Tag Archives: Family

Azores

Bom Dia from the Azores

After four days in Madeira, we landed in São Miguel, Azores, the island where my father’s parents lived before they emigrated to the U.S. My parents visited São Miguel in February 2000, which my mother wrote about in a small notebook I took on this trip.

The Azores has nine major islands in the Atlantic — about a thousand miles from Portugal and 2,400 miles from the U.S. As a child, I believed that’s where Atlantis was located.

Our daughter Emily joined Zack, Julia, Brian and us, arriving from Lisbon at the airport in Ponta Delgada within minutes of each other. I already posted about the food we ate. Let me share some of the highlights.

FARMS: While Madeira’s number one industry is tourism, it is agriculture on São Miguel, including fishing, of course. Yes, tourists come here, but they are not the center of attention. I saw large fields and herds of cows. It was corn season, as it was back in Western Mass. where we live. We visited a pineapple plantation, which grows the fruit in greenhouses. The island has a tea plantation — we brought back bags of green tea grown there.

FURNAS: The five of us rented a house in Furnas, located in the eastern most of three active trachytic volcanoes. (That was the view from the back porch.) It is a charming village, where people get bread delivered in the morning in bags tied to their front door. It was an easy walk down to the active part of the village where there were restaurants and shops. Coming back meant trudging up a hill. Still, the streets were wider than those in Madeira and not as steep.

The village’s center, where we were staying, had springs and geysers of varying temperatures and chemical compositions, some much too hot to touch. People who lived there used the hot springs for cooking, including bags of corn. There were pipes where you could collect mineral-rich water, even cold. The air from their steam smelled of sulphur and iron. 

The village has a hot springs spa, which we enjoyed one day.

HYDRANGEAS: The bushes grew all along the roads, a massive and impressive display of blue blossoms.

TILE WORK: I enjoyed the intricate tile work, often done as murals such as the one in the photo above. Also notable was the intricate stonework on walkways like the one in Ponta Delgada shown above. 

PORTUGAL VS. SCOTLAND: Brian was excited that we would be there when Portugal played Scotland in a UEFA Nations League game. We watched the opener in a small bar then saw the rest at the restaurant that broadcasted it on a wide screen TV. Cristiano Ronaldo, the football aka soccer superstar who grew up in Madeira, scored the winning goal.

SUNRISE AT NORDESTE: One morning, Hank and I got up before dawn to accompany Emily to Nordeste to watch the sunrise. To get a full view of the sunrise you need to either hike or drive down an insanely steep road (a sign at the top warns about driving). Emily, who snapped that photo above, walked farther than us.

MEN OUTSIDE COFFEE SHOPS AND BARS: It was common to see men smoking, gabbing, and drinking on tables outside coffee shops and bars. As in Madeira, people smoked openly in public.

AGUA DE PAU: This village was the former home for my grandparents. We attempted to visit the church Nossa Senhora dos Anjos (Our Lady of Angels), but it was locked. My parents attempted a visit three times, according to my mother’s travel diary. A feast honoring Nossa Senhora dos Anjos is held at the bottom of the street in Fairhaven, Mass., where I grew up. Four men from the village, grateful for making it safely to the U.S., had a life-sized statue of Mary carved from one piece of wood. The 700-pound statue is carried by men during a parade. My father was one of those men, and now my brother Tony is. I was sorry I couldn’t see inside the church, but I slipped my late mother’s memorial card in the door.

CATS: Unlike dogs, cats seemed welcome in restaurants and coffee shops. Of course, they are useful animals that help to keep down the rodent population. (We saw lots of bait stations in black plastic boxes.) But Hank, who is more than fond of the animal, seemed to attract them. When we ate lunch one afternoon, the table we chose had a cat sleeping on a chair. It woke up and climbed onto Hank’s lap. The cat stayed there throughout his meal, much to Hank’s delight as you can see above.

BEACHES: São Miguel has more than 20 volcanic, black sand beaches. Zack went swimming among the high waves at Ribera Grande, a popular place for surfers. We discovered the best beach in Agua de Pau on our way to the airport. Zack, who had brought along his bathing suit, took a swim and then let it to Hank.

MEETING PEOPLE WITH MY LAST NAME: My first last name is Medeiros, in which the ‘s’ is pronounced in the Azores as if it has an ‘h’ after it. I met several people with that last name, many of who had relatives in Massachusetts cities like Fall River. I learned later from my brother that my grandparents’ last name might have been Mattos, but was changed by immigration officials.

BUTTER: I forgot to mention the butter of Azores in my last post on food. Made from the milk of local cows, it is the best butter ever. I froze two large blocks, and when we flew back, I wrapped them in plastic inside my suitcase. I am saving them for special occasions.

THE END BUT NOT REALLY: Did I see and experience enough when I was in the Azores and Madeira? Hardly. But it made me excited to revisit, to explore more where my family came from, perhaps even to find family although I know many of them moved to other continents such as Africa and South America. I have been practicing Portuguese although many people speak English. Eu retornarei.

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Uncategorized

Bom Dia from Madeira

The roosters began crowing around 3 a.m. They kept it up as that first morning’s light grew, stirring the barking dogs in the neighborhood. Then the church bells started ringing on the hour and half hour. Bom dia from Funchal, Madeira.

I was on my first trip back to Europe after a very long time, thanks to our son Zack who generously bought Hank and I tickets on Azores Airlines. He came along with his sister, Julia and her friend, Brian. Julia handled finding us a short-term rental and car. This was the first leg. Next, we would fly to San Miguel in the Azores, where our daughter, Emily would join us.

Visiting these Portuguese islands has special significance because of my family’s origins there.

Today, tourism is the number one industry in Madeira. The tile-roofed and stuccoed-wall homes tucked into this island of volcanic origin, its tropical vegetation, and the ocean beyond are stunning. Madeira, only 360 miles from North Africa’s coast, is 34 miles long and 14 miles wide. Ruivo Peak tops at 6,106 feet — one of the destinations Zack, who likes challenges, ran on the island.

As we walked around Funchal that first day, servers, obviously recognizing us as tourists, waved menus to lure us into one of the city’s many restaurants. Friendly staff served us seafood and coffee. I had learned enough Portuguese to greet people politely and show my appreciation, but everyone we met spoke English.

Street scene in Funchal, Madeira.

But Madeira wasn’t a draw for tourists during the early 20th century when so many people, including my mother’s parents left for the U.S. (My father’s parents came from the Azores.) The island’s people were impoverished and there were economic opportunities elsewhere, such as New Bedford, Mass. with its textile and fishing industries. Grandmother Angela, or vovó as we called her, was 16 when she came by ship with her older sister. She met my grandfather Manuel, avô, who came from the village of Gaulo. Both worked in the textile mills and had a house with enough land to raise vegetables, grapes for wine, and hay for their goats.

That first day we explored Funchal’s center. A point of interest was a museum for Cristiano Ronaldo, the superstar football aka soccer player from Madeira who is a forward on the Portugal national team and Al-Nassr FC. Julia and Brian wanted to get shirts, especially since the Portugal team would be playing Scotland in a few days.

(I give kudos to Brian who managed driving a rental car that accommodated five people through the incredibly steep, narrow, and curvy streets of Funchal without a mishap.)

This trip, staying in a comfortable rental and eating seafood in restaurants, was a far cry from my first trip in Europe, when I hitchhiked, traveled on the money I had made washing dishes, and was taken in by perfect strangers. Someday I may write about that experience. But this trip was special, spending time with family exploring these Portuguese islands. For the next few posts, I will share my observations. Obrigada.

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Hilltown Postcards

Hilltown Postcard: We Buy a Piece of Land

Home ownership seemed to be an unreachable goal for our family. For many years, Hank and I had been restless souls, moving from one end of the country to another, even with all the kids we had. Then we moved to Worthington and enjoyed country living enough to set down roots.

Prices in homes had a big jump in the 1980s, nothing like the amounts we see now, but enough to put buying one out of our hands. The story I heard was that a property on River Road in West Worthington was sold for big bucks. Then everybody who had a house for sale, pulled it off the market and put it back on for a whole lot more money.

Our best bet would be to buy a piece of land and build a home to share with our six kids. 

Hank was doing his best to support us as a woodworker working freelance for contractors. I contributed a little as a correspondent for the local newspaper. We paid our bills on time, but we had zero credit. The only card we owned was one for JC Penny. That wouldn’t go far with a bank.

But then luck was on our side when I heard about a small piece of land, less than 3 acres on Williamsburg Road, that was selling for $20,000. Once owned by the Tower family, the lot was created long before the creation of the town’s zoning laws, which require 400 feet of frontage and a two-acre minimum. This one had 200 feet frontage, but was grandfathered in, as the saying goes.

The lot was mostly wooded with a small clearing and sloping driveway. It was surrounded on three sides by rough stonewalls put there long ago. I believe the Tower family once used the spot to contain farm animals. 

We scraped together enough money for the 10 percent down payment, and the Bank of Western Massachusetts, a local institution that no longer exists, gave us a loan. The closing date was July 28, 1987. 

That was a big, big day for us. 

Inspired, Hank got to work with his chainsaw cutting trees he decided could be used as lumber on our new home. He would have the logs milled locally, and a man who Hank had worked for, a newcomer with bucks, kindly offered to let the planks season in the top floor of his barn. I remember helping him unload and stack the lumber.

I recall the day we attempted to burn a pile of small branches and a useless picnic table. Hank and I had to work like mad with shovels to stop the fire spreading through tree roots of the pines. We were successful, but we wouldn’t be doing that again.

I decided to record our progress via photos. Above is a photo of our two youngest sons, Zack and Nate, so happy as they sit on one of the logs their father cut.

But the house’s construction didn’t happen until two years later. Something happened, something serious, that interfered with our plans. I’ll tell you about it next time.

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Memoir, Uncategorized

Father’s Day at the Mental Hospital

My grandfather was hauled off to a state mental hospital after he went after my grandmother with a hoe. The story goes my grandmother knocked him out with a bucket and thought he was dead. When the police came, he was taken away to one of the state mental hospitals that existed then. His diagnosis, I believe: clinical paranoia.

I didn’t see Vovô, as we kids called him, very often after that incident, but I recall visiting him at the hospital on Father’s Day. (Vovô was the grandfather on my mother’s side of the family, which included two sisters.)

On that day, my father drove our family to the hospital. My uncle brought his, which included my aunt and two cousins, plus my grandmother. One time, another aunt, my mother’s youngest sister, came.

The family brought Vovô a carton of cigarettes and made a picnic of the visit on the hospital grounds, with food, croquet, and a game of Wiffle Ball. Vovô insisted on taking us kids to the canteen for Hoodsie Cups ice cream and to introduce us to his friends. I felt half-afraid and half-curious by the experience.

By the way, the photo above is a family portrait my mother took on one of those visits. Vovô wears the suit. My grandmother, Vovó, sits on the bench holding my brother. I was only 12 and the girl on the far left.

Let me tell you a little about Vovô. He came over on the boat from Madeira when he was young and married my grandmother, who came from the same island, here. They worked in the textile mills of New Bedford, Massachusetts. A hard worker, during the Depression he bought a home in the small town of Acushnet, where the family grew and raised much of their food, plus took in boarders. He and my grandmother took English lessons and converted to a Protestant religion. Vovô made his two oldest daughters drop out of high school so they could work in the textile mills or watch the house when he and my grandmother were at work.

I don’t recall Vovô being a warm man. But then again, I imagine it was a huge adjustment emigrating to a new country and one so different than the Portuguese island where he once lived. One of my cousins told me recently our grandfather was bullied by his co-workers.

Vovô spent the last years of his life at Taunton State Hospital. He made a life for himself there. He had a job working in the laundry and even a girlfriend, whom we kids met one Father’s Day. She waited beside a tree on the grounds to meet us. My grandmother refused to divorce him.

He tried coming home once but that didn’t last long.

Vovô died while he watched a movie at the hospital. The lights came on and he was already gone. I went to the wake but not the funeral. I was a teenager then.

Years later, I worked and lived in a psychiatric halfway house, which took in patients from state and private hospitals. At that time, Massachusetts was closing its hospitals and placing people in such places. The staff was untrained and inexperienced. We were supposed to be role models and helpful roommates, I suppose. That experience inspired a novel I wrote, The Swanson Shuffle, but have yet to publish.

The halfway house’s staff had a ring of keys that unlocked every ward in the closest hospital, Foxborough State, so we could come and go freely. When I did, I thought of my grandfather and how he got used to living in one.

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Memory

Remembering Titi Ernie

My aunt’s first name is Ernestina, but I always called her Titi Ernie, a term of endearment I used since I was a small child instead of Tia. She is my mother’s sister, two years younger, the middle daughter of their parents who emigrated to the U.S. from the Portuguese island of Madeira. 

She left us May 31, just months shy of her 99th birthday. That is the photo of her that ran with her obituary.

At her wake Thursday, I shared a few memories, and now I will do that with you.

Titi Ernie was only four feet ten inches tall, so it was always a milestone when my siblings and I were the same height or taller. My own children celebrated that accomplishment.

She and Uncle Louis, and their two sons, Louis and Michael, lived next door to my grandmother Angela, or Avó, their homes separated by a large field that used to contain gardens. We visited them nearly every weekend it seemed, playing with our cousins, mostly Louis for me, since we were only born a month apart. In the summer, we stopped at the ocean-side cottage they owned after spending a full day at the beach.

Titi Ernie was always a gracious and kind person who welcomed us into her home. She remembered us at Christmas and birthdays with cash in a card. Recently, my children, now adults, recalled fondly the pineapple cream puffs she served them, playing on the rocky shoreline of the cottage, and her collection of penguins. I had to remind them to call her Titi Ernie and not Aunt Titi Ernie.

Later in life, when I had moved far away, I tried to visit Titi Ernie when I could, often accompanied by my mother. The sisters were very close.

There is much more I could say about Titi Ernie, but I want to tell you a memory I shared at her wake that no one else knew. I had just graduated from high school and was heading that fall to a state college thanks to the scholarships I received. I was the first of my father’s family to attend college and tied for first with Louis on my mother’s. I was going to major in English because secretly I wanted to be a writer. By the way, neither Titi Ernie or my mother graduated from high school. They were forced to drop out to work in a textile mill or to mind the house so my grandmother could work instead.

That summer, Titi Ernie asked me to tutor my cousin Michael. It was either in French or English, I can’t recall. But I walked to their home or got a ride. I only came a few times. But later that summer, Titi Ernie surprised me with the gift of a new typewriter. I recall it had a light blue plastic cover. The significance of that gift is important because I didn’t have a typewriter to take to college.

I kept that typewriter for many years after I graduated. I even used it when I was a rookie reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, as the correspondent for the hilltown where I lived, Worthington. I wrote my story on that machine then drove it to the newsroom in Northampton for someone else to type into the system. That ended soon when I was given a laptop that transmitted the story via a cord plugged into the phone jack.

I no longer have that typewriter, but I do the memory of that gift and the thoughtfulness of my Titi Ernie.

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