Giulia Rachele Maggi.

She was born in Milan in 1947, and she spent my childhood summers in the Bergamo province, both in Lombardy, Northern Italy. She now lives in the Pesaro, Marche Region of Italy. She found our Story Project on the Internet and submitted this memory of her childhood.

Lombardy Summers

I’m an Italian woman, born in 1947 in Milan, in Northern Italy. I lived in a big city, but every summer, and I mean from June till September, I and my younger sister were sent to the village where my granny and aunts lived . The place in the country where I went during these childhood summers was the Lombardy Region,   Province Bergamo, in the mountain district north west of the Lake Iseo. For us, it was a complete change: in the city, we stayed most of the time at school or at home, never went about unsupervised, we were always well dressed middle class little girls, and very well behaved (well, most of the time).

We travelled to the village by car, in a time when they were very rare in Italy, so this put us apart from local children, and we hated this. So we were eagerly waiting to “go native” as soon as possible ! This did not happen immediately, but in stages. In the first few days, this was not possible, as Dad, who had driven us up the hills to the village, was still there. He wanted his little girls smartly dressed and tidy and clean, even there! As much as we loved our Dad, we anxiously waited for his departure, as this would mean for us a degree of freedom we could not even hope to enjoy otherwise. We hadn’t to wait long, as after a couple of days, Dad usually left to go back home to work, and so we gained significant freedom.

The first thing we did, was to kick off our shoes! I still remember the freedom feeling it gave us running about all day in light clothing, and barefoot. Well, the first few days were not so easy, but before long we were able to go everywhere with all the local children. Mom, too, settled in the way of life she had known as a child, and which had not changed in the meantime.

Mom stayed with us for some more days, and then she left, too, she didn’t want to leave Dad alone in the big city, exposed to all kind of temptations. The moment she left, we entered the second stage of our “liberation” process: we went on to live the same life as our cousins and the other village children. We joined the other children in the band they formed. We bathed in a little creek nearby, were free to roam about the countryside, and only came back for lunch and dinner. They were poor, but they were much more interesting to stay with than the city children we played with the rest of the year.

(See pictures below)

 Rachele in the country as a little girl.

Rachele and her cousins enjoy the summer.

Even in the country, once a week the children cleaned up and put on Sunday clothes and shoes.