The Big Question

Hello.

I’m Isabella Endicotti, but everyone just calls me Bella Nonna.
You look lost and confused… and a little tired I might add. Please come in and visit for awhile.

The powder room is down the hall.

What would you like to drink? Coffee, tea… or do you want something cold?

Please have a seat at the kitchen table. I like serving my friends in the kitchen instead of the dining room… it’s cozier don’t you think.

Help yourself to a goodie. I bake when I’m upset… come to think of it, I bake when I’m happy, sad, bored… heck I don’t even need a reason to bake.

Let me tell you about Harmony Hill. It’s a little piece of Heaven tucked away from the rest world. My great grandfather, Lorenzo Auditore, purchased it over one hundred years ago.

He and his two brothers had left Italy looking for a better life. His two older brothers had stay only five years and decided to go back to Italy, but my great grandfather stayed and traveled all over the United States. He would take odd jobs where ever he could get them. One day while working for Northland Orchards he found a slice of Heaven, as he always referred to it. He knew that this was where he was destined to spend the rest of his life. My great grandfather worked night and day until he had earned enough money to purchase it. While working out in the mid-west he met, fell in love and married my great grandmother, Harmony Lacroix.

My great grandfather took his new bride and her brother and sister-in-law home to live in Harmony Hill. They built a cozy little house and got to work planting fruit trees, nut trees and a huge garden. Soon they had earned enough money to open a general store in the center of town.

Times were tough in the early 1900’s, so my great grandfather came up a great plan. He would contact some of the people he had worked with while trying to earn the money to buy Harmony Hill.

He had worked on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and became great friends with Ingvar Gustafsson, the nephew of the owner. He knew Mr. Gustafsson would not be inheriting any part of the dairy farm, so my great grandfather offer him a piece of land at the bottom of Harmony Hill near the large lake my great grandfather named Serenity Spring. Mr. Gustafsson’s uncle had given him two dairy cows as a wedding present which helped him start his new life in Harmony Hill. In return for the land, Mr. Gustafsson supplied my great grandparents with milk and other dairy products.

While working at a construction site my great grandfather met two master carpenters, Mr. Cleavon Johnson and Mr. James Washington. He offered them the same deal as Mr. Gustafsson.

Mr. and Mrs. Schneider were about to lose their farm and all of their livestock when my great grandfather got in contact with them. They were more than happy to accept the deal.

With a bit of luck, a lot of love and hard work my grandparents were able to buy Northland Orchards. The Gustafsson family was able to buy the land that Gustafsson’s Family Dairy now sits on. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Washington started their own construction company. Most of the homes here were built by Johnson & Washington Construction. Schneider Meat products are sold in most of the grocery store around here.

Over the years my great grandparent had many traveling workers. Most stayed for a short spell, but a few had such a great love for the land that my great grandparents gave them small portions of their land with the understanding that they would share their goods and services with the other residence.

As the families grew so did Harmony Hill. Nowhere, to my knowledge, will you find a more eclectic loving group of people. Each family has its own unique family customs and traditions, but we all share the same family value. Hard to believe, well get comfortable and I’ll tell you a little about the goings on around here.

Yesterday for example, my niece Emily told me the cutest story about her three and a half year old son Joey. Oh, let me tell you a little about Emily. She met her husband David Anderson at college and after David graduated they built a house in Harmony Hill. They have three adorable sons, Davy’s eight years old, Andy’s five years old and Joey, like I said, is three and a half. Emily is a stay-at-home mom who often babysits for some of the other work-outside-the home moms. The children she sits for, how can I put this politically correct, are of different races… let me just tell you the story.

Emily had been talking with some of the mothers at her children’s school about explaining the differences in people’s skin color. Growing up in Harmony Hill she never had to deal with race, religion or economical differences… it never was an issue. Last year the school district merged with the neighboring town and now the parents are having a few problems. Unfortunately no one had an answer to the problem, so the ladies decided to keep their fingers crossed and hoped it would go away.

Three days later her son Joey was sitting at his little table coloring. There were crayons everywhere. He was coloring away in every coloring book he owned when he asked, “Mommy what color am I?” Emily said her heart started to pound, her mind raced. She knew her answer to this question could affect Joey’s whole life. She tried to stall by picking up some of the crayons hoping he would forget the question, him being three and a half… short attention span and all that. Just when she had thought she had dodged a bullet, Joey innocently repeated, “What color am I?”

“Well let me think,” she replied. “When I was a little girl people would say we were white… Caucasian is the proper term I believe. But, we’re not really white. You are more of a peachy color like me, Andy has sort of a bronzy olive complexion, Davy is a pink color and Daddy is sort of reddish white. Most of the relatives on my side of family all have olive complexions which are light in the winter, but gets darker in the summer. I mean we all get darker in the summer… not everyone in the world… some people are dark all the time. The world is filled with people of every color, but no one color is better than any other. What color you are is not as important as what kind of person you are. Do you understand?”

Emily said her head was pounding. She knew she was rambling but she had to get the answer right. She had read all the parenting magazines; they all had quotes from child psychologists, teachers and political authorities saying the responsibility rests on the parents. She knew she might only get one chance to explain. Her opinion could influence Joey’s whole life.

Joey was staring up at her with that sweet little wide-eye deer caught in a headlight kind of way. He was hanging on her every word. Emily could feel the tension building… something had to give. Suddenly his little face lit up. “Oh yeah… prayerpul… prayerpul is my color, right mommy?”

“Oh, you meant… Yes baby, your favorite color is purple.” Emily said she was so relieved the crisis was over. She thought she had handled it quite well.

We both had a good laugh about it. Emily is so conscientious and very creative. Here… look at this tote bag she made me. She came up with the saying all by herself.


     All sons and no daughters makes a mom
              Creative
               Resourceful
                Adventurous
                 Zany and
                  Young



Enough of my silly prattle, you probably have somewhere you need to be so I’ll say good bye … but please feel free to stop by any time, I really enjoyed our visit. Here take a few cookies for the road. Take care and stay safe.