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Rosina, the Midwife
Between 1870 and 1970, twenty-six million Italians left their homeland and travelled to places like Canada, Australia, and the United States, in search of work. Many of them never returned to Italy.
Rosina, the Midwife traces the author's family history, from their roots in Calabria in the south of Italy to their new home in Canada. Against this historic background, comes the story of Rosina, a Calabrian matriarch and the author's great-great-grandmother, the only member of the Russo family to remain in Italy after the mass migration of the 1950s. With no formal training, but plenty of experience, Rosina worked as a midwife in an area where there was only one doctor to serve three villages. She was given the tools needed to deliver and baptize babies by the doctor and the local priest, and, over the course of her long career, she helped bring hundreds of infants into the world.
Enhancing the stories and memories passed down through her family with meticulous research, Kluthe has, with great insight, created not only Rosina's story, but also the entire Russo family's. We see her great-grandfather Generoso labouring through the harsh Edmonton winter to save enough money to buy passage to Canada for his wife and children; we glimpse her grandmother Rose huddled in a third-class cabin, sick from the motion of the boat that will carry her to a new land; and we watch, teary-eyed, as her great-great-grandmother Rosina is forced to say goodbye, one by one, to the people she loves.
The author's quest to find the details of Rosina's life, despite the separation of place and time and the uncertainty of memory, has created a poetic elsewhere story and a charming memoir that is at once a Canadian story and a Calabrian one.
Rosina, the Midwife traces the author's family history, from their roots in Calabria in the south of Italy to their new home in Canada. Against this historic background, comes the story of Rosina, a Calabrian matriarch and the author's great-great-grandmother, the only member of the Russo family to remain in Italy after the mass migration of the 1950s. With no formal training, but plenty of experience, Rosina worked as a midwife in an area where there was only one doctor to serve three villages. She was given the tools needed to deliver and baptize babies by the doctor and the local priest, and, over the course of her long career, she helped bring hundreds of infants into the world.
Enhancing the stories and memories passed down through her family with meticulous research, Kluthe has, with great insight, created not only Rosina's story, but also the entire Russo family's. We see her great-grandfather Generoso labouring through the harsh Edmonton winter to save enough money to buy passage to Canada for his wife and children; we glimpse her grandmother Rose huddled in a third-class cabin, sick from the motion of the boat that will carry her to a new land; and we watch, teary-eyed, as her great-great-grandmother Rosina is forced to say goodbye, one by one, to the people she loves.
The author's quest to find the details of Rosina's life, despite the separation of place and time and the uncertainty of memory, has created a poetic elsewhere story and a charming memoir that is at once a Canadian story and a Calabrian one.
216 pages, Paperback
First published March 12, 2013
1 person is currently reading
709 people want to read
About the author
Jessica Kluthe
5 books75 followersJessica Kluthe holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria and is a writing instructor at MacEwan University. Her first book, Rosina, the Midwife, was on Edmonton Journal's bestseller list for over 10 weeks and her writing has been featured in Avenue Magazine, Little Fiction, Blank Spaces Magazine and several anthologies. Kindness Is a Golden Heart marks her foray into writing for kids. Jessica draws on the creative inspiration she finds in motherhood and loves nothing more than snuggling up to read stories with her daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
February 16, 2013
This is a well written book. The author writes about her search for her great-great-grandmother. Including stories some of which are just stories that the family tells, others are true. She shares very personal pieces of herself and the journey she went on to discover her forebearer and herself. A great remnder that our ancestry helps us understand ourselves. I received a copy from Goodreads First Reads.
March 4, 2013
This is a great book! Grab yourself a tea and find your favorite chair because this book is taking you on a wonderful journey! Occasionally I find a well written book and enjoy it so much that I read it slower during the last chapter just to savor the ending---this book had me reading to savor after the very first chapter! It is a journey from America to Italy and back again with love,tears, and the richness of family history. This book was written by Jessica Kluthe and published by Brindle & Glass Publishing. The cover is gorgeous- an old photo with a floral motif and the chapter headings are marked with map definitions. Reading this book made me feel like a guest invited to join them on this historical journey, I felt like I was sharing the experience in its entirety. Run now to get this book and start reading it right away!!
July 9, 2020
I absolutely enjoyed Rosina, the Midwife all the way through to the very last page.
I found this novel to be, not only very well written but also, engaging, interesting, and wonderfully descriptive too. The author immediately builds a connection between the characters and the reader and I felt truly invested in seeing where the story would take us together.
This is such a beautifully written story and, for me, the last chapter (including a gorgeous poem) was my favorite part - it's not often that I can add a book to my "favorites" list but Rosina definitely makes the cut! I recommend this book to anyone looking to get their hands on a really good book.
I found this novel to be, not only very well written but also, engaging, interesting, and wonderfully descriptive too. The author immediately builds a connection between the characters and the reader and I felt truly invested in seeing where the story would take us together.
This is such a beautifully written story and, for me, the last chapter (including a gorgeous poem) was my favorite part - it's not often that I can add a book to my "favorites" list but Rosina definitely makes the cut! I recommend this book to anyone looking to get their hands on a really good book.
March 29, 2013
This is creative nonfiction at its finest. Kluthe engrosses you in her story, her search for what it means to be one nationality or another, what it means to be a mother or parent, what it means to make a new life in a new place and all that such a decision entails. Kluthe questions how memory and family lore shape our understandings of our selves and our place (s) in our multiple worlds. And like great memoirists such as Joan Didion and Jeanette Walls, Kluthe lays it all out on the pages for her readers in unflinching storytelling. Read this book.
May 11, 2013
I've read a few family histories, but this one is in a class all its own. I read it in big gulps, because I couldn't put it down, and more than a month later I still find myself thinking about Rosina. Kluthe has woven together personal memoir, genealogical sleuthing, travel writing, and the history of Edmonton's Italian immigrants to create a multifaceted gem of a story. Highly recommended.
March 10, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Kluthe masterfully paints pictures with words that totally immerse you in a time and place, and thoughtfully weaves together stories of the past and present. Stories that celebrate both the power of family and strong women.
February 25, 2013
Loved, loved, loved this book. Jessica has done a fabulous job of taking many generations before her and bringing them to life for many generations after her to enjoy. This was a great read.
March 31, 2013
'Rosina, the midwife' follows Jessica Kluthe as she searches to understand her deep interest in the life of her great-great-grandmother Rosina.
[Disclosure: I know the author through social media and correspondence and met her just before the launch of this book.]
Reading 'Rosina,' one follows the author gently pull back pieces of the family story to discover forgotten intricacies below. It is a gentle and caring process of uncovering.
At times poetic but always clean and clear, the story moves easily back and forth between the author’s quest and Rosina’s life in southern Italy. As she discovers more about her ancestor Rosina, Kluthe also shares episodes from her own life that shed light on her fascination with the midwife.
As a midwife with no formal training or documentation, Rosina was the kind of person who disappears from official records and stories. Yet Kluthe knows that Rosina’s stories of births and family events in a small Italian village are, literally, the stuff of life and death. As the book unfolds, we come to respect both women and the cross-generational bond between them.
As with any exploration of heredity and ancestry, there are many names to track over a period of over 100 years. Readers could get lost in the maze of names but Kluthe deftly offers little aids along the way, showing us how she keeps them straight in her own head. “I made another connection in my mind, another inky line down from Rosina to her daughter Maria, and from Maria to Maria’s son Aquino.”
That writing and editing skill is evident throughout. Kluthe manages to weave together multiple stories while building the reader’s interest in what will come next. The use of language is careful but the pace is brisk.
She explores the immigrant experience in the ‘new world’ but also turns her attention back to those who stayed behind, like Rosina. How did it feel to lose whole generations to another land, to be left in a shrinking village with generations of history?
The stories that women share with one another from generation to generation have often been overlooked by our written histories. Perhaps the greatest achievement of 'Rosina, the midwife' is that Jessica Kluthe has reached back, just in time, to rescue Rosina’s story before it slipped from the memories of the few who still remembered her.
This is an amazingly confident and accomplished first book.
[Disclosure: I know the author through social media and correspondence and met her just before the launch of this book.]
Reading 'Rosina,' one follows the author gently pull back pieces of the family story to discover forgotten intricacies below. It is a gentle and caring process of uncovering.
At times poetic but always clean and clear, the story moves easily back and forth between the author’s quest and Rosina’s life in southern Italy. As she discovers more about her ancestor Rosina, Kluthe also shares episodes from her own life that shed light on her fascination with the midwife.
As a midwife with no formal training or documentation, Rosina was the kind of person who disappears from official records and stories. Yet Kluthe knows that Rosina’s stories of births and family events in a small Italian village are, literally, the stuff of life and death. As the book unfolds, we come to respect both women and the cross-generational bond between them.
As with any exploration of heredity and ancestry, there are many names to track over a period of over 100 years. Readers could get lost in the maze of names but Kluthe deftly offers little aids along the way, showing us how she keeps them straight in her own head. “I made another connection in my mind, another inky line down from Rosina to her daughter Maria, and from Maria to Maria’s son Aquino.”
That writing and editing skill is evident throughout. Kluthe manages to weave together multiple stories while building the reader’s interest in what will come next. The use of language is careful but the pace is brisk.
She explores the immigrant experience in the ‘new world’ but also turns her attention back to those who stayed behind, like Rosina. How did it feel to lose whole generations to another land, to be left in a shrinking village with generations of history?
The stories that women share with one another from generation to generation have often been overlooked by our written histories. Perhaps the greatest achievement of 'Rosina, the midwife' is that Jessica Kluthe has reached back, just in time, to rescue Rosina’s story before it slipped from the memories of the few who still remembered her.
This is an amazingly confident and accomplished first book.
April 1, 2013
This beautiful book is a personal history/family history as author Jessica Kluthe investigates the life of one of her ancestors, Rosina, a midwife. Rosina was the only one who stayed behind in Calabria while the rest of her family members moved away to Canada. This is a very personal book. Anyone reading it will learn a lot about Italians in Canada and the Italian diaspora.
The writing is nicely poetic.
The writing is nicely poetic.
March 14, 2013
Wonderful writing! This is a very creative memoir and it shows the possibilities of telling our story and our family's stories in such a meaningful and poetic way. It made me want to discover my own family's history in a more thorough way. Bravo, Jessica Kluthe!
May 10, 2020
I read this for the "An Author Local To You" part of my 2020 reading challenge. The timelines flipping back & forth confused me a little, otherwise it was an interesting story of a woman's Italian heritage and their life in Edmonton and Calabria.
September 28, 2014
I could not put this book down!
October 8, 2013
Despite the title, there’s more to this book than pregnancy. Actually, pregnancy and childbirth didn’t play as big a role as I thought they would. I was expecting something like The Birth House. Pregnancy, birth, and loss all play a part, but this is really a story about identity and home.
I didn’t know Rosina was a memoir until I was offered a copy by the staff at LitFest, a non-fiction festival. It reads very much like fiction. I kept forgetting, and thinking “I wonder why she chose this setting,” or, “I wonder what the purpose of this character is,” then realizing that the setting was really where it happened and the character was a real person. Those questions are still valid though. In non-fiction, the author still chooses what to describe in detail, and what to gloss over. She chooses who has a voice – in this case, herself, and her great great grandmother Rosina – and who stays in the background.
Kluthe chooses to give a voice to a woman who stayed behind when her family left for Canada, who lost her husband as a young woman with young children, and who brought innumerable other babies into the world. I love hearing another side of history like this (though I admit, I knew little about Italian immigration from traditional sources, either.)
There’s an air of mystery and secretiveness surrounding Rosina. Some of the relatives aren’t willing to speak. There were difficulties locating her grave. She always seems a few steps out of reach. The silence and shame surrounding Rosina are reflected in the author’s experience with an unplanned pregancy.
The writing has been described as lyrical, but it’s also really understated and simple, which worked well. Kluthe does a great job tying together the different time periods and settings, and the straightforward memoir with the imagined day-to-day life of Rosina.
Kluthe eventually makes some important discoveries about Rosina, but I wondered how much resolution she felt. This is real life, so it’s not all tied up in a neat little package. I found myself kind of bereft at the end, wondering, now that she knows about her ancestors, her home, how does that play out in her life? Does it help her move on from her loss? Well, a cool thing about reading non-fiction is that Kluthe is a real person so there’s a chance we’ll find out.
Read my full review: http://reading-in-bed.com/2013/09/30/...
I didn’t know Rosina was a memoir until I was offered a copy by the staff at LitFest, a non-fiction festival. It reads very much like fiction. I kept forgetting, and thinking “I wonder why she chose this setting,” or, “I wonder what the purpose of this character is,” then realizing that the setting was really where it happened and the character was a real person. Those questions are still valid though. In non-fiction, the author still chooses what to describe in detail, and what to gloss over. She chooses who has a voice – in this case, herself, and her great great grandmother Rosina – and who stays in the background.
Kluthe chooses to give a voice to a woman who stayed behind when her family left for Canada, who lost her husband as a young woman with young children, and who brought innumerable other babies into the world. I love hearing another side of history like this (though I admit, I knew little about Italian immigration from traditional sources, either.)
There’s an air of mystery and secretiveness surrounding Rosina. Some of the relatives aren’t willing to speak. There were difficulties locating her grave. She always seems a few steps out of reach. The silence and shame surrounding Rosina are reflected in the author’s experience with an unplanned pregancy.
The writing has been described as lyrical, but it’s also really understated and simple, which worked well. Kluthe does a great job tying together the different time periods and settings, and the straightforward memoir with the imagined day-to-day life of Rosina.
Kluthe eventually makes some important discoveries about Rosina, but I wondered how much resolution she felt. This is real life, so it’s not all tied up in a neat little package. I found myself kind of bereft at the end, wondering, now that she knows about her ancestors, her home, how does that play out in her life? Does it help her move on from her loss? Well, a cool thing about reading non-fiction is that Kluthe is a real person so there’s a chance we’ll find out.
Read my full review: http://reading-in-bed.com/2013/09/30/...
December 9, 2013
If there were such thing as a Mr. Brame's Lock of the Month!™, I would give it to this book, Rosina the Midwife by Jessica Kluthe. Kluthe, a promising young writer from Alberta, has accomplished a unique feat in Rosina, a book that is simultaneously family history, twentieth-century history, and personal narrative.
At the heart of the book is Rosina, the author's great-great-grandmother, who was a midwife in Calabria. After World War II, Rosina's family left their ancestral home in southern Italy for a better future in Alberta. Rosina, though, stayed behind. As Kluthe grew up in Canada and heard more about this far-flung matriarch, she found herself drawn to learn more about her. At first, she had only one photograph of the woman, (reproduced in the first pages of the book) and the details she could gather from her family members to go on, but over time Kluthe filled in the gaps of Rosina's story with extensive research and her own prodigious narrative talents. Eventually, a trip to Calabria led her to a touching communion with Rosina, in which the author discovered some of her grandmother's final secrets.
Read more about Rosina, the Midwife, and pick up your own copy at jessicakluthe.com.
See more at aaronbrame.org
At the heart of the book is Rosina, the author's great-great-grandmother, who was a midwife in Calabria. After World War II, Rosina's family left their ancestral home in southern Italy for a better future in Alberta. Rosina, though, stayed behind. As Kluthe grew up in Canada and heard more about this far-flung matriarch, she found herself drawn to learn more about her. At first, she had only one photograph of the woman, (reproduced in the first pages of the book) and the details she could gather from her family members to go on, but over time Kluthe filled in the gaps of Rosina's story with extensive research and her own prodigious narrative talents. Eventually, a trip to Calabria led her to a touching communion with Rosina, in which the author discovered some of her grandmother's final secrets.
Read more about Rosina, the Midwife, and pick up your own copy at jessicakluthe.com.
See more at aaronbrame.org
August 3, 2013
Jessica Kluthe reaches a hand – at first tentative and trembling – across oceans and generations from her life in Canada to that of her ancestors in Italy in her captivating family memoir, Rosina, the Midwife. Those ancestors were part of a 26-million-strong exodus of Italians from 1870 to 1970, departing Italy for other parts of Europe and further afield, to North America. Kluthe’s particular focus, however, is the stalwart and enigmatic figure of a family member who chose to stay behind: her great-great-grandmother, Rosina.
Read my complete review here: http://bookgagabooks.ca/2013/07/31/ro...
Read my complete review here: http://bookgagabooks.ca/2013/07/31/ro...
February 8, 2017
Rosina, the Midwife recounts Jessica's journey of discovering the stories in her family history. This book was particularly interesting to me because my mother's family came from Calabria, the same part of Italy that Rosina lived. One of the attractive parts of the read was noting the similarities between her Italian family and mine, though there are some differences. It's also fun being from Edmonton, hometown of the author, and reading about some of the landmarks that I grew up with.
One of the highlights of Jessica's writing is her beautiful metaphors and recurring images. Each chapter begins with the definition of something to do with cartography, the chosen words becoming a metaphor for the whole chapter. 'Tis an exciting a tale that culminates in a haunting conclusion. I would especially recommend this book to anyone with southern Italian heritage.
One of the highlights of Jessica's writing is her beautiful metaphors and recurring images. Each chapter begins with the definition of something to do with cartography, the chosen words becoming a metaphor for the whole chapter. 'Tis an exciting a tale that culminates in a haunting conclusion. I would especially recommend this book to anyone with southern Italian heritage.
September 1, 2013
"Rosina, The Midwife" reminds readers and writers of the importance of labouring for a story.
In a journey to know her long deceased great great grandmother, Kluthe uses her pages in a way that is both, and at once, gracious and courageous. Through meditative description and resounding atmosphere, Kluthe carefully leads her audience inside of the surgery of history and the magic of memory- firming her position as a deserving contemporary memoirist and committed storyteller.
Throughout the narrative, Kluthe guides her readers along the liminal lines of ancestry, the contraction of her thoughts, the hidden corners of Albertan and Italian rural towns, and the in-between spaces of love and heartbreak. It is in these places that we are most freely allowed to grow, dream, and appreciate the parts of our own stories that form in the background of our every day encounters.
Rosina is the matriarch before all of us; she is the echo of strength and wisdom behind the untold stories of separation from generations of women.
In a journey to know her long deceased great great grandmother, Kluthe uses her pages in a way that is both, and at once, gracious and courageous. Through meditative description and resounding atmosphere, Kluthe carefully leads her audience inside of the surgery of history and the magic of memory- firming her position as a deserving contemporary memoirist and committed storyteller.
Throughout the narrative, Kluthe guides her readers along the liminal lines of ancestry, the contraction of her thoughts, the hidden corners of Albertan and Italian rural towns, and the in-between spaces of love and heartbreak. It is in these places that we are most freely allowed to grow, dream, and appreciate the parts of our own stories that form in the background of our every day encounters.
Rosina is the matriarch before all of us; she is the echo of strength and wisdom behind the untold stories of separation from generations of women.
October 21, 2013
I really enjoyed this book for a couple of reasons. First, Kluthe's writing elicits vivid images for the reader of her personal memories and thoughts. Secondly, I thought she wove the various stories delicately and effectively. She takes her memories, stories she has imagined, as well as local/family history into a beautiful narrative. To me, it's a meld of fiction and non-fiction - the content and story are non-fiction but her descriptive writing is up there with the best novels.
November 18, 2013
This book is an interesting read about family history, emigration, and family that you have never met. I had been expecting more in the story regarding midwifery, but this ended up being only a small part of this book. The author is researching her Italian heritage and although it became a little difficult to keep up with who was who near the end of the book, it was still an enjoyable read. A gifted author with huge potential!
July 24, 2014
A poignant meditation on the journey of the author to trace her family history, esp. that of Rosina, the midwife, her great-great grandmother. I loved the vivid descriptions of the Calabrian landscape, and both the real and imagined life of Rosina, and the echoes within the author's contemporary life. It's a lovely story, sifting through the layers within a family history, as well as the experiences of Italian immigrants in the 20th century and those they left at home.
August 12, 2013
Poetic, feminine, and truly inspiring. The passion Jessica has for her family and the love that she developed for Rosina was so evident. The simplicity and peaceful nature of the story made it such a relaxing read and yet it excited something within me to start looking into the history of my family. Excellent read.
February 7, 2017
This book was beautifully written. Jessica writes in a way that enraptures her readers and allows them to feel all the memories she's reliving and imagining.
June 1, 2016
Just finished my second read. What a beautifully crafted narrative, blending history and exceptional imagery. Loved it.
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January 4, 2014really enjoyed this book, the author kept me enthralled and wanting to read more, I couldn't put the book down.
April 13, 2014
This is an actual family history but is as intriguing as a novel.
January 14, 2015
Good. Slow at the beginning but it picked up and was very enjoyable. More enjoyable because I live in the city where it is set.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews