Finding Sequals
Andrew Patrizio
This day forged a link between two parts of a family that had grown up separately over sixty years, 1924-1984.
I was on my first trip to Italy, the country my grandfather left in 1924, aged twenty-one, to look for work with his father. They were master mosaicists and terrazzo floor layers. Granddad said before my departure, from his armchair in the living room of his council house in Edinburgh, that Venice was close to his home village and maybe I should try to seek out some family. He mentioned a mosaic for the village's war memorial that he had worked on before he left in the '20s. And he told me the village name, just once. I didn't write it down.
In Venice, one of my companions, Andrew Hunter, showed great enthusiasm for a family-finding trip. I'm sure I should have had that enthusiasm myself but granddad had not talked much of his homeland, he wasn't a letter writer either so communication had lapsed. (As I was later to learn, his parents had long passed away, with his father on his deathbed calling out for his eldest son living out of reach in Scotland.) So on the 28th June, 1984, Andrew and I both left Venice at seven in the morning.
I was entirely at a loss at how to pronounce 'S*qu***' (the only two syllables I thought I could remember). When in Udine, the capital of the region of Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, we looked for a tourist office, with Andrew undertaking all the Italian translation for me, but a bookshop assistant produced a map which, after careful scouring by Andrew and I, revealed the words 'Sequals', the first time I'd seen the true village name written. It was a village lying in the lower mountains, about one hour north-west from Udine.
I was a third generation Italian with no Italian; Andrew was a Scot from a cultured, artistic family with a passion for Italy, so he had begun to learn the language in the year previous. We took the bus out of Udine and I will not forget that thrilling glimpse of the first signpost that read 'Sequals'. The village seemed beautiful - the forested mountains stretched into the distance; the cement factories and half-built homes invisible to my sight. Andrew and I noticed many small mosaics dotted around, inserted into walls. We soon spotted the war monument granddad had spoke of, right in the centre of the piazza behind us.
We walked through Sequals but, encountering no-one, lost confidence. We decided to go up to the Church but it was locked up and deserted. We came down a long flight of stone stairs from the church (later my grandfather told me that these were laid out in threes, as he recalled jumping down them after Mass). A nursery teacher advised us to try an old lady in the small block of houses next door. We found a very old, arthritic lady sitting outside her porch. The lady laughed, saying that there were many Patrizios in Sequals, and they were not all related. Try the priest.
On our way an old lady (called Angelina) accompanied us to the priest, who wanted more details â?" who we were expecting to find here. I didn't know. His suggested we went over the road to the only lady he knew of who spoke English. Antonietta Fabiani took us inside, to where her mother was sitting in the kitchen. Ermilda Pasquale was very old, around 90 years I guessed, a large yet graceful lady - the skin on her face was dappled with the freckle marks of old age and I remember noticing that she had about three layers of clothes, compared to our thin, overheating tourist wear. Ziggy the dog shook nervously under the table, as he regularly did since the 1976 earthquake in the region.
Ermilda said that she remembered the day granddad left the village to look for work abroad. The family member currently living closest by was my grandfather's youngest sister Ines. She stayed in Gorizia, west beyond Udine for about another 30km.
Before this, we passed the closed-up Patrizio house and the cemetery, which was full of beautiful mosaics and statues. We passed the Carnera family grave (Primo Carnera, Italy's first heavyweight boxing champion in 1933, came from this small village but had died in the previous decade).
We arrived in Gorizia by 6.30pm and went up two floors to their apartment door. I recall saying to Andrew (unimaginable in retrospect), that we'd just say hello, have a quick catch up and get back to Venice. I rang the doorbell, and a lady answered. Andrew started to speak, 'Buona sera, signora' but in the pause, I interjected - 'Ines Patrizio..?' 'Si' She answered. I pointed to myself - 'Andrea Patrizio'.
Sixty years bridged in one moment.
Ines gave both of us the Italian welcome I think I had been hoping for somehow in Sequals. Andrew immediately resumed his role as interpreter, as she spoke no English. I wrote down the family tree of the Scottish Patrizios. Her husband Tino returned. We were offered food straight away; tagliatelle, veal steak with lemon, parmesan cheese, prosciutto, ice-cream with chocolate and cognac. For drinks we ventured through red and white Friulan wine on to local grappa and not so local whisky.
After the meal, they phoned my second cousin, Giorgio in Milan - and we made an arrangement to visit his family there on our return to Scotland. I felt my poor Italian was improving slightly, though I now think this impression was more a result of the wine and grappa. I saw photographs of my great-granddad and Ines' own two daughters and their children. We went to bed at 11pm.
Today with my grandfather and Ines both departed, my wife and two sons regularly drive to visit Tino (now in his early 80s), Giorgio and the rest of the family in Friuli. The invisible bridge between Italy and Scotland, lost from sight between 1924 and 1984 has now become a road travelled as frequently as possible.
