Women's Portraits

Francesca Pasolini

90-year-old woman, born in Cesena (Forlì), widow, she lives in Ferrara, 3 children and 3 grandchildren. Satisfied with her life even if she couldn't realize all her wishes.
For the future she hopes to preserve a good health and to have a peaceful death.

Interview

I do not have a good memory of my childhood, I love to remember the period after the war instead, the marriage, the children....

There is an important event of my childhood that I want to tell about.
When I was 7, while going to school on foot (about 2 km), I used to play throwing the wooden clogs ahead. One of the clogs fell down in the river in flood, so that I couldn't get it back. As I didn't have the possibility to have another pair of them, I stopped going to school.

When I was young I wished to become an hairdresser in order to fix my hair, that were too curly.
I couldn't realize my aspirations; first there was the war and we evacuated going to an uncle, there was a great poverty anyway and we had to think about how to survive, there was no place to realize our wishes.

I wished to have a family, not as large as the one of origin anyway (we were 10 children). I wanted 2 children, then 3 arrived. I'm happy about how I grew up them and I can always rely on them.

I lived with my husband for 55 years, he was a good father and a good husband; now that he's no more with us, I remember with pleasure also those things that I couldn't stand before.

I lived the period between my 40s and 60s in an ordinary and pleasant way, together with my husband, we started to travel, to go to restaurants, to go on holiday to the beach or to the mountains. In this period I also started to take care of my two first grandchildren.

I often think about my past and I become nostalgic.
The most difficult period of my life were the first 10 years of marriage, World War 2 was just finished and there were a lot of money problems.
We didn't have food enough and we were 5 people living in 2 rooms without restroom.

Now I spend a lot of time reading novels and newspapers, moreover I'm used to playing cards with my friends.
My project for the future is a trip to Switzerland to pay a visit to my sister, I hope anyway to go on in aging well. I'd like to die without realizing it, without suffering. Sometimes when I go to bed I think it could be good to sleep forever in the big sleep.

On the whole I think I lived quite well, the main values for me were family, health, wealth and friendship.

I think that nowadays life in Italy is very difficult, maybe more than when I was young (in spite of poverty); to my grandchildren I counsel to behave well, to choose good and honest friends, who are respectful of everybody, especially old-aged people.

Saura Rabuiti