Palmira Quattrin and Michael Zuffi
Birth: 29 Jan 1911, Zoppola, Italy
Father: Giovanni Battista (Tita) Quattrin (1866 – 1945)
Mother: Elisabetta (Elisa) De Paoli (1870 – 1942)
Death: 30 Oct 2005, San Francisco, California
Burial: Colma, San Mateo County, California, USA
Father: Giovanni Battista (Tita) Quattrin (1866 – 1945)
Mother: Elisabetta (Elisa) De Paoli (1870 – 1942)
Death: 30 Oct 2005, San Francisco, California
Burial: Colma, San Mateo County, California, USA
Partner: Emilio Lenarduzzi
Birth: Zoppola, Friuli, Italy
Father: Luigi Lenarduzzi (1895-)
Mother: Emilia Castellarin
Children: Anna-Maria (1934-2023)
Birth: Zoppola, Friuli, Italy
Father: Luigi Lenarduzzi (1895-)
Mother: Emilia Castellarin
Children: Anna-Maria (1934-2023)
Spouse: Michael James Zuffi
Birth: 23 Aug 1907, San Francisco, California
Death: 22 Aug 1997, San Francisco
Father: Domenic Zuffi (1875-1942)
Mother: Amelia Guaraglia (1874-1947)
Marriage: 1 Sep 1956, Reno, Washoe, Nevada
Birth: 23 Aug 1907, San Francisco, California
Death: 22 Aug 1997, San Francisco
Father: Domenic Zuffi (1875-1942)
Mother: Amelia Guaraglia (1874-1947)
Marriage: 1 Sep 1956, Reno, Washoe, Nevada
Palmira Quattrin was born on January 17, 1911, in Zoppola, Italy. She was the eleventh and final child of Giovanni Battista (Tita) Quattrin, landowner and farmer, and Elisabetta (Elisa) De Paoli, housewife and daughter of a prosperous building contractor from Pescincanna. Palmira was 18 years younger than her eldest sister Rosina, and, in fact, Rosina nursed her because she had also just had a child.
Zia Palmira had a typical upbringing in Zoppola, centered on family, working in the fields, and the Church. Later in life, in order to pass the time and keep her mind sharp, Palmira wrote in a diary almost daily. Every Sunday the whole town gathered at the Church for mass and to mingle afterwards. In her diary, Palmira wrote:
I remember when I was young — everyone went to Mass on Sunday. If you didn’t go, it was as if the whole day was lost. I recall my mother, my sister, the church. Ours was a very large church, filled with people — you could barely see the priest through the crowd. I can’t even remember how many people lived in our village, but no one ever missed Mass.
On the front steps of the Church of San Martino was where Palmira’s grandfather Perbacco taught her to smoke. The home was safe and loving, though they were never wealthy. Then the war came.
Like her siblings, she had a rudimentary formal education. By then, she could read and write in Frulan and Italian and had developed basic math skills. But her education was cut short in the 2nd grade. As she told it:
My daughter went to school because she has always liked school. I did, too; I always thought school was very important. My daughter enrolled early, but I was the last one. There were ten of us siblings, and my parents were tired. You [should have seen me], poor thing. It was hard to go inside school, though it was a joy. The first year I went to school I was seven years old. At six, I hadn’t gone because I [was born] on the 29th of January, walking alone, going in the morning to school. From school I passed my bed, which can no longer hold me.
Now I rested for three months, since I hadn’t finished that year, it made me lose a year of school. So, I started again for the first time at seven years minus three months, then I stayed all the days in first grade, and then I went into second class — I don’t know if I passed it. I repeated some of second grade, my parents were already old, and I was ashamed to go to school. I was the last in our school family. My mother sent me with a friend. I remember going to the Elore school. One day, as a young girl, going to second grade early, I met a little friend in the fog — she was there too. We stayed together that day. She was my friend and said: “Come to my house; let’s rest a little.” I stayed and slept on her chair. Then my mother went to the teacher to say I wouldn’t go to school anymore. I never went back.
Zia Palmira had a typical upbringing in Zoppola, centered on family, working in the fields, and the Church. Later in life, in order to pass the time and keep her mind sharp, Palmira wrote in a diary almost daily. Every Sunday the whole town gathered at the Church for mass and to mingle afterwards. In her diary, Palmira wrote:
I remember when I was young — everyone went to Mass on Sunday. If you didn’t go, it was as if the whole day was lost. I recall my mother, my sister, the church. Ours was a very large church, filled with people — you could barely see the priest through the crowd. I can’t even remember how many people lived in our village, but no one ever missed Mass.
On the front steps of the Church of San Martino was where Palmira’s grandfather Perbacco taught her to smoke. The home was safe and loving, though they were never wealthy. Then the war came.
Like her siblings, she had a rudimentary formal education. By then, she could read and write in Frulan and Italian and had developed basic math skills. But her education was cut short in the 2nd grade. As she told it:
My daughter went to school because she has always liked school. I did, too; I always thought school was very important. My daughter enrolled early, but I was the last one. There were ten of us siblings, and my parents were tired. You [should have seen me], poor thing. It was hard to go inside school, though it was a joy. The first year I went to school I was seven years old. At six, I hadn’t gone because I [was born] on the 29th of January, walking alone, going in the morning to school. From school I passed my bed, which can no longer hold me.
Now I rested for three months, since I hadn’t finished that year, it made me lose a year of school. So, I started again for the first time at seven years minus three months, then I stayed all the days in first grade, and then I went into second class — I don’t know if I passed it. I repeated some of second grade, my parents were already old, and I was ashamed to go to school. I was the last in our school family. My mother sent me with a friend. I remember going to the Elore school. One day, as a young girl, going to second grade early, I met a little friend in the fog — she was there too. We stayed together that day. She was my friend and said: “Come to my house; let’s rest a little.” I stayed and slept on her chair. Then my mother went to the teacher to say I wouldn’t go to school anymore. I never went back.
Palmira’s diary contains the only first-hand account we have in the family of the German/Austrian Occupation of Zoppola in 1917 and 1918. Zoppola in the 1890s and 1900s was a quiet place, much like it had been for centuries. That would change with the Great War. Though in the western part of Friuli, Zoppola was still less than 50 miles from the fighting on the Isonzo River. From 1915 to 1917, there had been eleven battles on the Isonzo, mostly frontal, uphill assaults by the Italians that gained very little ground. Palmira’s elder brothers Andrea and Osvaldo had been drafted and served in an artillery unit along the Isonzo Front. As the Italian Army was preparing for their 12th Battle of Isonzo, the Austrians, supported by fresh German troops newly transferred from the now-quiet Russian Front, launched a preemptive strike on October 24, 1917. The Battle of Caporetto, as it came to be known, is considered to be the greatest disaster in Italian military history. The whole front collapsed, and the Tedeschi (what the Friulani called the Austrians) pushed all the way to the Piave River on the west edge of Friuli. Only lack of supplies and a strong defense on November 4th at Mount Grappa, stopped the Germans. Palmira’s brother Severino fought in that battle, but Andrea had been caught up in the collapse and had been sent to a POW camp in Albania. In all, 40,000 soldiers were killed or wounded and 265,000 were captured. Palmira was only six years old.
Zoppola became a fairly grim place under the Tedeschi. Years later, Palmira remembered that soldiers were billeted in the homes of the citizenry, including the big Quattrin house. She remembered that they slept on the floors in the hallway, were dirty, and had lice. The whole family of twelve had to live in one bedroom as the officers took the other rooms. Her mother Elisa made wine, as did many in town, and sold it to the Germans. Palmira remembered there was plenty of money, but the lira was devalued so much that they were still living on the edge.
After playing hooky, she mostly worked in the fields with her father and brothers, learning the wisdom of the agricultural cycle of life, and with her mother and sisters in the home, learning the domestic arts.
Zoppola became a fairly grim place under the Tedeschi. Years later, Palmira remembered that soldiers were billeted in the homes of the citizenry, including the big Quattrin house. She remembered that they slept on the floors in the hallway, were dirty, and had lice. The whole family of twelve had to live in one bedroom as the officers took the other rooms. Her mother Elisa made wine, as did many in town, and sold it to the Germans. Palmira remembered there was plenty of money, but the lira was devalued so much that they were still living on the edge.
After playing hooky, she mostly worked in the fields with her father and brothers, learning the wisdom of the agricultural cycle of life, and with her mother and sisters in the home, learning the domestic arts.
Food was hard to come by, and the younger children had to guard what was being cooked for dinner while the adults were working in the fields. In one incident, Zio Tony was left to guard the polenta. One soldier knocked on the door, and, when Tony went to answer it, another soldier leaned in the kitchen window with a pitchfork and lifted away the cooking pot. The family went hungry that night. Their father Tita went to the Commandant to ask, “What can I do to feed my 10 children?” There was no answer. Another time, the soldiers ate all the beans in the house, and Palmira remembered Elisa crying—a scary memory for a young child. As she wrote in her diary,
I remember the world war — we were living in Casa Quattrin, near the Tedeschi house. They [the soldiers] took whatever they could. One day my mother was frying lentils or beans for us all to eat. She cried so much — our poor mother. She went out to look for some work because the Germans were stealing everything for their soldiers. Mother didn’t come home for hours, and we children all cried. Then I heard her coming back, faint and collapsing. A day with no food — she said, “I put a pot of beans on the fire boiling for you.” We looked in the pot — nothing. The Germans had taken everything. Poor mother, alive but starving, crying and still with hunger. I was twisted inside, running home from the house where I worked for the landowners’ children. She used to pray that the Germans would never come again. I hoped the war was over — but it went on.
Mother went out again, begging the baron for work. “For hunger,” she said, “the children cry.” I wanted to help her. She found food for the children, and she was happy seeing them eat. That day helped me so much. Thank you.
Elisa had to go the storekeeper and beg for food for the children. She paid him back as soon as she could but felt ashamed for having to beg.
By the end of summer 1918, the Tedeshi were moving out. The soldiers took everything they could lay their hands on, including old dresses that were intended to be handed down to the younger daughters. On November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed between the Germans and the Allies. The Great War was over.
The Twenties did not roar in Zoppola. Friuli was somewhat slow to recover from occupation and had no industrial base for recovery. During the War, fields had been neglected and/or damaged, and livestock and tools were confiscated or destroyed during the war. Even though Italy was on the winning side of World War I, they were excluded from the negotiations between the Allies and the Central Powers, ending the hopes for gaining control of Trieste and other lands in Istria. The local economy returned to subsistence farming, but inflation and taxes rose between 1919 and 1922. All these disappointments fueled the rise of Mussolini and Fascism.
Under Fascism, Zoppola, like all Italian towns, had a Podestà (fascist-appointed mayor). Children joined Opera Nazionale Balilla (youth fascist organization), wearing uniforms and participating in parades. The regime imposed Italian-language-only policies, even though Frulan (Friulano) was commonly spoken in homes. People were encouraged—or forced—to attend fascist events, yet rural support was often passive or reluctant. Under fascism, Friulians endured not just economic hardship but also state surveillance, censorship, and pressure to conform to Mussolini's nationalist ideals. Local languages like Frulan and Slovene were discouraged or suppressed, compounding cultural alienation.
But Friuli was a peripheral and linguistically distinct region, and as such, it was often neglected by the central Italian government. Investments and relief efforts prioritized more industrial or politically central areas like Lombardy or Rome, leaving Friuli more vulnerable. The local parish played a stabilizing role, offering moral support, charity, and resistance to fascist cultural pressure.
Reconstruction in rural Friuli was uneven. Some road repairs occurred—for example, connecting to Pordenone and Casarsa—but most villages could only be reached by dirt roads. Very limited investment was made in water, electricity, or schools, as urban areas were prioritized. Local churches and parishes stepped in to provide charity, schooling, and support services, especially for widows and orphans. The Church also provided basic education, especially for girls, who had fewer options. Friuli’s close-knit families and parishes helped people survive. Extended family networks, cooperative farming, and informal local institutions softened the worst blows—something not as present in fragmented urban societies elsewhere.
I remember the world war — we were living in Casa Quattrin, near the Tedeschi house. They [the soldiers] took whatever they could. One day my mother was frying lentils or beans for us all to eat. She cried so much — our poor mother. She went out to look for some work because the Germans were stealing everything for their soldiers. Mother didn’t come home for hours, and we children all cried. Then I heard her coming back, faint and collapsing. A day with no food — she said, “I put a pot of beans on the fire boiling for you.” We looked in the pot — nothing. The Germans had taken everything. Poor mother, alive but starving, crying and still with hunger. I was twisted inside, running home from the house where I worked for the landowners’ children. She used to pray that the Germans would never come again. I hoped the war was over — but it went on.
Mother went out again, begging the baron for work. “For hunger,” she said, “the children cry.” I wanted to help her. She found food for the children, and she was happy seeing them eat. That day helped me so much. Thank you.
Elisa had to go the storekeeper and beg for food for the children. She paid him back as soon as she could but felt ashamed for having to beg.
By the end of summer 1918, the Tedeshi were moving out. The soldiers took everything they could lay their hands on, including old dresses that were intended to be handed down to the younger daughters. On November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed between the Germans and the Allies. The Great War was over.
The Twenties did not roar in Zoppola. Friuli was somewhat slow to recover from occupation and had no industrial base for recovery. During the War, fields had been neglected and/or damaged, and livestock and tools were confiscated or destroyed during the war. Even though Italy was on the winning side of World War I, they were excluded from the negotiations between the Allies and the Central Powers, ending the hopes for gaining control of Trieste and other lands in Istria. The local economy returned to subsistence farming, but inflation and taxes rose between 1919 and 1922. All these disappointments fueled the rise of Mussolini and Fascism.
Under Fascism, Zoppola, like all Italian towns, had a Podestà (fascist-appointed mayor). Children joined Opera Nazionale Balilla (youth fascist organization), wearing uniforms and participating in parades. The regime imposed Italian-language-only policies, even though Frulan (Friulano) was commonly spoken in homes. People were encouraged—or forced—to attend fascist events, yet rural support was often passive or reluctant. Under fascism, Friulians endured not just economic hardship but also state surveillance, censorship, and pressure to conform to Mussolini's nationalist ideals. Local languages like Frulan and Slovene were discouraged or suppressed, compounding cultural alienation.
But Friuli was a peripheral and linguistically distinct region, and as such, it was often neglected by the central Italian government. Investments and relief efforts prioritized more industrial or politically central areas like Lombardy or Rome, leaving Friuli more vulnerable. The local parish played a stabilizing role, offering moral support, charity, and resistance to fascist cultural pressure.
Reconstruction in rural Friuli was uneven. Some road repairs occurred—for example, connecting to Pordenone and Casarsa—but most villages could only be reached by dirt roads. Very limited investment was made in water, electricity, or schools, as urban areas were prioritized. Local churches and parishes stepped in to provide charity, schooling, and support services, especially for widows and orphans. The Church also provided basic education, especially for girls, who had fewer options. Friuli’s close-knit families and parishes helped people survive. Extended family networks, cooperative farming, and informal local institutions softened the worst blows—something not as present in fragmented urban societies elsewhere.
Like other small towns and villages in Italy, many of the residents were mezzadria, that is, sharecroppers who leased land form local owners. Thanks to Palmira’s grandfather Perbacco, the family was safe from having to “make San Martino”—losing their lease and having to move to another town to try to start over. But the family was in transition during the 1920s. Perbacco died in 1920, leaving two houses and farmland to each of his six sons. That same year, Palmira’s eldest brother Andrea returned to California to try to start a vineyard in Lemoore with his cousin Antonio Colussi. Andrea had originally gone to California in 1913 to work for Italian Swiss Colony Vineyards in order to earn money to send home to help the family. Like many young men in the 1920s, Andrea and his brothers repeated the emigration to support the family. In 1922 and 1923 respectively, brothers Poldi and Johnnie joined Andrea in California. Brother Tony also immigrated in 1927, but he went to British Columbia. That same year, Andrea returned to Zoppola and married his best friend’s sister Emilia Petris, and they built a new house on the Quattrin property, across from Castle Zoppola’s front gate. But when Emilia became pregnant, Andrea decided to move back to San Francisco to start a life without the Fascists. At one point, Palmira considered buying their house, but someone told her “not to get above herself,” and so she decided not to pursue the purchase.
Nationally, Mussolini’s government pushed a platform of the Four Battles: The Battle for Grain, the Battle for the Lira, the Battle for Land, and the Battle for Births. These were designed to rebuild Italy into a great power. The first, Battaglia del grano, had the most impact on Zoppola. The aim was to boost grain production to make Italy self-sufficient in wheat. This campaign was successful in increasing wheat output and lowering the trade deficit, but was ultimately economically counter-productive for Italy's agricultural sector as farmers who grew other produce had to clear their land for grain cultivation which decreased exports. This resulted in higher food prices which placed Italian families under financial strain. But again, being out of the way, there was likely less direct impact in Zoppola than elsewhere.
At the age of 21, Palmira got involved with a married man and became pregnant. On September 12, 1933, Palmira gave birth to twin daughters Angela and Anna Maria Quattrin. (Their father never acknowledged them.) Unfortunately, Angela did not survive. To keep her memory alive, Anna Maria was often called Angela as she grew up. She lived life for both of them.
Being a single mother in a small town could not have been easy, and, in a Catholic place like Italy, children of such mothers were often taken away and put in an orphanage regardless of the mother’s desires. Luckily, Palmira had very loving parents who supported her and helped raise her daughter. Anna Maria had great memories of her grandparents and their loving support. She was raised not to be ashamed of her status regardless of what other people said. And they said plenty of hurtful things about her and her mother.
Maybe the most hurtful thing came directly from her father, though. Anna Maria told the story that when she was little and out with one of her aunts, they saw her father on the street. Her aunt said, "That is your father. Go ask him to buy you a pair of shoes." She did as she was told, to which he responded, “I am not your father. There were many other men Palmira had." This was very devastating to Anna Maria, and she talked often about how it bothered her.
Palmira and Anna Maria were not alone in their situation. Anna Maria recalled that there were eight or nine other children of single mothers in town. Her grandfather even went so far as to point out the boys she should not date because they might be her brothers. Anna Maria had two half-sisters with whom she went to school. The nuns even commented on how much they looked alike. For her sisters, her existence was a constant reminder of the shame their father had brought upon their mother. And children can be most cruel.
Mussolini’s four economic battles of the 1920s gave way to military battles in the next decade. The fascist regime had inherited the dream of a New Roman Empire that came with reunification of Italy in 1866 in the Resurgimento. Before Mussolini, Italy had established colonies in Eritrea, Somalia, and two provinces of Libya, but it had been humiliated in its attempt to seize Ethiopia. From the fascist take-over to 1931, Italy waged a brutal colonial war in North Africa, killing an estimated 10 percent of Libya’s population as it reasserted Italian control there. Abyssinia was similarly reduced by war in 1936.
In 1935-36, the Italian Army avenged itself on Ethiopia. On May 9, 1936 Mussolini proclaimed the establishment of the Italian Empire in East Africa, with King Victor Emmanuel III as Emperor of Ethiopia. The Second Italo-Ethiopian War cost Italy 4,359 killed in action—2,313 Italians, 1,086 Eritreans, 507 Somalis and Libyans, and 453 Italian laborers. In 1939, Italy invaded Albania, where Palmira’s brother had been imprisoned in 1918 and attempted a conquest of Greece, but failed.
Colonialism through resettlement—mainly by way of relieving overpopulated areas in the south of Italy—was directed from above. “Colonial scientists” drew up plans for a demographic colonization. The plan was nakedly eugenic: it was supposed to “improve” the Italian population, creating “a new breed of Italian,” the New Man of Fascism: an army of “peasant-soldiers” who would expand and defend the Empire through Egypt, Sudan, and the Horn of Africa. Italians from various parts of the peninsula would mix, breaking the traditional identifications (and enmities) of Italy’s regions. Some 20,000 colonists were sent to Libya in 1938 to great fanfare. Forty towns on strict grid patterns, with social and party centers, were laid out. The purpose of the settlement policy was to increase Italy’s birth rate and slow the rural exodus to cities in Italy itself. By 1940, there were 40,000 colonialists. In 1943, when Britain and France took control of Italy’s Libyan colonies, there were 150,000 Italians in North Africa.
In June 1940, Italy entered the Second World War, but this time on the side of the Central Powers, now renamed the Axis Powers. Life in Zoppola during the Second World War was initially different from what it was like during the First World War. The town was much further from the fighting. Even later, when the Americans invaded, the battles were hundreds of miles away in Sicily, Anzio, and the Apennines. Unlike in 1917, crop yields were good, and there was plenty to eat. Zoppola became something of a market town, where other towns came to trade salt and pork for wheat.
On October 30, 1942, Palmira’s mother was found in her room vomiting blood. Elisa must have had either a bleeding ulcer or gastritis. She died later that day. Anna Maria remembered everyone crying, and she was afraid to go by the bedroom because she was afraid of the ghost. Anna Maria had been the one who found her Nonna.
As soon as Andrea found out their mother was dead, he wrote his sister (at the urging of his wife) to encourage her to come to San Francisco. He sent her 10,000 lira with a promise of 10,000 more to help. To put that in perspective, 10,000 lira in 1942 was worth about $16, which was a week’s salary for Andrea. A ticket for the ship from Italy to New York cost $30, and the train from New York to San Francisco cost $65. While the offer was generous, it was not enough to get Palmira to San Francisco nor would have been enough to bring Anna Maria along. Palmira had to postpone her decision until she had enough money. Little did she know it would take a dozen years. According to Andrea’s grandson Dave, Emilia was still angry years later that Palmira had to wait so long and that “the local community had not stepped up to help” (meaning the local community here in San Francisco). She felt that anyone who wanted to emigrate should be helped and welcomed, especially under the circumstances of family and the War.
The new Italian Empire did not last long. By 1943, all of North Africa was in control of the Allies, and the south of Italy was slipping away. Mussolini’s government was overthrown in July, and he was imprisoned. Italy surrendered on September 8th. Any calm or sense of relief in Zoppola was disrupted when the Germans rescued Mussolini from Rome four days after the surrender. The Germans helped Mussolini found a new Italian Social Republic at Brescia, about 150 miles west of Zoppola.
German soldiers were once more billeted in Zoppola, sleeping on mattresses in the upstairs hallways and drinking and smoking with the young women in town. Unlike some towns, there were no burning of houses, and Anna Maria and Ilia Moretto both said the Germans were well behaved. The Germans did stage raids on the local bars to seize military age men and put them in internment camps. They passed out volantini, leaflets with the names of the executed on them, to scare people into submission. Sometimes the information was wrong, and someone who was thought to be dead would walk back into town.
There were active resistance groups in and around Zoppola. When the train depot in nearby Casarsa was bombed, a frightened Anna Maria hid with her grandfather in the hayloft, looking out at the red sky. (To calm his granddaughter’s fears, Tita told her that the bombs would not harm them because the hay would cushion the fall so they would not explode.) The Fascists became more aggressive in cracking down on the Partisans. Because of age and family situation, the Quattrins were not particularly active, but they definitely had Partisan leanings. They hid men in their hayloft, helped Partisans escape German search units, and sent the children to bring food to men hiding in the local fields, woods, and ditches. Toward the end of the war, Italian soldiers from nearby Casarsa came to the house to ask for civilian clothes so they could desert and escape on the trains. Angelo gave his suit to one man. The man came back years later and said the suit had saved his life. He was the only one among his group that escaped detection and capture by the Germans. (Whether he brought the suit back is unknown.) When the end of the War in Italy came in April 1945, the town spontaneously celebrated in the piazza. Anna Maria had a strong memory of her friend Olga Bortolussi’s older sister Arda with a rifle on her shoulder. Unfortunately, Palmira’s father did not live to see the end of the War. He died from a stroke a month earlier.
The post-War recovery in the late 1940s and into the 1950s would become known as the Italian Economic Miracle. Economic growth and industrialization were stimulated by significant financial and technical assistance to Western European nations by the United States through the Marshall Plan. The goal was to help rebuild their economies and prevent the spread of communism. Italy transitioned from a largely agricultural society to a major industrial power, fueled by favorable free-market policies, integration into European trade, and a large and available labor force. Northern Italy, in particular saw a major increase in the production of typewriters, automobiles, and fashionable clothing. While Zoppola may not have been a major industrial center itself, it benefited from the overall economic growth and increased demand for goods and services.
Similar to what happened in the North under Napoleon nearly 150 years earlier, land reform laws in the 1950s aimed to redistribute large, poorly cultivated estates to new peasant owners. These laws mostly affected central and southern Italy, but there were other specific initiatives and changes in rural areas that would have affected Zoppola. In particular, farming practices shifted, leading to a decrease in traditional agricultural jobs like those of seasonal workers and sharecroppers. Also, many people from rural areas migrated to cities seeking work in factories and other new industries.
As Palmira’s daughter approached adulthood in the early 1950s, their situation at home had changed. Palmira’s parents were both gone, and the house where she and Anna Maria lived was owned by her brother Angelo. He had married in 1940 and had four children of his own by 1951. They all got along, but, to Palmira, it was feeling less like her home.
Finances were tight as always. Palmira raised rabbits to sell in order to pay for Anna Maria’s school fees and clothing. Her brother Andrea continued to encourage her to come to San Francisco and let her know that there was paying work available and Andrea knew a man she might like. Eventually, she took a job as a maid in the home of a wealthy family in Florence in order to build enough of a nest egg to make the move. Prices had changed. The ship’s cost had gone up to $50, but the train cost had dropped to $40. In addition, Anna Maria had graduated from school was working to earn her own passage.
On November 8, 1955, Palmira boarded the Saturnia in Trieste with Franco and Caterina Pagura, among other Zoppolani, and headed for New York City, where she arrived on November 24th. All she had with her was one trunk of possessions, a train ticket, and a little money. From there she boarded a train for the five-day trip to California. Her naturalization form listed her as 5’ 5”, 195 lbs, with a fair complexion, brown hair and brown eyes, and a mole on her right cheek.
At the age of 21, Palmira got involved with a married man and became pregnant. On September 12, 1933, Palmira gave birth to twin daughters Angela and Anna Maria Quattrin. (Their father never acknowledged them.) Unfortunately, Angela did not survive. To keep her memory alive, Anna Maria was often called Angela as she grew up. She lived life for both of them.
Being a single mother in a small town could not have been easy, and, in a Catholic place like Italy, children of such mothers were often taken away and put in an orphanage regardless of the mother’s desires. Luckily, Palmira had very loving parents who supported her and helped raise her daughter. Anna Maria had great memories of her grandparents and their loving support. She was raised not to be ashamed of her status regardless of what other people said. And they said plenty of hurtful things about her and her mother.
Maybe the most hurtful thing came directly from her father, though. Anna Maria told the story that when she was little and out with one of her aunts, they saw her father on the street. Her aunt said, "That is your father. Go ask him to buy you a pair of shoes." She did as she was told, to which he responded, “I am not your father. There were many other men Palmira had." This was very devastating to Anna Maria, and she talked often about how it bothered her.
Palmira and Anna Maria were not alone in their situation. Anna Maria recalled that there were eight or nine other children of single mothers in town. Her grandfather even went so far as to point out the boys she should not date because they might be her brothers. Anna Maria had two half-sisters with whom she went to school. The nuns even commented on how much they looked alike. For her sisters, her existence was a constant reminder of the shame their father had brought upon their mother. And children can be most cruel.
Mussolini’s four economic battles of the 1920s gave way to military battles in the next decade. The fascist regime had inherited the dream of a New Roman Empire that came with reunification of Italy in 1866 in the Resurgimento. Before Mussolini, Italy had established colonies in Eritrea, Somalia, and two provinces of Libya, but it had been humiliated in its attempt to seize Ethiopia. From the fascist take-over to 1931, Italy waged a brutal colonial war in North Africa, killing an estimated 10 percent of Libya’s population as it reasserted Italian control there. Abyssinia was similarly reduced by war in 1936.
In 1935-36, the Italian Army avenged itself on Ethiopia. On May 9, 1936 Mussolini proclaimed the establishment of the Italian Empire in East Africa, with King Victor Emmanuel III as Emperor of Ethiopia. The Second Italo-Ethiopian War cost Italy 4,359 killed in action—2,313 Italians, 1,086 Eritreans, 507 Somalis and Libyans, and 453 Italian laborers. In 1939, Italy invaded Albania, where Palmira’s brother had been imprisoned in 1918 and attempted a conquest of Greece, but failed.
Colonialism through resettlement—mainly by way of relieving overpopulated areas in the south of Italy—was directed from above. “Colonial scientists” drew up plans for a demographic colonization. The plan was nakedly eugenic: it was supposed to “improve” the Italian population, creating “a new breed of Italian,” the New Man of Fascism: an army of “peasant-soldiers” who would expand and defend the Empire through Egypt, Sudan, and the Horn of Africa. Italians from various parts of the peninsula would mix, breaking the traditional identifications (and enmities) of Italy’s regions. Some 20,000 colonists were sent to Libya in 1938 to great fanfare. Forty towns on strict grid patterns, with social and party centers, were laid out. The purpose of the settlement policy was to increase Italy’s birth rate and slow the rural exodus to cities in Italy itself. By 1940, there were 40,000 colonialists. In 1943, when Britain and France took control of Italy’s Libyan colonies, there were 150,000 Italians in North Africa.
In June 1940, Italy entered the Second World War, but this time on the side of the Central Powers, now renamed the Axis Powers. Life in Zoppola during the Second World War was initially different from what it was like during the First World War. The town was much further from the fighting. Even later, when the Americans invaded, the battles were hundreds of miles away in Sicily, Anzio, and the Apennines. Unlike in 1917, crop yields were good, and there was plenty to eat. Zoppola became something of a market town, where other towns came to trade salt and pork for wheat.
On October 30, 1942, Palmira’s mother was found in her room vomiting blood. Elisa must have had either a bleeding ulcer or gastritis. She died later that day. Anna Maria remembered everyone crying, and she was afraid to go by the bedroom because she was afraid of the ghost. Anna Maria had been the one who found her Nonna.
As soon as Andrea found out their mother was dead, he wrote his sister (at the urging of his wife) to encourage her to come to San Francisco. He sent her 10,000 lira with a promise of 10,000 more to help. To put that in perspective, 10,000 lira in 1942 was worth about $16, which was a week’s salary for Andrea. A ticket for the ship from Italy to New York cost $30, and the train from New York to San Francisco cost $65. While the offer was generous, it was not enough to get Palmira to San Francisco nor would have been enough to bring Anna Maria along. Palmira had to postpone her decision until she had enough money. Little did she know it would take a dozen years. According to Andrea’s grandson Dave, Emilia was still angry years later that Palmira had to wait so long and that “the local community had not stepped up to help” (meaning the local community here in San Francisco). She felt that anyone who wanted to emigrate should be helped and welcomed, especially under the circumstances of family and the War.
The new Italian Empire did not last long. By 1943, all of North Africa was in control of the Allies, and the south of Italy was slipping away. Mussolini’s government was overthrown in July, and he was imprisoned. Italy surrendered on September 8th. Any calm or sense of relief in Zoppola was disrupted when the Germans rescued Mussolini from Rome four days after the surrender. The Germans helped Mussolini found a new Italian Social Republic at Brescia, about 150 miles west of Zoppola.
German soldiers were once more billeted in Zoppola, sleeping on mattresses in the upstairs hallways and drinking and smoking with the young women in town. Unlike some towns, there were no burning of houses, and Anna Maria and Ilia Moretto both said the Germans were well behaved. The Germans did stage raids on the local bars to seize military age men and put them in internment camps. They passed out volantini, leaflets with the names of the executed on them, to scare people into submission. Sometimes the information was wrong, and someone who was thought to be dead would walk back into town.
There were active resistance groups in and around Zoppola. When the train depot in nearby Casarsa was bombed, a frightened Anna Maria hid with her grandfather in the hayloft, looking out at the red sky. (To calm his granddaughter’s fears, Tita told her that the bombs would not harm them because the hay would cushion the fall so they would not explode.) The Fascists became more aggressive in cracking down on the Partisans. Because of age and family situation, the Quattrins were not particularly active, but they definitely had Partisan leanings. They hid men in their hayloft, helped Partisans escape German search units, and sent the children to bring food to men hiding in the local fields, woods, and ditches. Toward the end of the war, Italian soldiers from nearby Casarsa came to the house to ask for civilian clothes so they could desert and escape on the trains. Angelo gave his suit to one man. The man came back years later and said the suit had saved his life. He was the only one among his group that escaped detection and capture by the Germans. (Whether he brought the suit back is unknown.) When the end of the War in Italy came in April 1945, the town spontaneously celebrated in the piazza. Anna Maria had a strong memory of her friend Olga Bortolussi’s older sister Arda with a rifle on her shoulder. Unfortunately, Palmira’s father did not live to see the end of the War. He died from a stroke a month earlier.
The post-War recovery in the late 1940s and into the 1950s would become known as the Italian Economic Miracle. Economic growth and industrialization were stimulated by significant financial and technical assistance to Western European nations by the United States through the Marshall Plan. The goal was to help rebuild their economies and prevent the spread of communism. Italy transitioned from a largely agricultural society to a major industrial power, fueled by favorable free-market policies, integration into European trade, and a large and available labor force. Northern Italy, in particular saw a major increase in the production of typewriters, automobiles, and fashionable clothing. While Zoppola may not have been a major industrial center itself, it benefited from the overall economic growth and increased demand for goods and services.
Similar to what happened in the North under Napoleon nearly 150 years earlier, land reform laws in the 1950s aimed to redistribute large, poorly cultivated estates to new peasant owners. These laws mostly affected central and southern Italy, but there were other specific initiatives and changes in rural areas that would have affected Zoppola. In particular, farming practices shifted, leading to a decrease in traditional agricultural jobs like those of seasonal workers and sharecroppers. Also, many people from rural areas migrated to cities seeking work in factories and other new industries.
As Palmira’s daughter approached adulthood in the early 1950s, their situation at home had changed. Palmira’s parents were both gone, and the house where she and Anna Maria lived was owned by her brother Angelo. He had married in 1940 and had four children of his own by 1951. They all got along, but, to Palmira, it was feeling less like her home.
Finances were tight as always. Palmira raised rabbits to sell in order to pay for Anna Maria’s school fees and clothing. Her brother Andrea continued to encourage her to come to San Francisco and let her know that there was paying work available and Andrea knew a man she might like. Eventually, she took a job as a maid in the home of a wealthy family in Florence in order to build enough of a nest egg to make the move. Prices had changed. The ship’s cost had gone up to $50, but the train cost had dropped to $40. In addition, Anna Maria had graduated from school was working to earn her own passage.
On November 8, 1955, Palmira boarded the Saturnia in Trieste with Franco and Caterina Pagura, among other Zoppolani, and headed for New York City, where she arrived on November 24th. All she had with her was one trunk of possessions, a train ticket, and a little money. From there she boarded a train for the five-day trip to California. Her naturalization form listed her as 5’ 5”, 195 lbs, with a fair complexion, brown hair and brown eyes, and a mole on her right cheek.
In San Francisco, Palmira lived initially with Andrea and Emilia. She soon landed a job at Levi Strauss. Palmira was an excellent seamstress and, like her mother, could take measurements by eye, and the clothes would always fit. Stories vary about who helped get her the job there, possibly her sister-in-law Emilia or Maria Zilli, another of the many Zoppolani living in the Potrero District.
Levi Strauss and Company was a San Francisco institution. Begun in 1853 as a dry goods company, their first factory was established in 1873 to manufacture the copper-riveted "waist overalls" that would become the famous blue jeans. The earlier factory, which was in the South of Market District, was destroyed by the Great Earthquake and Fire in 1906. A new one was built at 250 Valencia Street.
When the Valencia Street factory was the only Levi Strauss in the country, the workforce was composed almost entirely of Latin American and Italian women. This was in the days when the owners (the Haas Brothers) came with their wives and children to share the Christmas cake with their workers, personally going to each machine to shake hands, and shared New Year's Eve with them. At least, that was the myth. In fact, the factory was a sweat shop with hard work for low pay and with few breaks. The wages were not hourly, but rather piecework, meaning that you got paid based on how many pieces you completed.
Palmira put the sewing skills which she had learned from her mother to good use working at Levi Strauss. She was what was known as a “looper,” which meant she sewed belt loops onto the jeans. Palmira was Employee of the Month several times over her career because she consistently worked harder and finished more work than anyone else. Quattrins have never been afraid of hard work. As Palmira said in her diary,
Our family has always been praised for being strong and hardworking. My brothers worked too, starting at 3 a.m. — the Italian morning! They went to the fields; mother watched over the dairy, the cheeses, the cheesemaker — all strong. Then when they came back, they rose again to harvest. At night they ate well, immense meals.
By the summer of 1956, Palmira had met Mike Zuffi.
Levi Strauss and Company was a San Francisco institution. Begun in 1853 as a dry goods company, their first factory was established in 1873 to manufacture the copper-riveted "waist overalls" that would become the famous blue jeans. The earlier factory, which was in the South of Market District, was destroyed by the Great Earthquake and Fire in 1906. A new one was built at 250 Valencia Street.
When the Valencia Street factory was the only Levi Strauss in the country, the workforce was composed almost entirely of Latin American and Italian women. This was in the days when the owners (the Haas Brothers) came with their wives and children to share the Christmas cake with their workers, personally going to each machine to shake hands, and shared New Year's Eve with them. At least, that was the myth. In fact, the factory was a sweat shop with hard work for low pay and with few breaks. The wages were not hourly, but rather piecework, meaning that you got paid based on how many pieces you completed.
Palmira put the sewing skills which she had learned from her mother to good use working at Levi Strauss. She was what was known as a “looper,” which meant she sewed belt loops onto the jeans. Palmira was Employee of the Month several times over her career because she consistently worked harder and finished more work than anyone else. Quattrins have never been afraid of hard work. As Palmira said in her diary,
Our family has always been praised for being strong and hardworking. My brothers worked too, starting at 3 a.m. — the Italian morning! They went to the fields; mother watched over the dairy, the cheeses, the cheesemaker — all strong. Then when they came back, they rose again to harvest. At night they ate well, immense meals.
By the summer of 1956, Palmira had met Mike Zuffi.
Giacomo (James) Michael Zuffi was born on August 23, 1907, in San Francisco. He always went by Mike. He was the only son and second of five children of Domenico Zuffi and Emilia Guaraglia, Italian immigrants from Genoa and Ottone, Emilia-Romagna, respectively. Domenico was a laborer in a meat packing company who worked his way up to the position of butcher. Mike had been born in the family home at 1235 10th Street near Brannan in the South of Market District. He was likely baptized at St. Joseph’s Church at 10th and Howard, but it could have been at St. Rose’s Church on Brannan and 4th Street. By 1914, the family had bought the lot at 2110 Revere Street in the Bayview/Silver Terrace district and had the house moved there. Mike remembered wine barrels falling into the street and rolling down the hill during the move. The house numbers on the block were changed later, so Palmira and Mike lived at 2118 Revere.
Mike grew up in a typical Italian immigrant home in San Francisco. His father worked as a laborer and a butcher. His mother ran the home and raised the children. The home centered on the kitchen, the family, and the Catholic Church. He most likely attended weekly Sunday mass at St. Elizabeth’s Church on Wayland Avenue. Like most men of his generation, Mike had completed the 8th grade compulsory education before going into the workforce. He worked briefly as a chauffer and then attained a long-term position operating a cigarette-rolling machine for Marlbough in 1930, just as the Great Depression was ramping up. By 1940, he had moved to a similar position at the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company.
Mike grew up in a typical Italian immigrant home in San Francisco. His father worked as a laborer and a butcher. His mother ran the home and raised the children. The home centered on the kitchen, the family, and the Catholic Church. He most likely attended weekly Sunday mass at St. Elizabeth’s Church on Wayland Avenue. Like most men of his generation, Mike had completed the 8th grade compulsory education before going into the workforce. He worked briefly as a chauffer and then attained a long-term position operating a cigarette-rolling machine for Marlbough in 1930, just as the Great Depression was ramping up. By 1940, he had moved to a similar position at the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company.
Mike enjoyed making wine. For many Italian immigrants, winemaking was a deeply ingrained cultural practice, a way to preserve their heritage and maintain a sense of normalcy during turbulent times, like Prohibition and the Great Depression. The home winemaking loophole in the Volstead Act, which allowed individuals to produce up to 200 gallons of wine annually during Prohibition (1920-1933), provided a framework for this activity. This loophole inadvertently fueled a grape-growing boom in California. Winemakers adapted by shipping hardy, thick-skinned grapes like Alicante Bouschet and Zinfandel by railcar to Italian communities across the country. San Francisco largely resisted the temperance movement, earning it a reputation as a "wet city" where Prohibition was not strictly enforced. This lenient environment allowed bootlegging to flourish and home winemaking to continue relatively unhindered. The tradition of home winemaking often involved strong family and community bonds, with experienced winemakers mentoring new ones, and cellars and vats becoming central to family life. Mike probably learned from his father, and he was good enough at it that Emilia Quattrin preferred his red wine to her husband’s. The practice of winemaking continued well after Prohibition, with families in areas like San Francisco's Potrero Hill continuing to make wine into the 1960s.
Mike’s passion was baseball. His team was the minor league San Francisco Seals, which played in the Pacific Coast League from 1903 until 1957. Named for the abundant California sea lion and harbor seal populations in the Bay Area, the 1909, 1922, 1925, and 1928 Seals were recognized as being among the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time. Many SF natives started with the Seals and made it to the Majors—most notably, Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio who played for the Seals from October 1932 through 1935. In 1933, DiMaggio hit safely in a record 61 straight games for the Seals, with 169 RBIs and a batting average of .340. Another future major league player, Gus Suhr, had an incredible season for the Seals in 1929, hitting .381 with 51 home runs and 177 RBIs. Other notable Seals players included Hall of Famers Earl Averill, Tony Lazzeri, Joe Cronin and Lefty Gomez, as well as Dominic DiMaggio, Vince DiMaggio, Albie Pearson, and Ferris Fain.
The team played in Seals Stadium (aka the Queen of Concrete) at 14th and Bryant in the Mission. Opening with a capacity of 18,600, Seals Stadium had no roof over the grandstands, because of San Francisco's little rainfall during the summertime and the fans' preference to sit in the sun. The original uncovered grandstand stretched from foul pole to foul pole. In some years during its minor league days, a live seal was kept in a water tank underneath the grandstand. The field was oriented southeast (home plate to second base), with the right field bleachers bounded by 16th Street.
In 1945, controlling interest in the team was purchased by businessman Paul Fagan, with the stated intention of bringing Major League Baseball to the west coast by having the Pacific Coast League become the nation's third major league. He spent thousands of dollars upgrading Seals Stadium to perceived major league standards. He hired former major league player Lefty O'Doul, a native San Franciscan and fan favorite, as manager. Though the Seals won the pennant in 1946, subsequent teams under Fagan's watch did not fare as well, typically finishing in the second division.
Fagan invested in a stadium makeover. Fagan had all billboards removed and had the entire stadium painted green. Nearby the stadium was the Rainier (later Hamm's) Brewery. The roof of the brewery contained a sign depicting an enormous foaming glass of beer that was lit up at night and was visible from inside the park. Also nearby was the Langendorf Bakery, which sent the smell of baking bread into the ballpark. At the corner of 16th Street and Bryant was the Double Play bar and grill, which was open from 1909 until a fire destroyed it in 2022. It had been described as a “shrine to baseball.”
While the Pacific Coast League never became the third Major League due to the other owners’ lack of interest in the scheme, in 1957 Fagan realized part of his dream by luring the New York Giants out to California. The Seals moved to Phoenix, and the now-San Francisco Giants played in Seal Stadium while Candlestick Park was built. Candlestick opened in 1960. Mike was ecstatic as the park was closer to his neighborhood.
By 1944, Mike decided to get married. His father had died three years earlier, and his mother was approaching 70. Two of his three surviving sisters had married and moved out to start families of their own. He proposed to a 37-year-old neighborhood woman named Dina, who lived on San Bruno Avenue and also worked as a rolling machine operator at Liggett and Myers.
Dina Darini was the fourth and youngest child of Sebastiano Darini and Rosa Lucchessi, two Italian immigrants from Villa Basilica, Lucca, Italy. He was a marble salesman and she was a homemaker. Rosa died when Dina was younger than five, and her father remarried to a woman named Elena or Helen. Dina had grown up on nearby San Bruno Avenue, and she and Mike probably had attended the same grammar school and church. She had been married previously to Primo Maffei, and they had three children together before divorcing around 1942. The children were teenagers when she and Mike married.
Mike’s passion was baseball. His team was the minor league San Francisco Seals, which played in the Pacific Coast League from 1903 until 1957. Named for the abundant California sea lion and harbor seal populations in the Bay Area, the 1909, 1922, 1925, and 1928 Seals were recognized as being among the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time. Many SF natives started with the Seals and made it to the Majors—most notably, Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio who played for the Seals from October 1932 through 1935. In 1933, DiMaggio hit safely in a record 61 straight games for the Seals, with 169 RBIs and a batting average of .340. Another future major league player, Gus Suhr, had an incredible season for the Seals in 1929, hitting .381 with 51 home runs and 177 RBIs. Other notable Seals players included Hall of Famers Earl Averill, Tony Lazzeri, Joe Cronin and Lefty Gomez, as well as Dominic DiMaggio, Vince DiMaggio, Albie Pearson, and Ferris Fain.
The team played in Seals Stadium (aka the Queen of Concrete) at 14th and Bryant in the Mission. Opening with a capacity of 18,600, Seals Stadium had no roof over the grandstands, because of San Francisco's little rainfall during the summertime and the fans' preference to sit in the sun. The original uncovered grandstand stretched from foul pole to foul pole. In some years during its minor league days, a live seal was kept in a water tank underneath the grandstand. The field was oriented southeast (home plate to second base), with the right field bleachers bounded by 16th Street.
In 1945, controlling interest in the team was purchased by businessman Paul Fagan, with the stated intention of bringing Major League Baseball to the west coast by having the Pacific Coast League become the nation's third major league. He spent thousands of dollars upgrading Seals Stadium to perceived major league standards. He hired former major league player Lefty O'Doul, a native San Franciscan and fan favorite, as manager. Though the Seals won the pennant in 1946, subsequent teams under Fagan's watch did not fare as well, typically finishing in the second division.
Fagan invested in a stadium makeover. Fagan had all billboards removed and had the entire stadium painted green. Nearby the stadium was the Rainier (later Hamm's) Brewery. The roof of the brewery contained a sign depicting an enormous foaming glass of beer that was lit up at night and was visible from inside the park. Also nearby was the Langendorf Bakery, which sent the smell of baking bread into the ballpark. At the corner of 16th Street and Bryant was the Double Play bar and grill, which was open from 1909 until a fire destroyed it in 2022. It had been described as a “shrine to baseball.”
While the Pacific Coast League never became the third Major League due to the other owners’ lack of interest in the scheme, in 1957 Fagan realized part of his dream by luring the New York Giants out to California. The Seals moved to Phoenix, and the now-San Francisco Giants played in Seal Stadium while Candlestick Park was built. Candlestick opened in 1960. Mike was ecstatic as the park was closer to his neighborhood.
By 1944, Mike decided to get married. His father had died three years earlier, and his mother was approaching 70. Two of his three surviving sisters had married and moved out to start families of their own. He proposed to a 37-year-old neighborhood woman named Dina, who lived on San Bruno Avenue and also worked as a rolling machine operator at Liggett and Myers.
Dina Darini was the fourth and youngest child of Sebastiano Darini and Rosa Lucchessi, two Italian immigrants from Villa Basilica, Lucca, Italy. He was a marble salesman and she was a homemaker. Rosa died when Dina was younger than five, and her father remarried to a woman named Elena or Helen. Dina had grown up on nearby San Bruno Avenue, and she and Mike probably had attended the same grammar school and church. She had been married previously to Primo Maffei, and they had three children together before divorcing around 1942. The children were teenagers when she and Mike married.
Dina and Mike were married in December of 1944. Mike had lived the first 37 years of his life as the only son in a traditional Italian household, which made him a little spoiled and gave him an expectation that the women around him would take care of him. His son-in-law Leo found him fastidious and a little demanding. Things had to be his way and on his schedule, and it was his wife’s job to get it done. Dinner was always at 5 pm, and Mike was picky about his diet—in particular, he never ate butter. Apparently, Dina quickly decided that this was not what she wanted. By October 19, 1945, they were divorced. Dina would live to the ripe old age of 96, dying in San Carlos on May 8, 2003. Apparently, she never remarried. Mike tried marriage again in 1951, but it only lasted a few weeks, and no one even knows what the second wife’s name was anymore.
Mike was living by himself again in the family home, his mother having died in 1947. By early 1951, he had left Liggett and Myers and was working as a mechanic for Woodall Industries where they made sliding glass doors. Born in the aftermath of the Great Earthquake and Fire, Mike was a member of the Lost Generation. He lived through the Great Depression and two World Wars. This gave him a sense of impending doom and a constant concern that he would lose everything. That made him very frugal. As his grandson Paul Kusber said, “Nonno Mike was the model of a grumpy old man if there ever was one. He was cheap as hell and full of tales of how things used to be.”
But Paul also said,
I was always happy to see him because he was the man who took me to my first Giants game and opened a whole new world that my dad hated. He was always there, mostly sitting at the kitchen table or puttering in the garden. We would visit twice a month and get to watch TV on the little black and white 19" in the side room, which was amazing because we didn't have a tv at all.
Dave Quattrin said, “From what I can remember, he seemed gentle and kind hearted with a hearty laugh. I just remember him looking like Mickey Mouse with a big nose...lol.”
Mike was a friend of Palmira’s brother Andrea, though how they knew each other is unknown, and Andrea introduced Mike and Palmira to one another. They seemed to like each other, though Palmira was reticent. Her other brother Poldi did not particularly like Mike—he referred to Mike as the babao (pronounced bu-BOU, meaning dummy), and Poldi’s grandkids called Mike “Goofy Zuffi” —but Poldi still pestered Palmira about why she had not committed one way or another. So, she did.
Mike was living by himself again in the family home, his mother having died in 1947. By early 1951, he had left Liggett and Myers and was working as a mechanic for Woodall Industries where they made sliding glass doors. Born in the aftermath of the Great Earthquake and Fire, Mike was a member of the Lost Generation. He lived through the Great Depression and two World Wars. This gave him a sense of impending doom and a constant concern that he would lose everything. That made him very frugal. As his grandson Paul Kusber said, “Nonno Mike was the model of a grumpy old man if there ever was one. He was cheap as hell and full of tales of how things used to be.”
But Paul also said,
I was always happy to see him because he was the man who took me to my first Giants game and opened a whole new world that my dad hated. He was always there, mostly sitting at the kitchen table or puttering in the garden. We would visit twice a month and get to watch TV on the little black and white 19" in the side room, which was amazing because we didn't have a tv at all.
Dave Quattrin said, “From what I can remember, he seemed gentle and kind hearted with a hearty laugh. I just remember him looking like Mickey Mouse with a big nose...lol.”
Mike was a friend of Palmira’s brother Andrea, though how they knew each other is unknown, and Andrea introduced Mike and Palmira to one another. They seemed to like each other, though Palmira was reticent. Her other brother Poldi did not particularly like Mike—he referred to Mike as the babao (pronounced bu-BOU, meaning dummy), and Poldi’s grandkids called Mike “Goofy Zuffi” —but Poldi still pestered Palmira about why she had not committed one way or another. So, she did.
After knowing each other for about three months, Palmira and Mike married on September 1, 1956, in Reno, Nevada, in a civil ceremony performed by Justice of the Peace William Beemer. The marriage was validated on March 31, 1957, by Fr. Theophilus Caelva at St. Paul of the Shipwreck Church in San Francisco—which is surprising since Mike was a divorcee. She was 45, and he was 49. She moved into the house on Revere Street, and she quickly came to love it as the home she did not have in Zoppola—a house where she had her own front door key and could decorate it as she liked.
The Zuffi house was pretty small—three bedrooms, one bathroom and a kitchen in 831 square feet—but on a 2500 square foot lot. It sat back on a hillside and one had to cross over a short bridge to the front door. Paul remembered:
The Zuffi house was pretty small—three bedrooms, one bathroom and a kitchen in 831 square feet—but on a 2500 square foot lot. It sat back on a hillside and one had to cross over a short bridge to the front door. Paul remembered:
The house was long and skinny. You entered the main hallway from a short covered porch. A tiny bedroom 8x10-ish was on the right, and the main bedroom was on the left (maybe 11x12). Classic hallway with wainscoting all painted white. The main room was next on the way in as the hallway opened into a room with a built-in china cabinet (always remember the Elvis head whiskey bottle) that was the room with the consol tv that you couldn't turn on until 7pm to watch Vanna (wheel of fortune). Next to this room was another tiny bedroom that for some reason had a very deep and narrow closet. At the end of the hallway was the kitchen with the bathroom off the left. This was added on at some point as the original house ended prior to that and had no plumbing.
Lietta Kusber was very close to her grandmother and often spent weekends at the house on Revere Street. The first memory that came to mind was sitting at the kitchen table during an earthquake and saying, “Nonna, stop shaking the table.” Some of her strongest memories of the house were of the first bedroom on the right of the front door, which was Palmira’s sewing room. The centerpiece of the room was the treadle sewing machine, a fixture in many homes of the day. Just as Paul remembered the Elvis-head whiskey bottle, Lietta remembered the Avon perfume bottle shaped like a Victorian woman with a torso that unscrewed and the many small lipsticks that were free samples. Palmira would grab anything that was free, be it sugar or ketchup packets or napkins from a restaurant or peanuts and hotdog at the Giants’ Opening Day. She would wrap as many hotdogs as possible in a napkin to put in her purse and then put them in the freezer when she got home.
In the sewing room were also some dolls that Palmira had found in a thrift store. She never had dolls to play with when she was growing up, so she bought them later in life and enjoyed making clothes for them.
The other room in the house that was Palmira’s domain was the kitchen. She loved to cook, especially now that she had access to good ingredients, and she was excellent at it. Everyone mentioned her rosemary chicken, which she cooked in a special Dutch oven. Adding olive oil over the top sealed in the juices and made the meat tender and succulent. She was great with soups as well, and her gnocchi and meat sauce was to die for.
A common memory was of Palmira hosting Thanksgiving Dinner. Cooking was a joy, and she loved feeding her family. She insisted everyone had enough to eat. If your plate was empty, she put more food on it. If you politely ate it all, she would put even more. She never wanted anyone to go hungry at her table.
Paul remembered the basement and the yard:
The basement was huge and gated with several partitions and a wine making room. They had some loose boards in the upper wall toward the street that could be taken out and made into a ramp [probably an old coal chute] to slide the grapes in to make wine.
The basement creeped Lietta out—she thought it was haunted.
Lietta Kusber was very close to her grandmother and often spent weekends at the house on Revere Street. The first memory that came to mind was sitting at the kitchen table during an earthquake and saying, “Nonna, stop shaking the table.” Some of her strongest memories of the house were of the first bedroom on the right of the front door, which was Palmira’s sewing room. The centerpiece of the room was the treadle sewing machine, a fixture in many homes of the day. Just as Paul remembered the Elvis-head whiskey bottle, Lietta remembered the Avon perfume bottle shaped like a Victorian woman with a torso that unscrewed and the many small lipsticks that were free samples. Palmira would grab anything that was free, be it sugar or ketchup packets or napkins from a restaurant or peanuts and hotdog at the Giants’ Opening Day. She would wrap as many hotdogs as possible in a napkin to put in her purse and then put them in the freezer when she got home.
In the sewing room were also some dolls that Palmira had found in a thrift store. She never had dolls to play with when she was growing up, so she bought them later in life and enjoyed making clothes for them.
The other room in the house that was Palmira’s domain was the kitchen. She loved to cook, especially now that she had access to good ingredients, and she was excellent at it. Everyone mentioned her rosemary chicken, which she cooked in a special Dutch oven. Adding olive oil over the top sealed in the juices and made the meat tender and succulent. She was great with soups as well, and her gnocchi and meat sauce was to die for.
A common memory was of Palmira hosting Thanksgiving Dinner. Cooking was a joy, and she loved feeding her family. She insisted everyone had enough to eat. If your plate was empty, she put more food on it. If you politely ate it all, she would put even more. She never wanted anyone to go hungry at her table.
Paul remembered the basement and the yard:
The basement was huge and gated with several partitions and a wine making room. They had some loose boards in the upper wall toward the street that could be taken out and made into a ramp [probably an old coal chute] to slide the grapes in to make wine.
The basement creeped Lietta out—she thought it was haunted.
The backyard had a large fig tree and several apple trees and the raised beds for lettuce and vegetables (always with a knife handy that was stuck in the dirt). There was a steep ramp going up to the separate single car garage that we used to play baseball on. The only car I ever knew was the 68 blue Chevy Nova with the straight 6 and two flight automatic transmission, bench seats with clear vinyl covers, and a KNBR 68 bumper sticker.
Mike always wore a hat when he went out. In public, it was a fedora. When working in the yard, it was his SF Giants cap.
Shortly after they married, Mike switched jobs again. He took a custodial job with San Francisco Unified School District. The building was right across the street from the house and is now Willie Brown Middle School. Mike worked there until retiring in the early 1970s.
About the same time that Palmira married Mike, Anna Maria also left Italy. The plan had probably been that she stay in Zoppola until Palmira could make enough money to send for her. But the sudden decision came on the heels of Anna Maria’s teenage cousin, as only a blunt 13-year-old can do, told her, “You know, this isn’t your house.” The next day, Anna Maria went to the parish priest who was placing people in jobs in other countries. He set her up at a hospital in Cambridge, outside of London, where she worked in the dining room. She received release time in order to attend classes in English. (She wanted to also improve her French, but did not receive time for that.) Once she had saved enough money for the plane ticket, she followed Palmira, landing in San Francisco in 1957. Andrea sponsored her as well. When she got to San Francisco, though, he was dying of throat cancer and apologized that it had taken so long to bring her over that he would not be able to stick around and get to know her. Andrea died two months later.
Initially, Anna Maria stayed with Palmira and Mike, but that soon became difficult. She then moved into her cousin Sebastiano Busalacchi’s house. She attended San Francisco State intending to become a language teacher. She also took art and sculpture classes which became her lifelong passions.
On June 11, 1961, Palmira attended a church picnic. She wanted Anna Maria to go with her, but her daughter did not feel like it. Then Palmira told her that her mother Elisa had appeared to her in a dream the night before and insisted that she bring Anna Maria with her. They both went and Anna Maria met the love of her life, Leo Kusber. They were married exactly five months later. (But that is a story for another biography.)
Leo had hoped to inherit his grandfather’s house where he and Anna Maria initially lived, but that did not pan out. Palmira, who had saved much of the money she earned at Levi Strauss (and had hidden the bankbooks from Mike) was able to help her daughter and son-in-law buy their first house in Colma.
Mike always wore a hat when he went out. In public, it was a fedora. When working in the yard, it was his SF Giants cap.
Shortly after they married, Mike switched jobs again. He took a custodial job with San Francisco Unified School District. The building was right across the street from the house and is now Willie Brown Middle School. Mike worked there until retiring in the early 1970s.
About the same time that Palmira married Mike, Anna Maria also left Italy. The plan had probably been that she stay in Zoppola until Palmira could make enough money to send for her. But the sudden decision came on the heels of Anna Maria’s teenage cousin, as only a blunt 13-year-old can do, told her, “You know, this isn’t your house.” The next day, Anna Maria went to the parish priest who was placing people in jobs in other countries. He set her up at a hospital in Cambridge, outside of London, where she worked in the dining room. She received release time in order to attend classes in English. (She wanted to also improve her French, but did not receive time for that.) Once she had saved enough money for the plane ticket, she followed Palmira, landing in San Francisco in 1957. Andrea sponsored her as well. When she got to San Francisco, though, he was dying of throat cancer and apologized that it had taken so long to bring her over that he would not be able to stick around and get to know her. Andrea died two months later.
Initially, Anna Maria stayed with Palmira and Mike, but that soon became difficult. She then moved into her cousin Sebastiano Busalacchi’s house. She attended San Francisco State intending to become a language teacher. She also took art and sculpture classes which became her lifelong passions.
On June 11, 1961, Palmira attended a church picnic. She wanted Anna Maria to go with her, but her daughter did not feel like it. Then Palmira told her that her mother Elisa had appeared to her in a dream the night before and insisted that she bring Anna Maria with her. They both went and Anna Maria met the love of her life, Leo Kusber. They were married exactly five months later. (But that is a story for another biography.)
Leo had hoped to inherit his grandfather’s house where he and Anna Maria initially lived, but that did not pan out. Palmira, who had saved much of the money she earned at Levi Strauss (and had hidden the bankbooks from Mike) was able to help her daughter and son-in-law buy their first house in Colma.
Palmira loved Leo and loved having a son-in-law. It meant her daughter would be taken care of. More importantly, Palmira’s first grandchild Angelo was born on November 3, 1962. A granddaughter, Lea, was born a year later, but she tragically only lived for four days. Lietta was born in 1965, and Paul (Paolo) was born in 1967.
Palmira was a tremendous grandmother: loving and kind and would do anything for her grandchildren whether it was making pajamas for them every Christmas, or cooking heart-shaped waffles, or washing their feet when they spent the night. It was easy to see the love in her eyes when she looked at them.
Another of her talents was crocheting. One of Lietta’s prized possessions is a queen-size crochet bed spread. Unfortunately, later in life, Palmira lost part of the left thumb because of a melanoma she had ignored for years. Without the last segment of thumb. She could no longer handle the crocheting hooks properly and had to give up one of her talents.
Besides becoming a grandmother in 1962, Palmira reached another milestone on May 22, 1962, when she became a naturalized citizen like her brothers. She had worked hard to improve her English and to learn about the Constitution in order to pass her citizenship exam and attain permanent residence. Everyone was very proud.
Palmira had some quirky behaviors that her grandchildren noticed over the years. She had a particular way of standing for a picture, with her body turned one quarter away from the camera and a certain tilt of her head. They would mimic the stance and say, “Pose like Nonna!” Palmira liked the occasional drink of grappa that was kept in the china cabinet. If caught, she would smile shyly and say, “Just a little nineen.” When she would go to the bank to cash her paycheck or social security checks, she would huddle in the corner divvying the money into different homemade pouches ad then stuff them into her bra in case someone tried to steal her purse. When Lietta would come over every three weeks or so to take her shopping, Palmira would always remind her where the dress was that she wanted to be buried in and where the bankbooks were hidden. The dress was always in the same place, but the bankbooks kept moving around.
In terms of entertainment, Palmira really enjoyed her Italian music—songs like O Sole Mio, Tarantella, and the typical Italian folk songs sung at weddings and picnics. Mamma was her favorite. She did not listened to music much at home. Mike liked his quiet, except when a baseball game was on. She loved to watch Family feud at 10am. She would call the show "Ritchie" for Richard Dawson. Mike found it scandalous that Richard Dawson would kiss all the women. Her other favorite show was Wheel of Fortune (which she would refer to as the Ruota), and she loved Vanna White (with an Italian "Vannahhhh"). She also enjoyed Lawrence Welk. Other than that, Mike watched what he liked. He had his routine.
In the 1970s, Palmira decided to do a little traveling, mostly to see relatives. Lietta remembered that her family had gone on a road trip during the summer of 1975 in Fernie, British Columbia, where Zio Tony and his sons lived. Palmira took the bus up to visit as well for part of that time. Anna Maria took the boys home and Lietta came back with Palmira later. There was a big picnic with unlimited ice cream. It was Mike’s favorite flavor…free. They ate enough to both get stomach aches. Palmira may have gone to Toronto another time to visit Zio Angelo’s daughter Mirella, but we are not sure. And she did return to Zoppola once. Unfortunately, she was there at the time of the Friuli Earthquakes of 1976.
Known in Italy as Terremoto del Friuli (Friulian earthquake), the shock of magnitude 6.5 struck on May 6, 1976, centered near the town of Gemona del Friuli, a small town about 32 miles northeast of Zoppola. 990 people were killed, up to 3,000 were injured, and more than 157,000 were left homeless. Aftershocks continued through the summer and did not end until September. The home in which Palmira and her siblings had grown up was destroyed. It was later rebuilt with more modern features. By the time Kevin and his family visited in 1978, Zoppola had recovered and there were few signs of the destruction, but parts of Trieste were still in rubble. Palmira was not there in May, but it might have been what prompted her to go home to visit. She was there for the four aftershocks, though—5.5 and 5.4 on September 11, and 6.0 and 5.9 on September 15. According to Anna Maria, her mother was very lucky to survive. She had been in a store shopping during the fourth one, and the ceiling tiles fell all around her, but completely missing her.
Lietta remembered going to the airport to greet Nonna on her way back from Italy.
It was kind of funny because as we were on the moving walkway at the airport I looked over to my left and saw a man who I thought looked like Nonno Mike, turns out it was him but he seemed so different without Nonna. Plus, he was speaking Italian with mom which I thought was strange as I don’t recall him ever speaking Italian with mom and for sure didn’t with us. Anyway, he was also on his way to pick up Nonna. She arrived on TWA in the days when you could still go to the plane’s gate, before all the terrorist events.
The other memory this sparked; during the time Nonna was in Italy, we went to visit Nonno Mike and I remember him saying how he was a cleaner cook than Nonna, meaning she used all the pots and pans to cook and waiting till after dinner to clean. I remember him saying “I only use one pot to cook, and I wash it right away.” Of course, he did…he only had to cook for one!
Palmira was a tremendous grandmother: loving and kind and would do anything for her grandchildren whether it was making pajamas for them every Christmas, or cooking heart-shaped waffles, or washing their feet when they spent the night. It was easy to see the love in her eyes when she looked at them.
Another of her talents was crocheting. One of Lietta’s prized possessions is a queen-size crochet bed spread. Unfortunately, later in life, Palmira lost part of the left thumb because of a melanoma she had ignored for years. Without the last segment of thumb. She could no longer handle the crocheting hooks properly and had to give up one of her talents.
Besides becoming a grandmother in 1962, Palmira reached another milestone on May 22, 1962, when she became a naturalized citizen like her brothers. She had worked hard to improve her English and to learn about the Constitution in order to pass her citizenship exam and attain permanent residence. Everyone was very proud.
Palmira had some quirky behaviors that her grandchildren noticed over the years. She had a particular way of standing for a picture, with her body turned one quarter away from the camera and a certain tilt of her head. They would mimic the stance and say, “Pose like Nonna!” Palmira liked the occasional drink of grappa that was kept in the china cabinet. If caught, she would smile shyly and say, “Just a little nineen.” When she would go to the bank to cash her paycheck or social security checks, she would huddle in the corner divvying the money into different homemade pouches ad then stuff them into her bra in case someone tried to steal her purse. When Lietta would come over every three weeks or so to take her shopping, Palmira would always remind her where the dress was that she wanted to be buried in and where the bankbooks were hidden. The dress was always in the same place, but the bankbooks kept moving around.
In terms of entertainment, Palmira really enjoyed her Italian music—songs like O Sole Mio, Tarantella, and the typical Italian folk songs sung at weddings and picnics. Mamma was her favorite. She did not listened to music much at home. Mike liked his quiet, except when a baseball game was on. She loved to watch Family feud at 10am. She would call the show "Ritchie" for Richard Dawson. Mike found it scandalous that Richard Dawson would kiss all the women. Her other favorite show was Wheel of Fortune (which she would refer to as the Ruota), and she loved Vanna White (with an Italian "Vannahhhh"). She also enjoyed Lawrence Welk. Other than that, Mike watched what he liked. He had his routine.
In the 1970s, Palmira decided to do a little traveling, mostly to see relatives. Lietta remembered that her family had gone on a road trip during the summer of 1975 in Fernie, British Columbia, where Zio Tony and his sons lived. Palmira took the bus up to visit as well for part of that time. Anna Maria took the boys home and Lietta came back with Palmira later. There was a big picnic with unlimited ice cream. It was Mike’s favorite flavor…free. They ate enough to both get stomach aches. Palmira may have gone to Toronto another time to visit Zio Angelo’s daughter Mirella, but we are not sure. And she did return to Zoppola once. Unfortunately, she was there at the time of the Friuli Earthquakes of 1976.
Known in Italy as Terremoto del Friuli (Friulian earthquake), the shock of magnitude 6.5 struck on May 6, 1976, centered near the town of Gemona del Friuli, a small town about 32 miles northeast of Zoppola. 990 people were killed, up to 3,000 were injured, and more than 157,000 were left homeless. Aftershocks continued through the summer and did not end until September. The home in which Palmira and her siblings had grown up was destroyed. It was later rebuilt with more modern features. By the time Kevin and his family visited in 1978, Zoppola had recovered and there were few signs of the destruction, but parts of Trieste were still in rubble. Palmira was not there in May, but it might have been what prompted her to go home to visit. She was there for the four aftershocks, though—5.5 and 5.4 on September 11, and 6.0 and 5.9 on September 15. According to Anna Maria, her mother was very lucky to survive. She had been in a store shopping during the fourth one, and the ceiling tiles fell all around her, but completely missing her.
Lietta remembered going to the airport to greet Nonna on her way back from Italy.
It was kind of funny because as we were on the moving walkway at the airport I looked over to my left and saw a man who I thought looked like Nonno Mike, turns out it was him but he seemed so different without Nonna. Plus, he was speaking Italian with mom which I thought was strange as I don’t recall him ever speaking Italian with mom and for sure didn’t with us. Anyway, he was also on his way to pick up Nonna. She arrived on TWA in the days when you could still go to the plane’s gate, before all the terrorist events.
The other memory this sparked; during the time Nonna was in Italy, we went to visit Nonno Mike and I remember him saying how he was a cleaner cook than Nonna, meaning she used all the pots and pans to cook and waiting till after dinner to clean. I remember him saying “I only use one pot to cook, and I wash it right away.” Of course, he did…he only had to cook for one!
In 1979, Palmira retired from Levi Strauss. Lietta remembered the family being invited to a retirement luncheon:
The retirement party was a luncheon during the work day. It was at the factory in a separate room. Round tables were set up, and they also celebrated a few other ladies that were retiring. She received her Levi's ring for her 20 years of service. She was so proud of that ring. I know I have a picture somewhere, might be in a box as I did not unpack all of our belongings when we moved to Woodside. She also received a certificate as the fastest looper, attaching 400 belt loops per hour. I do have two albums of Nonna's which have photos of her retirement luncheon.
Palmira and Mike spoke only Italian at home, and after she retired, she began to lose some of her English skills. By the 1990s, when Kevin began collecting family stories, she was only speaking Italian. When he visited Revere Street to hear stories, he brought his father John to translate. (That backfired a little when Palmira told some stories that his father refused to translate because John thought they were either untrue or just gossip.) But she could definitely make herself understood when she wanted to. In 2002, she attended the reception at Kevin’s house for his son’s high school graduation. At one point, she was sitting quietly on the couch with her nephew’s wife Monica and Kevin’s ex-wife Kelly who had left Kevin and the children years before. In a pause in the conversation, she turned to Kelly, motioned to the room and the family and very clearly said, “See what you could have had?” Monica nearly choked on her cake.
In 1989, Palmira became a great-grandmother for the first time with the birth of Lietta’s daughter Katrina. There would be seven more great grandchildren between 1989 and 2005.
The retirement party was a luncheon during the work day. It was at the factory in a separate room. Round tables were set up, and they also celebrated a few other ladies that were retiring. She received her Levi's ring for her 20 years of service. She was so proud of that ring. I know I have a picture somewhere, might be in a box as I did not unpack all of our belongings when we moved to Woodside. She also received a certificate as the fastest looper, attaching 400 belt loops per hour. I do have two albums of Nonna's which have photos of her retirement luncheon.
Palmira and Mike spoke only Italian at home, and after she retired, she began to lose some of her English skills. By the 1990s, when Kevin began collecting family stories, she was only speaking Italian. When he visited Revere Street to hear stories, he brought his father John to translate. (That backfired a little when Palmira told some stories that his father refused to translate because John thought they were either untrue or just gossip.) But she could definitely make herself understood when she wanted to. In 2002, she attended the reception at Kevin’s house for his son’s high school graduation. At one point, she was sitting quietly on the couch with her nephew’s wife Monica and Kevin’s ex-wife Kelly who had left Kevin and the children years before. In a pause in the conversation, she turned to Kelly, motioned to the room and the family and very clearly said, “See what you could have had?” Monica nearly choked on her cake.
In 1989, Palmira became a great-grandmother for the first time with the birth of Lietta’s daughter Katrina. There would be seven more great grandchildren between 1989 and 2005.
Mike died on August 22, 1997. He was 90 years old. The official cause of death was pneumonia, but Mike had complained for a few years that “everything hurts.” At the rosary at Valente Marini, Kevin remembers thinking, “That is just like Mike: sitting quietly in the corner while everyone else is talking, waiting for Palmira to finish visiting so he can go home.” After a funeral mass at St. Elizabeth’s Church, Mike was interred in the outdoor mausoleum Our Lady Garden Court at Holy Cross Cemetery.
Palmira wrote:
Tomorrow, August 22, it will be six years since my husband passed away. Time goes by so fast. I would like to go to mass, though there are many days and worries. I hope with love that on Sunday the mass will be said for him. I hope that Michael will be happy to be in paradise together with Jesus. You were a good person, always praying and teaching many lessons. I remember you for your pain and your fatigue. Now I hope the Lord Jesus will renew my strength. When you were alive, I respected you so much. We used to go to Genoa to visit friends, sometimes to Turin. I remember, Michael, how you made your little school packets in your satchel, dividing them into three: one for yourself, one for Angela, one for Ernesto. And when you came home, the first thing you said was that you’d earned 1,000 lire. In your satchel you’d divided three slices. I hope, Angela, that toward Michael I may say: you are all there in Paradise — also your uncle and aunt. On the mountain everything passes, both good and bad.
Over 41 years, their marriage of convenience had changed into a marriage of companionship and finally to a marriage of love. Palmira was distraught at the mausoleum and wanted to crawl into the drawer with Mike. But life went on.
One evening, a couple of years after Mike’s passing, Palmira was not feeling well. Being independent and not wanting to bother anyone, she sat at her kitchen table for a long time until she felt a little better. She probably had a glass of wine or a nineen. Then she walked the two blocks to the bus stop and took two buses to get to the emergency room at Kaiser San Francisco across town in the Richmond District. She had had a heart attack. She was admitted and spent the next week in the ICU.
Just as Nonna Elisa had appeared to Palmira 40 years before and insisted Anna Maria come to the church picnic, she stepped in again. She came to Anna Maria in a dream and said, “I took care of you when you were a child. Now you must take care of my bambina.”
In the mid-1970s, the Kusbers had purchased a three-acre lot at 275 Olive Hill Lane in Woodside, California, and began designing and building their dream home. It was in the Italianate style with a hexagonal main house, a line of Italian cypress trees as a southern windbreak, outbuildings for carpentry and machine shops, chicken coops and goat pens, and a beautiful view of the surrounding hills reminiscent of Zoppola. Palmira and Mike used to come down on the weekends and watch the construction.
Tomorrow, August 22, it will be six years since my husband passed away. Time goes by so fast. I would like to go to mass, though there are many days and worries. I hope with love that on Sunday the mass will be said for him. I hope that Michael will be happy to be in paradise together with Jesus. You were a good person, always praying and teaching many lessons. I remember you for your pain and your fatigue. Now I hope the Lord Jesus will renew my strength. When you were alive, I respected you so much. We used to go to Genoa to visit friends, sometimes to Turin. I remember, Michael, how you made your little school packets in your satchel, dividing them into three: one for yourself, one for Angela, one for Ernesto. And when you came home, the first thing you said was that you’d earned 1,000 lire. In your satchel you’d divided three slices. I hope, Angela, that toward Michael I may say: you are all there in Paradise — also your uncle and aunt. On the mountain everything passes, both good and bad.
Over 41 years, their marriage of convenience had changed into a marriage of companionship and finally to a marriage of love. Palmira was distraught at the mausoleum and wanted to crawl into the drawer with Mike. But life went on.
One evening, a couple of years after Mike’s passing, Palmira was not feeling well. Being independent and not wanting to bother anyone, she sat at her kitchen table for a long time until she felt a little better. She probably had a glass of wine or a nineen. Then she walked the two blocks to the bus stop and took two buses to get to the emergency room at Kaiser San Francisco across town in the Richmond District. She had had a heart attack. She was admitted and spent the next week in the ICU.
Just as Nonna Elisa had appeared to Palmira 40 years before and insisted Anna Maria come to the church picnic, she stepped in again. She came to Anna Maria in a dream and said, “I took care of you when you were a child. Now you must take care of my bambina.”
In the mid-1970s, the Kusbers had purchased a three-acre lot at 275 Olive Hill Lane in Woodside, California, and began designing and building their dream home. It was in the Italianate style with a hexagonal main house, a line of Italian cypress trees as a southern windbreak, outbuildings for carpentry and machine shops, chicken coops and goat pens, and a beautiful view of the surrounding hills reminiscent of Zoppola. Palmira and Mike used to come down on the weekends and watch the construction.
Anna Maria and Leo set up one of the bedrooms for Palmira and moved her to Olive Hill Lane for her recovery. The intention was that Palmira move in permanently. Palmira needed support, and Silver Terrace had changed a great deal. Many of Mike and Palmira’s friends and neighbors were gone and the neighborhood had become a much less safe. She did like Woodside because it reminded her of her youth in Zoppola. She raked hay, helped tend the vegetable garden, fed the chickens (she had tried to raise chickens in Zoppola but it was cold and they did not fair well) and gather their eggs, and gathered grass to feed the rabbits. But she did not want to give up her home and asked them to move into Revere Street with her instead of the other way round. For a while, she would go back and forth, staying for a while in Woodside and then going home for a while.
By 2000, it was clear that she could not really take care of herself anymore and needed more help, especially medical care. Anna Maria and Leo found Woodside Terrace Assisted Living in Redwood City and moved her in there. It was there that she celebrated her 90th birthday in 2001. Many relatives came to the party.
Palmira did not really like it there, though. She had nothing to do and no one spoke Italian, let alone Frulan. She begged Paul’s wife Mary to be taken home. Mary did take her for a visit (which infuriated Anna Maria), but then they had to go back to Woodside Terrace. When Leo and Anna Maria visited her again, they discovered that Woodside Terrace had a miscommunication and, instead of a low sodium diet for her heart issues, they had put her on a HIGH sodium diet. Knowing she could do better (and remembering her Nonna’s words to her), Anna Maria moved Palmira back to Olive Tree Lane.
By 2000, it was clear that she could not really take care of herself anymore and needed more help, especially medical care. Anna Maria and Leo found Woodside Terrace Assisted Living in Redwood City and moved her in there. It was there that she celebrated her 90th birthday in 2001. Many relatives came to the party.
Palmira did not really like it there, though. She had nothing to do and no one spoke Italian, let alone Frulan. She begged Paul’s wife Mary to be taken home. Mary did take her for a visit (which infuriated Anna Maria), but then they had to go back to Woodside Terrace. When Leo and Anna Maria visited her again, they discovered that Woodside Terrace had a miscommunication and, instead of a low sodium diet for her heart issues, they had put her on a HIGH sodium diet. Knowing she could do better (and remembering her Nonna’s words to her), Anna Maria moved Palmira back to Olive Tree Lane.
After settling her in, Anna Maria began to work on Palmira’s health. She and Leo began cooking low cholesterol and low sodium foods. They had all the farm-fresh food they needed available on the property. They took Palmira for walks every day. Anna Maria had joined Fogolar Frulan Nord California, a Friulani social club, and would bring Palmira there so she had others to talk to in Frulan. To keep her mind engaged and fight memory loss, Anna Maria encouraged Palmira to begin writing her memoirs and to do math problems every day. Starting in 2003, Palmira produced over 200 pages of memories, many of which still have not been translated.
For Palmira, life on Olive Tree Lane was joyful, but lonely. In her diary, Palmira wrote constantly about how much she loved being with her daughter and son-in-law and the beauty of the place, but she was also often alone (except for the chickens, whom she also often wrote about).
The place was so large, beautiful — I enjoyed it so much, seeing so many people, because here at home I don’t talk much; I spend quiet, lonely moments. Most of my friends have passed. They are all dead! Maria got married, and Amelia, who was my first friend, the last time she called me on the phone said, “Palmira, I don’t feel well, I want to see you just once more,” — and I felt the same. I’d like to see her too.
More and more her writings turned to God, mostly in gratitude for the life she had in spite of all the pain. She appreciated that her son-in-law Leo often took her to mass and, when she could not go with him, he would bring the Eucharist back home to her. Writing about how she and her parents used to celebrate St. Valentine’s Day (which was one of the many important Saints’ Days in Zoppola and after whom several Quattrins were named Valentino), she said
Today is Saint Valentine’s Day. I thought a lot about my youth, when I was at home with my mother and father, how many times we celebrated this day with a rose, a little card, a sweet. It was a simple celebration but full of heart, everyone happy, laughing and singing. It feels like yesterday, and yet so many years have passed; now I am here, alone with my memories. I thank God that He still lets me think, that He gives me the memory of those times, when everything was beautiful, light, and lived in faith.
But, by 2005, Palmira’s health needs had increased to the point that Anna Maria could not take care of her anymore. They moved her to another care facility in Redwood City that was near Sequoia Hospital.
Palmira passed away on October 30, 2005, at Sequoia Hospital. She was 94 years old. Like her husband, the official cause of death was pneumonia, but she had suffered from atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure for years. She finally got her wish and entered the drawer at Our Lady Garden Court with Mike.
For Palmira, life on Olive Tree Lane was joyful, but lonely. In her diary, Palmira wrote constantly about how much she loved being with her daughter and son-in-law and the beauty of the place, but she was also often alone (except for the chickens, whom she also often wrote about).
The place was so large, beautiful — I enjoyed it so much, seeing so many people, because here at home I don’t talk much; I spend quiet, lonely moments. Most of my friends have passed. They are all dead! Maria got married, and Amelia, who was my first friend, the last time she called me on the phone said, “Palmira, I don’t feel well, I want to see you just once more,” — and I felt the same. I’d like to see her too.
More and more her writings turned to God, mostly in gratitude for the life she had in spite of all the pain. She appreciated that her son-in-law Leo often took her to mass and, when she could not go with him, he would bring the Eucharist back home to her. Writing about how she and her parents used to celebrate St. Valentine’s Day (which was one of the many important Saints’ Days in Zoppola and after whom several Quattrins were named Valentino), she said
Today is Saint Valentine’s Day. I thought a lot about my youth, when I was at home with my mother and father, how many times we celebrated this day with a rose, a little card, a sweet. It was a simple celebration but full of heart, everyone happy, laughing and singing. It feels like yesterday, and yet so many years have passed; now I am here, alone with my memories. I thank God that He still lets me think, that He gives me the memory of those times, when everything was beautiful, light, and lived in faith.
But, by 2005, Palmira’s health needs had increased to the point that Anna Maria could not take care of her anymore. They moved her to another care facility in Redwood City that was near Sequoia Hospital.
Palmira passed away on October 30, 2005, at Sequoia Hospital. She was 94 years old. Like her husband, the official cause of death was pneumonia, but she had suffered from atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure for years. She finally got her wish and entered the drawer at Our Lady Garden Court with Mike.
|
I will continue to love you beyond life, love and the soul, and the soul never dies. |
Shortly after she died, the house on Revere Street was sold. The new owners renovated and expanded it. Instead of three bedrooms and one bath in 831 square-feet, it became 2841 square-feet, had seven bedrooms and five bathrooms, and, as of 2025, is worth more than triple what it sold for in 2005.
Palmira had a difficult life, but it was also a life full of love. The love of a mother who looked after her and visited her long after she was gone. The love of a daughter and son-in-law, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A love of and from God. Even the love of a “grumpy, old babao.” She was a solid presence that exuded love toward all around her. For those of us who knew her, the quality of our lives was greatly increased, and we still miss her twenty years later.
As a final thought, Palmira’s diary is a true gift to all of us. After translating Palmira’s diary by using artificial intelligence, Kevin ran specific pages past his Cassin cousin Angelo Morello. Angelo grew up on Potrero Hill in a Frulan-speaking household. His wife said Angelo’s immediate response upon reading the diary was the memory of “being in the room, hearing his parents’ and all the Friulani di San Francisco’s (family and friends) thoughts about life, war, church, and family. He hears his mother and father in Palmira’s voice. She is speaking for all of them.”
Palmira had a difficult life, but it was also a life full of love. The love of a mother who looked after her and visited her long after she was gone. The love of a daughter and son-in-law, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A love of and from God. Even the love of a “grumpy, old babao.” She was a solid presence that exuded love toward all around her. For those of us who knew her, the quality of our lives was greatly increased, and we still miss her twenty years later.
As a final thought, Palmira’s diary is a true gift to all of us. After translating Palmira’s diary by using artificial intelligence, Kevin ran specific pages past his Cassin cousin Angelo Morello. Angelo grew up on Potrero Hill in a Frulan-speaking household. His wife said Angelo’s immediate response upon reading the diary was the memory of “being in the room, hearing his parents’ and all the Friulani di San Francisco’s (family and friends) thoughts about life, war, church, and family. He hears his mother and father in Palmira’s voice. She is speaking for all of them.”
