Dear Readers,
June, a popular month for weddings, is a good time to share this true “love story”, written by Roland Bianchi, with you. Long-time readers may recall that Bianchi, a retired banker, is also the author of Tunes From a Tuscan Guitar, the true story of his granfather Ottorino Bianchi, who came to the Unites States in search of the American dream.
His “dream” got off to a shaky start when he arrived in San Francisco in 1906, the year of the big earthquake. Roland Bianchi grew up in San Francisco, and his first job was delivering groceries for his uncle’s market “Guidi Brothers” on Filbert and Octavia Streets. Bianchi’s book Delivery Boy was a joyous recollection of facts, fun and foibles of people met while delivering groceries for the Guidi Bros. Market in the Marina District of San Francisco.
In 2009, Bianchi, who had received a B.S. in Banking and had worked for Bank of America, becoming a vice president before his retrement, wrote the book Re CAL Lections of a Bear(the Cal mascot). His time at U.C. Berkeley, his fraternity pranks, his attendance at Cal home footbal games for over sixty years, provided insights into the life of students with an “Italian Connection” successfully adjusting to academia and prestigious colleges.
I have been a fan of Roland Bianchi’s writing since the early 1990’s when he published Tunes for a Tuscan Guitar and The Migration of Moro, about the coming-to-America experiences of both his maternal and paternal grandparents from Tuscany.
His next book, still a work in progress, will be a collection of “love stories”, with an Italian Connection and mostly happy endings like this romantic love story about a Lady from Lucca: “The Heroine, Ida Lucchesi, was the youngest of my Mom’s aunts and uncles. She lived in Lucca, Italy back in the 1900’s, a maiden lady domestic hotel worker. Her misfortune for being illiterate relegated her to resign to her social status while six of her siblings ventured to America to escape poverty.
At age 50, Ida endured living on the family farm to which she contributed her meager earnings from the Hotel that hired her to clean, cook and cater to the successful and rich Italians who annually came back from America to vacation and brag about their successes. One of these vacationers was the widowed Matriarch of the Petri Wine dynasty that spearheaded the California Wine Industry.
Signora Petri was about 70 years old at the time. On her trips to Lucca, she stayed in a suite at the Hotel where Ida worked and insisted that no one other than Ida tend to her needs. The two became fast friends and one day Mrs. Petri offered Ida an opportunity she couldn’t refuse.
“Come with me to America,” said Mrs. Petri. “I’ll pay your way and you can care for me. My family is so engrossed with their wine production, they have little time for an old lady like me. I will pay you a fair salary and promise that when I die, I’ll leave you a small inheritance to return to Italy or to remain in America.” Ida’s choice was a no-brainer. Tending to Mrs. Petri in America had to be better than changing sheets in Lucca.
The deal was struck and for the next few years, my Mom would take me to visit her aunt and Mrs. Petri in an art deco home on upper Grant Ave. in San Francisco. I was 10 years old in 1940 and Mrs. Petri regaled in my visits because I could speak to her in Italian and her own grandchildren could not. Though I hated visiting two old ladies, I usually walked away with Ghirardelli chocolate bars while my Mom carted off a couple of bottles of the latest vintage of Petri wine.
Signora Petri died in her late seventies when Ida was close to sixty years old. I remember Mom trying to persuade her aunt Ida to remain in San Francisco while my Mom attempted to find her employment. Job opportunities for a sixty-year-old illiterate on a temporary visa was a mis- sion impossible. But fate intervened. While Ida was attending a St. Peter and Pauls’ Church function at the Italian Athletic Club in North Beach, she found herself seated across the family style dinner table from a gentleman in his seventies.
His name was Archie Maracci. Conversations revealed that Archie was the plant manager of the California Drum and Box Company of Santa Cruz. He was a bachelor all his life, growing up on farms on the Monterey Peninsula. Archie began working at the box factory as a young man and ran every machine that manufactured bushel baskets, lettuce crates and specialized containers to transport California food products to the East Coast.
His mechanical acumen eventually promoted him to plant manager and he never retired. Archie proposed to Ida a week after their lunch at the Italian Athletic Club. My Mom’s first impression was that Ida chose marriage out of convenience, but she was wrong and learned that “love at first sight” could happen to individuals in the autumn of their years. Archie purchased a three bedroom house in Santa Cruz, ironically on Young Love Drive.
He and Ida orchestrated a lifestyle of unbelievable bliss. They honeymooned in Italy. Archie introduced Ida to his society friends in Santa Cruz. Ida, grateful for finding a loving spouse, used Signora Petri’s inheritance to commission a marble church altar for her little Parish Church back in Lucca. This was her way of thanking God for a kind and caring husband so late in life.
Ida liked to cook and she was good at it as I could attest when she and Archie invited my par- ents and me and farmer friends to Sunday gourmet dinners. I was about 13 years old when Zia Ida suggested to my Mom, “Why don’t you bring Rolandino here during his summer vacation. We can enjoy the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Or, while Archie is at work, we can drop Rolandino off at the beach. Archie has connections with the Chamber of Commerce. He can get Roland free passes to all the rides on the Boardwalk”.
My Dad never liked boardwaks. He grew up with Playland at the Beach in San Francisco. He wasn’t keen that his 13-year- old son should be spending time alone ogling girls in swimming suits. Eventually Dad admitted that the Santa Cruz Boardwalk had some class. Since its inception in 1910, as its 100 anniversary bears out, it could never have surived this long unless it kept up with the changing times.
My first summer in Santa Cruz, Mom would drop me off at the beach until she got tired of doing this and had my Dad deliver my two wheel bike for me. It was a 15-minute bike ride to the beach and I’d park it in a bike rack near the Merry-Go-Round. Because my bike was the old fashion balloon tire variety with fenders, no one would think of stealing it. My typical day at the beach was to check in at the salt water plunge that provided a locker for my clothes, pass the penny arcade where the salt water taffy was being pulled, then the bak- ery shop for breakfast and an apple turnover.
All this was free with Archie’s coupons. I then strolled to the fun house or roller coaste. By ten o’clock I was ready for a dip in the ocean or to play my ukelele while sizing up this year’s crop of girls who came to Santa Cruz with their parents to avoid the summer heat of Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield. My strumming attracted the curious and one day the concessionaire, who rented beach umbrellas.
“Look, kid,” he said to me, “you’re pretty good on that uke. Tell you what. I’ll lend you one of my umbrellas if you’ll play under it. My umbrellas say Rental on them and will give me advertising. In turn, you get shade.” I answered, “As long as I don’t have to stay under the umbrella all day, you got a deal.” I memorized a half-dozen songs on my ukelele, but had a song book for about a hundred popular hit parade tunes. What a way to meet people and girls my age. On Friday and Saturday nights, big bands came to the Coconut Grove.
Keye Kaiser, Xavier Cugat, Spike Jones and his City Slickers. The dance hall was in a rotunda above the penny arcade. For teen dances on Friday night you had to wear sport coats and ties. Girls carried dance cards you had to sign when you asked them to dance. I could use Archie’s coupons for the fifty cent admission charge or to buy a dance partner a coke. Parents and chaperons sat in balcony bleachers overlooking the dance floor, which discouraged close dancing.
Because I was short, my dance partners were mostly younger than me. By ten o’clock I got tired signing dance cards so I biked home to my Mom’s inqusition about whether I had been respecful, polite, and a good boy... Zia Ida passed away in her late sixties from stroke. A few years later Archie missed his bride so much, I think he died of a broken heart. In his will, he left my Mom $10,000 in grati-tude for supporting his marriage and contributing to his happiness in the sunset of his years...”
