(
HOST) Two new books remind Commentator Tom Slayton that Vermont is more than just a Yankee haven. He joins us today with his reflections.
(SLAYTON) Vermont has the reputation of being a "Yankee Kingdom" a place settled and defined by white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Yet this state is actually something far more complicated and interesting.
Two new books offer us views of a different Vermont – different Vermonts, really, one Italian, one Irish.
Vincent Feeney’s "Finnegans, Slaters, and Stonepeggers" is a panoramic history of the Irish in Vermont that begins in the 1760s and continues down to the 20th century Irish neighborhoods of Burlington. The other recent book, Sandra Levesque’s "Under a Fig Tree" is an intimate exploration of her own Italian family’s history, beginning in her grandparents’ Sicily and focusing closely on the vibrant Italian neighborhood in "The Gut" – the Southwestern quadrant of Rutland.
I lived and worked in Rutland for eight years, and have retained a strong affection for the city ever since. I was welcomed into town by the Marro family, and got to know the Slatterys pretty well, too. And so both these books touch my experience, and my heart.
Feeny’s history of the Irish in Vermont is, of necessity, fairly broad-ranging, since he looks at almost three centuries of the Irish experience here. Of special interest is his analysis of the Irish community’s strong drive for mainstream acceptance and respectability, and their special talent for politics. Both Rutland and Burlington have had Irish mayors in my lifetime. The book fills a major void in Vermont history and will be used by scholars for years to come.
Sandy Levesque’s book takes a very different approach. Going for depth instead of breadth, she recounts the experience of her beloved "Nana", Antonia Delpopolo Scafidi – who met her husband, as the book’s title suggests, "Under a Fig Tree", in Sicily. The couple then came to America and settled in Rutland.
Levesque’s beautiful and touching memoir recounts how her family and neighbors pursued the American dream, while maintaining their own language and traditions, their religious life in St. Peter’s Catholic Church, and their ethnic identity through parochial school and public celebrations. She still remembers clearly, for example, the Feast of the Assumption, in which a statue of the Virgin Mary was carried through the neighborhood streets and anyone seeking the intercession of the Holy Mother on their behalf would pin money or some other offering to the statue’s cape.
Levesque includes family photographs and recipes in her book, and it concludes with a lovely poem by Maria Maziotti Gillan entitled "Black Dresses," remembering Rutland’s Italian grandmothers and "the music of a time when the world was small enough to carry in their hands."
To realize the importance of the various ethnic experiences here all we have to do is remember that the largest number of surnames in Vermont today is not English, but French, the largest religious denomination is Roman Catholic, and Asian and central European people are still coming to Vermont every day, to make their own special music, the music of their lives in Vermont.
(TAG) You can find more commentaries by Tom Slayton on-line at VPR-dot-net.