AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LETTERS »F CESAR LOMBARDI to His GRANDCHILDREN : I -:"'

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LETTERS »f CESAR LOMBARDI to his GRANDCHILDREN : I -:"' £. Z-L-* AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL LETTERS of CESAR LOMBARDI to his GRANDCHILDREN Copyright, 1948 C. E. Lombard i, Executor FOREWORD. The descendants of Cesar Lombardi should be grateful to his daughter Lucy (Mrs. Alvin Barber) for persuading him to write these letters. None of us, we are sure, can read them without experiencing pride and pleasure, as well as a deeper feeling which is hard to describe, but which has been referred to as "filial piety." Enough copies have been printed to permit us to send one to each child and grandchild, and to hold in reserve a supply for the great grandchildren as they come of age, if they want them. Merry Christmas! Kansas City, Missouri, A. V. L. December 25, 1948. C. E. L. —3— FIRST LETTER Dallas, Texas, Oct. 19, 1913. My dear Grandson: Your Mother made me promise to write you a letter each week from now on and that each letter should constitute a chapter in my autobiography. Here is the first one. I was born on the 6th of August, 1845, in a little hamlet called Valle, about two miles from the town of Airolo, Canton Tessin, Swit- zerland. My father, Joseph Lombardi, and my mother, Clementina Lom- bardi, though having the same family name, were not blood relations so far as I know. There are a good many Lombardis in that part of the country, residing there perhaps for centuries, and their relationship, in many cases, has faded in the course of time. The tradition is that the Lombardis came into the country with Desiderius, King of the Longo- bards (Long Beards), from whom the name is derived. They settled and remained in Val Leventina, the innermost and least accessible Valley of Canton Tessin, after Charlemane drove the Longobards out of the district in 770. When I was a boy, there still remained opposite the house I was born in, on a promontory on the other side of the valley, the ruin of a tower with very thick walls, about forty feet high. It was called the house of the pagans (la casa dei pagani) and was built by King Desiderius as a military outpost. It has since been destroyed so that only the foundation remains. There is another such tower, supposed to be of the same origin, on the other side of the San Gothard Mountain, at Hospenthal. It stands on a rock in the middle of the village and is in a good state of preservation. It is called the Lombard Tower. The Lombardi is probably the oldest family in the Canton Tessin —the oldest in Val Leventina at any rate. There are, or were, records at Faido running back several centuries. The house I was born in was an old-fashioned wooden house, a typical Swiss dwelling, such as you see in pictures of Switzerland, and probably more than 100 years old. It is still in existence. My maternal grandfather's house, at the other end of the village, contains a stone stove bearing the date of 1756. My parents were "honest but poor"—to reverse the usual phrase- ology. But, then, the whole community was poor; there were no rich men and no paupers in that country in those days. They were very in- dustrious, however, and there was no want nor destitution. My parents owned their home and some farm property which they cultivated them- selves and on which they raised most of the necessities of life. They raised their own rye to make bread, flax to make linen, potatoes, chickens and vegetables. From their domestic animals they got wool to make —5— cloth, milk to make cheese and butter and other products of the dairy unknown here in America, besides meat for the family and hides to make leather to keep the family well-shod. The wool and flax were made into linen and cloth right at home. Every family had spinning wheels and a weaving machine at which the women worked during the long winter season. They also made all the clothes for the family. The hides of animals were tanned at the village tannery and the village shoemaker was called in at long intervals to make shoes for the whole family. I remember watching him, how he made shoes and how I made a pair for my sister. I also remember wearing linen shirts and a whole suit of woolen clothes made at home. That was economic freedom if ever there was such a thing. We did not care for the high cost of living in those days. We always had plenty to eat of good wholesome food, mostly of our own production—for we children helped our parents in all their labor—and were always warmly clothed. But we had no luxury—no coffee, no tea, and very little sugar—nothing outside of our own production except wine, which was served as coffee is in American families. No candy except when we went to the Fair. Your loving Grandpa C. Lombardi. SECOND LETTER Dallas, Texas, Oct. 27, 1913. My Dear Grandson: My earliest recollection was an episode of the War of the Sunder- land in 1848, when I was three years old. This was the last civil war that occurred in Switzerland and was occasioned by the attempt of several of the Catholic Cantons to secede from the Swiss Confederation on ac- count of religious and other differences. The majority of the Cantons constituting the Swiss Federation were Protestant and insisted on all the Cantons being compelled to adopt a common school system and to take the children's education away from the control of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Cantons, of which Tessin was one, objected to this and wanted to secede. The war lasted less than a month and the Catholics lost out. There was very little fighting, however, as the Protesants were overwhelmingly in the majority. It was a good thing that it turned out that way, for after that event Switzerland organized the best free school system in Europe and probably in the world. But to return to my earliest recollection. Both Father and Mother were away from home at that time and I was left in the care of my paternal Grandmother and Aunt Ursula. One day there was a great com- motion in the village. Everybody had turned out and all were looking up the mountain. I remember seeing files of soldiers coming down the zigzag trails along the side of the mountain. I remember the tumult all around our house and I remember old Uncle Dunda burying his old musket in our vegetable garden. The Commandant had sent word that the people would not be molested provided they gave up all arms and ammunition and old Dunda did not propose to give up his musket. The people must have been in a panic for my Grandmother and Aunt quickly packed up their belongings, locked up the house and proceeded to seek an asylum with a Catholic priest, who was a friend of the family and lived some five or six miles further down in the valley, at a village called Quinto. I remember distinctly that trip to Quinto as well as the soldiers descending the mountain and the burying of the gun. The next thing I remember is the death of my brother who was two years younger. I am the oldest of the family and this brother came next. I have an indistinct recollection that my little brother got wet through and through in the snow, that he caught a bad cold and died. I remember that my Father and Mother, Grandmother and Aunt Ur- sula, who then all lived together, were inconsolable and that I carried away the impression that he was the favorite of the family, not I. The next remembrance was that of the death of my Grandmother (my Father's Mother) and I can visualize the coffin in the sitting-room. All this happened before I was five years old,—at the little village of Valle. Then a change of environment occurred which, happening at that plastic age, perhaps had more influence on my habits and disposition than anything that happened since. My Father was appointed, by the Government, keeper of the Refuge House of San Guiseppe (Saint Jo- seph) on the mountain road to the San Gothard Pass. I must explain that in those days, which were before the advent of railroads across the Alps and the piercing of the famous San Gothard Tunnel, the Swiss Government maintained, winter and summer, a highway across the San Gothard Pass with houses of Refuge in winter and for relays of horses in summer at certain intervals at the more commanding positions of the mountain road. These houses were called Cantoneria. The first after leaving Airolo was called Al Punte, at the entrance of a dark and narrow canyon. The next was St. Joseph and after that came the San Gothard Pass with the Hospice, Hotel and Customhouse, about all of which you will hear further on. Your devoted Grandpa, C. Lombardi. -I THIRD LETTER Dallas, Texas, Nov. 3, 1913. My Dear Grandson: "We moved to St. Joseph in 1850 when I was five years old and left there in 1855 when I was ten. The house of San Joseph was situ- ated on the steep slope of a steep and narrow valley, on the upper reach of the St. Gothard road. There was not a place within sight of the house flat enough to play any game.

Load more