What a wonderful mother-in-law I had and how I miss her today!
The most fashionable gal in her home town of Ostellato, in the region of Emilia, Andreina was the most respected member of my wife’s side of the family, for the dignity she demonstrated in handling severe adversity.
At about twenty, when she would leave her home for a bike ride, together with her two younger sisters to go into town, it was an event noted by everyone. They were the most elegantly dressed young ladies in that farm area and were collectively referred to as “the three little geese”, because the phrase in Italian sounds like “the three pretty ones”.
During World War II, with the threat of using their panzerfaust, the retreating Germans in northern Italy made Andreina’s family home their unit headquarters. When General Albert Kesselring came to visit this command post disguised as a corporal, to the fear and consternation of a German sergeant, Andreina identified and pointed him out immediately. She was told to keep her mouth shut or they would all be kaput.
At that time she made friends with a Prussian captain, who was not a Nazi sympathizer, and they exchanged photos and stories about their respective fiancée’s. Contrary to his will the captain was forced to fight against the allies in a nearby town and died trying to hold a hopeless defensive position. The captain’s personal attendant came back from the battlefield weeping and repeating non-stop in Italian, my captain is gone.
At the end of the war, after demonstrating constant fearlessness in the face of the German invaders that for a year had held all of her family hostage in their country home, Andreina again stood her ground. An angry Italian partisan, a Communist, held a loaded pistol point blank at her. Without flinching she rebuked the man challenging him to go ahead and shoot her as he was threatening to do. The humbled communist backed off returning to his local town leader to confess what had happened and the town leader immediately came back out to personally apologize to Andreina and her dad for the incident.
Maurizia and I were married in June of 1977 and in October left for the United States. Living so far away from each other was hard on all of us and she would often say, “I wish Christopher Columbus had not ever discovered America”!
We finally returned to Italy in about 1983, after we had been away close to six years. Henceforth, with patience and persistence I did everything I knew how to make sure she stayed close to us.
After the death of my father, when most of our family business in Italy was completed, we all returned to the United States and on different occasions Andreina came to stay with us for extended periods of time.
Every time she came to live with us she seemed to push the clock back and would return to Italy looking ten years younger.
We had some wonderful moments together often kidding around with her. We also had some pretty intense conversations, but they were mostly pleading with her to come and live with us permanently, something that she refused to do for quite some time. She finally capitulated when she was 84 years old and so we brought her to our Melbourne condo overlooking the Atlantic Ocean where she experienced the most peaceful and joyous period of her life. Her happiness also brought all of us great joy.
Every night we would pray before she went to sleep and I will never forget her sincerity and fervency. She was finally one with us as I had always prayed and we had all strived to achieve with her. I left a portable phone near the couch where she sat during the day and she promptly called all her relatives in Italy to tell them what a donkey (how stubborn) she had been in refusing to come and live with us.
Nonna Andreina accepted Christ into her heart when she was eighty years old. I was with her in her Bologna apartment where she had lived for thirty years having just accompanied her back to Italy from an extended stay with us in America. But this happened only after having examined the Scriptures with her extensively and after she had heard me share the Gospel with others.
Today I rejoice that the time spent with her was not lost. My very dear mother-in-law entered into the kingdom of God and will be with us forever!