Under the Pear Tree

by Bernadette Conte

From a young age, the author was intrigued by her mother, Gaetanina's, storytelling. She took seriously her mother’s urging to scrivi e ricorda ("write and remember"). Itri, Italy nestled in a valley south of Rome, surrounded by the Aurunci Mountains, is home to the Santuario of Maria SS della Civita, and to her parents and ancestors. Many of the Itrani people, including the author’s parents, immigrated to the small town of Knightsville in Cranston, Rhode Island. Their faith, courage, and hard work in the face of severe hardships left a lifelong impression and a resolution to one day tell their story and fulfill the commitment made to her mother to write the family history. In this telling, it is hoped that all generations, present and to come, will remember their familial roots and the people who have come before them. Told from the perspective of this one Itrani family Under the Pear Tree is a moving account of the trials, traumas, and emotional life surrounding the Italian immigrant experience at the turn of the 20th century. This story is sure to inspire the reader to discover one’s own ancestral past.

262 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 22, 2020

Reviews

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a highly personal memoir, Bernadette Conte describes family and neighborhood life in the Knightsville section of Cranston, Rhode Island, and in the town of Itri, Italy. The section of the City of Cranston is named for the Knight Mills located in this area, however textile mills and farms throughout the state were owned by the Knight family. But the beating heart of the Knightsville, during the time of which Conte writes, is the Italian immigrant community that thrived there beginning in the early twentieth century. The immigrants who settled in Knightsville were most often from the town Itri, a small city in the province of Latina, Lazio, central Italy, and from Italian towns and villages surrounding Itri. The recollections in Conte’s memoir flow between Knightsville and Itri as do the people and events that populate her book.

The central figures in the story are Conte’s mother and father, Gaetanina Cardi Capotosto and Cosmo Capotosto, and their extensive, close-knit family of children, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, and nieces and nephews. Gaetanina Cardi was born in the United States. She had an eye condition that was not successfully treated in America, so her father brought his daughter to Itri to live with her grandmother in the hope that a local healer could cure the eye condition. Her eyes were healed but she remained in Italy until she was an adult. Her life in Italy was generally a happy one, but was marred by the malevolence of an aunt. Gaetanina met Cosmo in Italy and together they immigrated to America. They finally settled in Knightsville, but Cosmo had many relatives in New York too and their connections remain today.

The memoir tells of family travels between Rhode Island and Italy as well as to and from Rhode Island and New York, but all peopled with relatives and friends who make up a close-knit, loving community.