Maria Mia: A Memoir

By Mary E. Matury Gibson

This book serves as a display of the many hardships faced by immigrants and how they overcame them in an independent, meaningful way so that they were able to assist their children to assimilate and succeed in the greater opportunities presented to them.

For Maria Scissura Matury the success of her children was the hallmark of her per

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Sep 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798887641423

Mary E. Matury Gibson

Mary E. Matury Gibson is a first-generation American born to Sicilian parents. She is the youngest of six children. Educated at Purdue University Calumet, she holds a degree in Industrial Environmental Psychology and Nursing/Nurse Practitioner degree. She has worked as a critical care staff nurse and Nurse Practitioner for more than fifty years. Mary has two adult daughters and five grandchildren. Mary resides in the southwest suburbs of Chicago and spends her retirement years writing about her life-long career in nursing and the historical changes in health care that have affected people in every walk of life.

Book preview

Foreword

It is hard to know what makes a good mother. Everyone thinks or should think that they had the best mother ever who walked this earth. I know I didn’t appreciate my mother until long after she was no longer living. As for myself I can tell you that, most assuredly, I fell very short of the mark as a good mother. I wasn’t a good daughter, I wasn’t a good student. Most of all I was never a good mother in the way my mother was to all of her children. The thing I always did, however, was to be and still strive to be, is a good nurse, caregiver and healthcare provider forsaking all other roles along the path of that long journey.

Even after fifty-five years of practice I am still falling short of the mark as well. I am still trying to be the best I can be in the field. Now in my old age, I realize I will never achieve that goal. But enough about me.

Like my mother before me, I have learned that no matter how much or how little is achieved there is still always more to do. We all are still trying to achieve all we can in a single lifetime. Her whole life, my mama was a wife, a mother and a homemaker, always cooking and cleaning up until the very end of her days.

Growing up she was our main caregiver, our doctor and our nurse. She was our seamstress, counselor, teacher and the heart and soul of our whole family. All this she did wordlessly day in and day out for more than ninety years.

It wasn’t until after her death in 2000 that I began to see how valuable she had been to us all. At the end of her life she no longer even knew who I was as I tried my best to care for her, never feeling I succeeded in that goal as well, while still maintaining my hectic lifestyle as a Nurse Practitioner in a busy practice.

After finishing a memoir of my father, I knew I had to tell Mama’s story as well. I humbly will try my best to show her life of struggle and accomplishment. I hope I can do justice to the great lady she was here on earth.

Chapter One

The Heiress

Sinagra, Sicily was a poor village in the early 1900’s fraught with starvation and poverty. It consisted of large ancient stone buildings, thousands of years old.

There was not much industry or work of any kind. History had not been kind to Sicily as she had been invaded by many tribes and nations throughout history, Arabs, Etruscans, Africans, French, Germans and Greeks just to name a few. Italy and the Islands around it didn’t become a unified country until 1871. The different cultures that had invaded her left visible mark on her in the ways of culture, food and architecture.

The only way to survive in Sicily was limited to being royal, a landowner, shopkeeper or a priest. Fortunately for Mama, her father, Carlo Scissura, had some land. He was a rather mysterious man who my mama spoke of very rarely. All I recall is that he died young, perhaps in his late forties or fifty. He had traveled to America several times in his short life. He was handsome and somewhat of a dreamer as conveyed to me by Mama in some fleeting conversations when I was growing up.

Mama was one of only two surviving children of Carlo Scissura and Rosa Ioppolo. There were seven children born to them but only the eldest and the youngest lived to be adults. It was never made clear to me what they all succumbed to but most died in infancy or as young children. They were all deceased before the advent of antibiotics and other life saving drugs and vaccines. Mama’s only brother was Nino Scissura who was fifteen years her senior. He had married and lived next door to the family farm in Sinagra. He had two children with his first wife, a son named Carlo and a daughter named Serina.

I met Carlo, my first cousin, when I was about eight years old and he was in his early twenties. He was an ambitious man who loved a get-rich-quick-scheme. He came to see us on our farm in Indiana and asked for help starting his own restaurant. A small amount of money was given to him by my eldest brother, also named Carlo, after their mutual grandfather. The plan for the establishment never materialized and my brother lost his investment. We didn’t hear from cousin Carlo again until I was in high school. He contacted my brother with a letter of sincere apology and returned his initial investment. He was anxious to return to America and asked for more help in securing passage. It was some time later that he returned with a wife and with a child. He also accompanied my parents on a visit to their homeland in 1965. Unfortunately, none of his schemes came to fruition and he also died at a young age. But the child, his son, became a great success as a politician in New York City where he still resides. Serina, my uncle’s daughter, had a produce store selling products from the farm in the village of Sinagra. After his wife died, my Uncle Nino remarried and had three more children. I knew nothing of them as they were never discussed in our house.

I knew my grandmother, Rosa Ioppolo, had at least one brother because he was married to my fathers much older sister. This fact I never knew until I was much older. My Aunt, Carmella Angelina Maturi, born in 1882 died in 1977. I never knew anything about her as my father never discussed her. They were never close as she was twelve years older than him. Women in Italy don’t take their husband’s last name when they marry, only the children take their father’s name. I have cousins on both sides of my family with the name of Spiccia, however, I have no idea how they are related. I do correspond with my cousin with this last name on my mother’s side. Her uncle, Mike, came to America with my pa in 1929. This is the extent of my knowledge of my mother’s family. I only met my mother’s brother once when he came to America for a visit in 1972. By then he was elderly and frail. My Uncle died in 1987 at the age of Eighty-seven.

I believe life for Mama was very hard as she was the only one who could read and write in her family. I know she wrote to her mother and received letters from her also. I’m not sure if they were written by her or if someone wrote them for her. My ability to read Italian is still limited to this day but I understood, even as a child, that these letters were most likely very personal as Mama didn’t share the contents with us as children. She never spoke much of her life in the old country. But I recall her telling us wonderful stories of living high on the side of a mountain with the sea below. She told us of how she swam in the beautiful waters that changed colors with the movement of the sun. I never thought any of it was true. I thought she told us such tales as a way of entertaining us when we were children. I didn’t learn that it was very much the truth until I visited Sinagra when I was much older. She told us of the gardens she tended and the sweet music in the piazza in the evenings of her summers there. She never spoke of hardships or the deaths of her family members.

Mama inherited her father’s farm upon his death although she was not of age to own property at that time. It was given to my father as a dowry when he married Mama in 1929. Prior to her marriage, Mama worked that farm with her mother. Education in Italy at that time was limited for poor people and considered a right of the rich. Mama managed to get through the sixth grades which was considered a fair amount of schooling back then. Even with this limited amount of education, she was able to read, write and understand many things in the world. She seemed to always know what was expected of her as she carried out many activities of daily living that now seem very difficult tasks for someone so young.

When I think of how far we have come as women, I’m amazed that Mama’s farm was given to my father who couldn’t read or write. It was just a short time ago that women couldn’t own anything without a father or a husband. As a child I can recall Mama reading things to my pa. She read documents of importance, and explained them to him. Once my eldest brother finished high school that task fell to him.

I have been told many stories about how my parents met, however, none of them were told by my mother. I could say that my mama was a very private person who revealed few details of her life to us. I was told by my pa that he met Mama in the piazza of the Village of Sinagra, Sicily one evening while taking a stroll with his brothers and a cousin. He always said that he had never seen a woman more beautiful. She had light brown hair, dishwater blonde, they called it then in America. She wore it in a bun at the nape of her neck. She had a small face with big green eyes. She was all of four feet eleven inches tall. My pa said that he was smitten right away. But it might have been some pressure from his mother who had tried to marry him off to another girl prior to that lovely evening. His cousin told him who she was and he was surprised to see her all grown up. He had not seen her since she was a small child. My pa was thirty-five at the time and my mama was barely twenty.

Mama must have also liked him for she consented to the short courtship and marriage to the dark, handsome, well dressed Nino Maturi. The two families had been acquainted and that was considered a good thing back then. Many marriages were arranged at that time. It was said that if you had to leave your village to find a mate there must be something wrong with you.

Chapter 2

Life’s Journey Begins

Sitting in the bay window of the kitchen, the warmest room in my condo, I watch the snowflakes dance wildly in the wind across the lawn. I’m imagining what life must have been like for Mama when she was coming to America for the first time more than ninety years ago. She came on a ship that danced on the high waves of the Atlantic. She was just