We met a lady, Eva Metzker, from San Francisco; who is traveling alone and enjoying herself very much – a very nice lady.

Friday, July 3, 1981:
    We took a bus back to Desenzano and the train to Milan. A lady who had ridden in the compartment with us helped (scurried) us out to a taxi; so we got to the hotel with no trouble at all.
   Milan is a city like any city only with narrow streets and hectic traffic; typical Italian traffic, uncontrolled and every man for himself – in or out of a vehicle.
   We decided we couldn’t afford any meals except breakfast, wich is furnished in this hotel. So, we went looking for another place. The only one we found was closed, but we had seen a deli – catessan. We went back there and bought chicken, beans, squash, bread, and cheese, and fruit at a fruit stand. We had plenty to eat and enough for another meal. There is a little refrigerator in our room; so, we can keep the left-overs in there.

Saturday, July 4, 1981:
    You can help yourself to what you want for breakfast, so we decided to eat a big breakfast. Then we went back to the deli and bought enough food for another meal or two.
    We took a tour of the city of Milan in the afternoon. We saw the opera house; it is beautiful inside, red velvet on the chairs and plush carpeting. We went to the museum where the original painting of the “last Supper” is painted on the wall. That museum was bombed during World War II, but the “Last Supper” and the painting on the opposite wall were left in tact. The building has bee rebuild and you can see where it has been redone over parts of the old walls.

Sunday, July 5, 1981:
    At breakfast there were some people form Denver who had been on a Mediterranean cruise. They had had a wonderful time and recommended it.
    We went to Sunday services in the temple. It is very beautiful – all white marble with tall spires.
    Antonella Bonatti, a girl Alta met when she was in Rome, came with her mother to visit. We went to dinner at a nice cafeteria in the square, and then came back to the hotel to visit. We then went back to the square and had ice cream before they took the subway home. They make the best ice cream in Italy; clear, true flavors and no sticky additives like we have at home. Clear, true flavors and no sticky additives like we have at home.
    It seems the thing to do in Italy on Sunday afternoon is to go walking in the square. The people weren’t quite so thick here in Milan as they were in Venice. The Sunday we were in Venice I went to the square in the afternoon to buy slides, and the people were so thick you could hardly get through.

Monday, July 6, 1981:
    The hotel help is on strike, so there was no breakfast and no maid service. We went out and got us a roll for breakfast. We had planned to go shopping, but it seems the stores are closed on Monday until 4 p.m.
    We had enough food in the regrigerator for lunch and supper. We went shopping when the stores opened and I finished buying gifts.

Tuesday, July 7, 1981:
    We took a taxi to the airport. It was a long interesting ride. The plane left on schedule. Flying over the ocean isn’t very interesting; it looks like sky below as well as above.
    We got to New york on time. The new air terminal isn’t very well arranged and even more poorly equipped, but I presume they will get it equipped better in time.
    We would have arrived in Denver a little early, but because of the storm we circled Kansas City for a while, so we were a little late.
    We are quite tired. It has been 24 hours since we got up this morning.

Wednesday, July 8, 1981:
    Home again. The trip to Montrose was uneventful. Colorado looks awfully dry, especially when compared to the lush growth and green of Italy.
    It was a lovely trip. I would like to return someday to visit the family longer and see Turin. Maybe take the cruise that the Denver people we met in Milan had taken.

Inner Reflections

I finally made it to the counselor after a two month hiatus.  Not by choice really, just busy, time goes so fast sometimes.  Prior to and since the session I have had many instances in which I have relfected on several of my issues, spoke to the counselor about a couple and want to put the others here so I don't forget.  I shared during my session that there were things that I used to sneak, which I feel partially led to my food difficulties, and activities I engaged in as a child  

What I hadn't tried to discern was the reason for this need to sneak these things.  I have shared before that my mother was somewhat controling and I a very compliant child.  Although to hear her tell it I am not at all compliant but very strong willed & stubborn.  This control carried over into emotional control.  It was not uncommon to be told that 'if you don't have something to cry about, then I'll give you something to cry about.'  Many times my tears came from fear, anger, frustration, a minor injury or the knowledge that I had done something wrong.  Yes, this strong-willed child often told on herself rather than being found out and punished. 

Even as a teenager I would have times when I would cry, not knowing why.  When asked what was wrong, if I didn't have a 'valid' reason for the tears or coudn't voice immediately what had prompted the emotion then the tears were dismissed.  The times I would try to discuss the lonliness, feelings of depression, my weakening self-confidence, or any number of other emotional issues I was dismissed with stories of her own, current difficulties, told to buck-up 'cause there's no running from our issues and I was reminded to get in fellowship with God and pray about it.  What I have realized since my counseling session is the possible reason behind the sneaky activities in which I engage(d). 

Before I go there: I shared in an earlier post that my mother-in-law suggested that I beat the bed with a broom stick or the tub with a wet towel until I was unable to lift my arms.  My counselor asked me what I thought of this and if I thought it would serve the purpose - release all the pent-up emotions in this apparent pressure cooker I call a body.  Honestly, the thought of doing such a thing seems strange and even if I did it when JT and Kry were not at home I don't think it would be helpful.  It is an artificial setting and I have repressed my emotions (I think it is most often anger) for so long that I don't know how to 'let go' in such a way to allow this kind of exercise to be helpful.  I need to be in a vulnerable state already, on that verge of bursting, for it to be anything other than an futile exercise.

All things considered, and yes I have purposfully been vague on some aspects of this thought process, I think it may have been so that I could finally have something that was in my control and it helped me feel/release those emotions without being told I needed to get in fellowship and pray.  Food gave me something to control, sneaking it provided a physical response and the other activities also worked to provide me an outlet for physically releasing these still foreign emotions.

The need to show no emotion, do the best job possible and keep everyone happy eventually makes for a numb feeling from which I can't seem to escape.  Sure, I can cry at a sad story but recently I have started to lose this control.  My health, both mental & physical, is suffering from this issue and must be resolved in order for there to be long term successfull healing.

'you're a preasure cooker ready to explode and we need to find a way for you to release your emotions'. My mother-in-law today after giving me a session and asking if I journal. Haven't been lately and no counseling either. Scheduled an appointment for next week. Round and round we go.