9/14/09 We Did It!

We left the villa in Contignano and drove for 2 hours through every little town and village between there and Cascina (it was only 78 miles). This was the shortcut that we didn't take the other day when it took us two hours too.

The rain started about half way there and never stopped but just kept getting more and more intense. Between the switchbacks and the roundabouts and the torrential downpours we were beginning to think that Massimina didn't want to be found.
But we persevered and finally made it to Cascina and found the Stato Civile where birth records are stored.

It is necessary to take a number from a ticket machine (I think they got the idea from the US Department of Motor Vehicles.)
We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves for finding the right office with 40 minutes to spare but were again frustrated when the ticket machine didn't work and the attendant who was trying to fix it left to find another one who could! Finally the machine got fixed, we got our ticket and we were only one number away from the one that was currently being helped at the counter we needed to be at. When that person left we thought surely our turn had come but the agent needed to do something at his computer that caused him to laugh and giggle for the next 10 minutes. Peter was sure he was receiving chain letter email jokes.
When we were finally called he spoke no English and although I had written the names and dates and the info that we were looking for, this guy had no interest in helping us and so he passed us off to another agent. She didn't speak any English either but was at least willing to listen to my clumsy attempt at Italian. She retrieved a large old leather-bound volume of an index of birth records from Cascina for 1876 which was the date we thought Massimina was born. There was no Massimina Barontini listed. She then called another agent over who spoke about as much English as I spoke Italian. They decided to check the years around 1876 and found a "Massimo Barontini" born to Caterina Picchi and Angiolo Barontini in 1875. I knew that was the right record even though I thought her parents were Angelo Barontini and Caterina Picchini. The agent noticed a notation in the margin indicating that the name was originally written wrongly as Massimo, wrong because the child was a girl. This is why they couldn't find her in the index. So the note corrected the name to read "Massimina." So we definitely had the right record! She further translated the address as #84 San Frediano as to where she was born. We asked how to find that address and they told us it no longer exists. Understandable, I guess.

Anyway we purchased 5 copies, thanked both women for their help and were on our way in the rain to catch our train from Florence to Paris. By the time we got to Florence we were drenched and hungry but happy to finally take Nona with us, if only on paper.
I never knew Massimina--she died before I was born so this is the closest I have been to her... we're off to see the Eiffel Tower now but I don't expect to be moved by it as much as I was this morning when I saw the original hand-written record of Nona's birth in 1875 (134 years ago). WOW!!

By the way, Massimina was born 14 years before the Eiffel tower was built.