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A BABEE FAMILY
After four in the afternoon the Italian north end of Barre's
Main Street became a confusion of traffic noises. Pedestrians
lined the walks, many of then granite workers in chalked cloth-
ing, loud -voiced, glad to soak up the air. A sun, unusually
hot for early May, beat upon the din. The florists window was
a haven of still beauty and coolness. A young woman in a flowered
smock bent over a vase of tea roses. Ber hands hovered over the
blossoms, teasing a green leaf to a background position. She
and her husband owned the shop. Most of the plants and flowers
on display oasis from their own nurseries south of Barre.
The girl was in her early thirties. She was Joanna Leoti
before her marriage. She had lived here all her life, with
the exception of four school years at SmitO•s4 and she'd been
in contact with many stonecutters' families. But none of the
Leotis in Barre had worked in granite.
"The first Loot' to come to Barre was great-uncle Pietro.
Around 1880. It was not only a better living he was after, he
was young and eager for travel and new sights. Bis father was
a business man, well off, owner of a furniture store, a coal
business, and a cheese factory. They lived in Turin, and had
a summer home in the Alpine foothills where the factory was
located. The father was a domineering man, level headed in
business. But his frequent visits to Monte Carlo, and it was
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no short distance for those days1 were the despair of his brother,
a looal priest. The year before Pietro left for America, the
father gambled away his cheese factory. Pietro's schooling
ended with the sixth grads. Working for his father proved un-
satisfactory, and at twenty without assistance from his father,
or consent heAselled for America. He had little money above
the expenses of the trip. New York became his destination.
His first job was with an Italian fruit vendor. He lived frug-
ally, hated the turmoil of city life, and especially the chic-
anery of the Neapolitan colony with whom circumstances forcad
him to live. lie heard stories of the hills of Vermont, the
white winters and pleasant summers like those of his northern
home, and of northern Italians who were flocking to the valley...
town of Barre to work the granite of encompassing hills. The
next year he managed to go to Barre. He found his own people
congenial, and the town in the boom days of its granite activities,
ideal for a business vanture. And beyond the town limits, green
stretches, forests, and the quiet he loved. Granite work didn't
interest him. His miserable experience in New York served him
in good stead. He would sell fruit, be his own boss. With a
makeshift cart he covered the same route daily: the homes in
the morning; the stone sheds at the noon hour; the town's bus-
iness streets in the afternoon. He did unbelievably well, for
id another year's time he opened a small store. Five years
later he visited Italy, married a girl from his home town, and
returned to Barre, bringing with him a brother. Pietro was
instrumental in bringing his remaining three brothers here,
and of financing stores for them in Barre and Montpelier. After
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they were married, they sent for young man and women from the
Piedmont section of Italy to work as clerks and housekeepers.
They were treated as members of the family. There are at least
five instances where Dominic and his brothers helped the clerks
to open stores of their own. Today the Leotis and their des-
cendants are scattered in more than a dozen Vermont towns.
"Pietro and two brothers built three business and apart-
ment buildings on Barre's Maine Street. This was in the late
nineteenth century. The present generation tends to turn from
real estate and stores. Some of the girls have taught here at.
Spaulding High School, the boys have gone in for dentistry and
medicine. This flower shop is part of tbe building Old Pietro
built. It's my mother's now. We've always bad stonecutters'
families for tenants. Italian, French, Scotch. The building
is only a few minutes' walk from the sheds; but most granite
workers, if they can save the money, prefer to buy or build
small homes of their own where they can breathe fresh air and
work patches of earth for vegetables and flowers. I've seen
families move from the building on a day's notice because the
neighbor across the hall, a stonecutter, was racked with ling-
ering morning coughs. You hated to lose good tenants, but you
couldn't blame them for fearing t.b. for themselves and their
children. Living in Barre for more than a quarter of a.century
you can remember whole families that have been wiped out by it.
"Velve hard working, honest tenants. They pay their rent
regularly. During the last big strike, about six years ago,
we kept three families who couldn't pay their rent. They paid
up every cent when the men went to work again.
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and explained a policy to a tenant who speaks little English.
Stonecutters rates are high. In this company the life insur-
ance rate for stonecutters of 36 years of age is #840 a year
more than the usual, per i1,00‘,. For a man of 25$ $6.40 yearly
is added to the usual rates. For lumpers, whose labor is less
hazardous, rates are lower.
"The widows hang on desperately to these ,bits of insur-
ance, bank it if they can, and look for other means of support.
A few resort to the sale of wine, rapps„ and whiskey in their'
homes. If they are raided they pay the fine, and after .a trio!.
lull start the sales again."
Joanna spoke of her teaching days at Spaulding high School.
"I taught there three years. Por the most part these stone
working immigrants give their children a good education.. Some
prepare for colleges and universities; most of them take comas-
ercial courses. But Barre offers few office Jobe. Many, esp.
ecially the girls, commute to Uontpolier--to the State House
and the National Life insurance offices. The boys are reared
in a horror for the hazards of shed life, they refuse to do
granite work, nor do their parents want them to. They want
wLite collar Jobs. A few find openings as salesmen for granite
sheds and quarries. Lany drift to the cities. During pro-
hibition high school graduates—inay of them Italian and Irish
did bootlegging. It offered adventure, excitement, a good
profit, it kept them from the sheds, and for the time being
solved the problem of seeking work in other cities.
"Our Italian tenants feel bad about the part Italy is talcs-
ing in this war. Maiq of the stonecutters are northern born.
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Near the French border. They've always had pleasant relations
with the European French. They adiirelUssolini for the fine
changes he has male in Italy the construction of highways,
compulsory education, and. so forth, but they feel he's gone too
far this time. They regret this war. Some have brothers in
Italy, with sons the ages of their own sons. If the United
States is brought into the war these cousins will be fighting
each other. I've heard them talk: Italy was their first home,
and they would like to be loyal, but America is their now home,
their families, property, friends and interests are here. ,Their
sympathy is torn between them and they keep hoping that the
United States will keep out of the war..