GIANNASI Caterina

Caterina Giannasi (1885 - 1969) was born on 25 November 1885 in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, Lucca, Toscana, Italy. She was the daughter of Giovanni Giannasi and Margherita Lucchesi. They lived on a farm and Caterina used to look after the sheep, milk the cows and deliver the milk in town. Her father ran the farm and was the town mayor.

Caterina had heard stories about that land of milk and honey, England, and she repeatedly asked her father to let her go there in order to learn the language. He agreed to her going for two years. She went to live with Napoleone Zagni (1872 - 1948), his wife Maria Motroni (1874 - 1965) and their children, in Ipswich, Suffolk. Caterina looked after the children. During her time with the Zagnis, who made and sold ice cream, she met Giuseppe Parravani (1884 - 1931) and they got married on 18 October 1909 at St John Baptist church in Norwich.

Giuseppe Parravani and Caterina Giannasi in 1909.

Caterina and Giuseppe had eleven children: Anna (1910 - 2007), Agostino (1911 - 2001), Pietro (1914 - 1996), Giovanni (1915 - 1972), Margherita (1917 - 2001), Domenico (1920 - ), Elena (1922 - 2001), Concetta (1924 - ), Maria (1924 - ), Giuseppe (1927 - 2008) and Patricia (1931 - 2006).

On the 1911 census the family lived at South End Road, Bungay, with a cousin, Albert Parravani. Giuseppe was an ice cream vendor.

But as a farmer's daughter Caterina longed for open space so the Parravanis moved to Ditchingham, Norfolk, where Pietro and Giovanni were born.

During the first world war, when Giuseppe was conscripted for military service, Caterina had to look after five children and the farm all by herself. On 31 March 1919 Giuseppe was finally released on Compassionate Grounds.

The children walked to school to St Edmund's, Bungay, two and a half miles away. Nine times out of ten they arrived late and got the tick from the head teacher.

Giuseppe died at the age of 47 at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He lived at Pirnough Street, Broome. Caterina would have like to return to Italy, but with eleven children it wasn't possible. So she carried on the business, helped by the oldest children.

Peter Parravani remembered his mother as a wonderful milker of cows. She also had a good eye for cows: 'Sometimes she would buy five or six calves and rear them, and the farmers used to wait for the heifers, because they knew they would be good. In those days the cows were the local breeds, Short-horn, Redpoll or Jerseys.'

When Augie, the eldest son, got married, Caterina and the other children moved to Blundeston, where they carried on the ice cream business.

During the second world war - Caterina was still an Italian - she was forced to move away from the coast, even though all her children had been called up. Pietro was called up to the Bedfordshire Regiment, the regiment his father was in during the first world war. He told the Colonel about his mother's difficulties and thanks to his intervention, she was allowed to return home.

When Caterina was eighty-two, she visited her old home in Italy with her daughter Patricia. She still spoke Italian fluently and really enjoyed her visit.

Caterina died on 28 October 1969 in Norwich Outer.