Silvano Indri

Che bella la Casetta in Canada – What A Beautiful Little House in Canada

I remember singing as a child a popular tune that went like this: “C’erà una casetta piccolina in Canada, con tanti pesciolini et tanti fiori di lilà, e tutte le ragazze che passavano di là, dicevono che bella la casetta in Canada”. This is how I thought of our home, a beautiful, loving, little house surrounded by flower gardens, founded by my parents in coming to Canada.

It all began with my father, Silvano, born in 1929 in Tauriano, Spilimbergo, in Italy's Friuli Venezia Giulia region. He was the 4^th of five children born to Guido and Regina Indri. Challenging times hit the Indri family when my grandfather returned from battle in World War I with a leg injury. He died at the young age of 36 from gangrene, leaving my grandmother to care for the children ranging in age from newborn to 13. To earn a living, my grandmother ran a café-trattoria. Her eldest, uncle Primo, soon assumed the role of father figure. As a result, he was exempted from military duty. While only a year younger, uncle Romeo, a talented musician, was not so fortune. In 1939, his military division was reported moving towards the Soviet Union, and he was declared missing in action. My grandmother always held hope that he would return home someday. It was only in the 1990s through Gorbachov’s policy of Glasnost that we were finally able to determine uncle Romeo’s fate: a prisoner of war, he succumbed to pneumonia in a Soviet prison at the age of nineteen. For their part, aunts Iole and Maria helped run the trattoria until they married and moved to their spouses’ respective hometowns (Bern, Switzerland & Madrisio di Fagagna) as was custom at the time. As the youngest and closest in age to my father, Aunt Maria was especially devoted to our family and welcomed us warmly whenever we visited.

While needed in the family business, my father was also encouraged to learn a trade. He attended today’s internationally renowned Scuola del Mosaico, becoming a talented mosaicist. At 16, my father first emigrated to Switzerland and France to restore the magnificient churches and museums that were damaged during the wars. Fueled by a sense of adventure, the promise of good earnings, and in the company of his hometown peers, my father set out for Canada on May 16, 1955. With suitcase in hand, he left the port city of Genova and travelled across the Atlantic Ocean on the ship Saturnia, reaching Canadian soil on May 25^th at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

With his immigration papers in order and health assessed, my father found himself on a westbound train to British Columbia. After a long 3-day journey where he could not understand a word of the language being spoken around him, my father rejoiced in hearing French upon the train’s arrival in Montreal, Quebec. Having previously worked in France, my father was fluent in French. In a blink of an eye, he decided to disembark from the train, a life altering decision which would see our family roots established in Montreal rather than in Vancouver.

Emigration from Friuli - Life in Canada

For years, my father boarded with an Italian-Yugoslavian family and worked hard at his trade. It was common to find mosaic workers toiling to ensure the beauty of the most ambitious public and private structures. When the demand for mosaic work eventually diminished, my father applied his skills to terrazzo and marble work. The construction boom of the 1950s, 60s and 70s gave rise to an important entrepreneurial class and my father established his own company, Federal Tile. He joined associations like the Fogolar Furlan offering information on topics such as health, education and employment, and allowing him to socialize with other Italians sharing adventures of living in Canada.

In 1958, my father returned to Italy to marry his hometown sweetheart, Maria Pia Giacomello, eight years his junior. Over the years, my mother had blossomed into an attractive, young lady and their childhood friendship had bourgeoned into love. They wed on July 5^th amongst family and friends, and, at 21, my mother also bid her family farewell to accompany her spouse to Canada. The Atlantic crossing would be by plane rather than ship this time, a 14-hour voyage with my mother never taking her eyes off the flames fueling the flight. My parents had not come to Canada with the intention of settling here permanently. The goal was that of generating income that would enable them to improve their living circumstances back home. Like those of many immigrants, their best-laid plans soon fell by the wayside. As older generations in Italy passed away and children were born in Canada, roots deepened in this country. Five years abroad soon became ten, ten became twenty and the dream evolved.

In 1962, upon losing her spouse, my maternal grandmother Albina, never having travelled further than Rome, decided to pack her belongings and join her only child in Canada. Like my parents before her, she had to learn to communicate in a new language, face harsh winters and acquire a novel culture. She came to trade her beautiful Italian coat, leather gloves and shoes for less elegant but warmer parkas, mitts and boots. As my mother worked as a seamstress in Montreal`s vibrant clothing sector, my grandmother became our principal caregiver, teaching us to speak Italian and sharing with us her passion for food and dance. She would also come to teach us the meaning of determination, resilience and compassion, attributes that she would need to draw upon, when at 61, she suffered a stroke. For 34 years, the caretaker role would be reversed, as my parents, my siblings and I came to look after her needs. Despite these setbacks, Nonna Albina’s faith in family never wavered. She died peacefully in her sleep in 1997, a week before her 94^th birthday and 11 days after the birth of her 1^st great-grandson.

Growing prosperity in Canada would permit more frequent trips to Friuli. There was joy in going home but also excitement in returning to Canada. Welcomed only as seasonal workers in European countries, my parents came to appreciate the many opportunities presented to immigrants in Canada, access to health care, education and employment, areas that would permit one to integrate into society and to rise up the social ladder. Democratic rights could be exercised through acquisition of Canadian citizenship, and education could serve in solidifying their children’s future in Canada.

My parents had come a long way to build a home for our family and, paradoxically, my siblings and I all moved away to pursue our own prospects for some time. My brother Armando (1964) joined the security sector in Toronto. He married in 1997 and returned to Montreal to raise his sons, Jordan and Julien, with spouse Mellanie Dodds. My sister Nancy (1970), lived in Italy and Spain as a fashion designer prior to returning to Montreal in 1995. With Harvey Goldstein, she is a proud parent to daughters, Erin and Samara, and grandparent to Molly and Noam. As for myself, the eldest, I moved to Ottawa in 1988 to join the federal public service, after having earned a degree from McGill University. I work on public policy advancing issues and values that represent the essence of Canada: diversity and inclusion, Indigenous reconciliation, social cohesion and human rights. I, too, married and raised two wonderful children: Alexander, dancing for The National Ballet of Canada, and, Christina, pursing studies in psychology and sports at the University of Ottawa.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for taking this gigantic leap of faith in the face of the unfamiliar and the unknown. We owe you an immense debt of gratitude for the success of our lives in Canada. Thank you for truly providing us our own “bella piccola casetta” in Canada.

Mara Indri (Skinner)