Women's Portraits

Angelica Viadana

80-year-old woman, elementary school leaving-certificate, widow, one daughter.
She had always worked in the family bakery. Satisfied with her life, she considers important health and family and she wishes a quiet old age.

Interview

I like to remember my childhood and youth.
I remember when during the war (WW2), I was 10, in the barracks of Palestro street I was queuing with other children to have the ration remained to soldiers, when suddenly the alarm rang.  In spite of the general confusion I didn't want to leave the queue, I wanted at all costs bring home something to eat to my large family. While all the others were escaping, I stayed stubbornly there, and my doggie Fanny started to bark and to pull me by the skirt, so that I yielded and I went reluctantly away. That was my salvation, shortly after the barracks were bombed.
I always envied my sister, who worked as a dancer in the Macario's company; I wanted to be an actress. I won a beauty contest and another one for mannequins, but then I gave up this career, because I didn't have appropriate suits and I felt embarrassed.

Living in a family with many brothers, I couldn't carry out any of my interests, I had to start working very soon. Luckily, my job as a pastry confectioner that I started with my husband and his family, gave me the opportunity to learn a trade which gave me a lot of satisfactions.

I think family means growth, responsibility, sacrifice, ripening; to me had always represented a great value and a safe harbour.

I had only one daughter and I'm sorry that I couldn't realize my dream of a large family as it was my family of origin, but the hard work, without even a day of rest, and tiredness made it very difficult. I gave all the possible love to my daughter, who is now a middle-aged woman, but I regret I couldn't have more time to stay with her.

I had an important disease that entailed a stomach operation, it was a difficult period for me, because I was stopped in following my work as I wished, and that prostrated me.

When we were 60, we sold our business and we bought a cottage at Lido di Spina, 10 quiet years passed, we could give ourselves to gardening and to welcome our many friends. We played with cards, we cooked fish and together we had a lot of walks along the beach.

I often think with nostalgia to the past times, most of all the childhood.
The most difficult period was the passage from my family to my husband's one. To pay the debts we took on to start the bakery business we worked day and night.
I felt alone, we didn't have even the time to love each other.

In this period of my life I stay at home, I listen to the radio, I watch television and I give myself to my passion of writing short poems to describe my mood of that moment. When I get out with friends, we meet in a bar in the centre and sometimes we go to the cinema.

We need always to live for something, also in old age. During all my life I tried to let my family feel well, I loved a lot my husband, my daughter  and my “cur” Nico, who helped me living after the death of my husband.

I'd like to live as long as possible, I like life, to cultivate friendships and to still have the possibility of travelling sometimes with my daughter, maybe to the Caribbean, a place where I was happy with my husband.

My life was an alternation between lights and shades. I missed something: I regret I was not enough strong and resolute to oppose family choices that where imposed to me. In that times, it is understood, women were in subjection of their husbands and families.

I suggest to young people to have their experience in the world, to separate from their family and live on their own, but to preserve firm in their heart the love for the family and to cultivate seeds of friendship: these are the values that permit to pass with more strength over the difficult periods of life. I also suggest to take care of social and environmental problems, in order to create a more human and solid society.

Ida Piva