Tales from the abuelita
My mother-in-law is amazing. In her mid-eighties, she doesn't stir far from her Madrid flat in the Parque Avenidas, just to evening Mass every day. But whenever we go to visit, I try to get her talking about her younger days, because she has the most astounding stories - moving, enlightening and downright hilarious - of Spanish life before, during and after the Civil War. I want her to start writing some of them down, but she can't believe they're that interesting.......here's a sample.
Innocence
Her elder sister Maria Luisa (Marisa) was engaged to a young man called Jorge. One day Marisa confided that Jorge had broken down and asked her forgiveness because he had gone to bed with a woman. What a funny thing to do! all her sisters agreed; and why should he need forgiving? Did he get cold all of a sudden and need warming up? (Marisa was about 21 at the time).
Hard times
There were many worse off during the siege of Madrid and in the aftermath of the Civil War, but still she remembers being hungry most of the time. They ate lentils every day, which had to be picked over before cooking for bits of stone and other debris; she and her sisters would sit round the kitchen table counting them into a bowl while praying the Rosary.
The ration cards didn't provide much, and even so they were lucky. A friend of the family had deserted from the Guardia Civil (he couldn't stomach his allotted task of identifying the heaps of dead bodies every day), but he managed to get them extra cards.
At the end of the war her mother weighed 42 kilos.
Marital behaviour
Her mother was proud of the fact that she never kissed her husband, like a common floozy. Many were the times she would pass by the door of his study, see him bent over his accounts and have the urge to go in and kiss him on the cheek (because she loved him dearly), but she never did.
[note: they had 7 children!]
Courting
It's a miracle any of the 5 daughter got married at all. Their father would refuse to admit that any of them had admirers, even when said young men would make the journey from Madrid to a village the other side of Toledo at weekends, just on the offchance of being allowed to stroll in the garden while everyone else hid indoors and pretended they weren't there........
My mother-in-law had been 'walking out' with my father-in-law for 2 years before his parents would nod to her in the street. She laughs like a drain at memory, and takes it totally in her stride that her eldest grand-daughter is living with her fiancé.
What an amazing journey.
I can't wait for more stories.
Innocence
Her elder sister Maria Luisa (Marisa) was engaged to a young man called Jorge. One day Marisa confided that Jorge had broken down and asked her forgiveness because he had gone to bed with a woman. What a funny thing to do! all her sisters agreed; and why should he need forgiving? Did he get cold all of a sudden and need warming up? (Marisa was about 21 at the time).
Hard times
There were many worse off during the siege of Madrid and in the aftermath of the Civil War, but still she remembers being hungry most of the time. They ate lentils every day, which had to be picked over before cooking for bits of stone and other debris; she and her sisters would sit round the kitchen table counting them into a bowl while praying the Rosary.
The ration cards didn't provide much, and even so they were lucky. A friend of the family had deserted from the Guardia Civil (he couldn't stomach his allotted task of identifying the heaps of dead bodies every day), but he managed to get them extra cards.
At the end of the war her mother weighed 42 kilos.
Marital behaviour
Her mother was proud of the fact that she never kissed her husband, like a common floozy. Many were the times she would pass by the door of his study, see him bent over his accounts and have the urge to go in and kiss him on the cheek (because she loved him dearly), but she never did.
[note: they had 7 children!]
Courting
It's a miracle any of the 5 daughter got married at all. Their father would refuse to admit that any of them had admirers, even when said young men would make the journey from Madrid to a village the other side of Toledo at weekends, just on the offchance of being allowed to stroll in the garden while everyone else hid indoors and pretended they weren't there........
My mother-in-law had been 'walking out' with my father-in-law for 2 years before his parents would nod to her in the street. She laughs like a drain at memory, and takes it totally in her stride that her eldest grand-daughter is living with her fiancé.
What an amazing journey.
I can't wait for more stories.
posted by Radio Maria at 11:49 PM
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