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| Enrichetta Braga |
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| Egildo and Carlina Braga |
The following article has already been published
in Italian in in 2012. In the meantime we have received requests for more
details from :
Annemarie Bourassa
Directrice-adjointe
Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père
1000, du Phare, Rimouski,
(Québec) Canada G5M 1L8
418-724-6214 fax 418-721-0815
www.shmp.qc.ca / facebook.com/
Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père
1000, du Phare, Rimouski,
(Québec) Canada G5M 1L8
418-724-6214 fax 418-721-0815
www.shmp.qc.ca / facebook.com/
and
Dr. John Willis
Conservateur, Histoire économique et environnementale, Division
d'archéologie et d'histoire
Curator, Economic and Environmental History, Archaeology and History
Division
Canadian Museum of Civilization-Musée canadien des civilisations
100 Laurier
Gatineau (Québec) K1A 0M8
Canada
(819) 776-8467
Pointe-au-Père is very
close to the site of the sinking of the Empress of Ireland,while the Museum of
Civilization of Gatineau will commemorate the event next May 2014.
In both cases our articles regarding Egildo e
Carolina Braga with the documentation provided by the Braga family of Turbigo
will be present.
A serious suggestion
to visit the places where the target occurred
and the museum that preserve its memory
and that of the people who died and survived. A great opportunity to be close
to the families who haven’t forgotten what happened in a warm night of May
1914.
"Egildo and
Carolina Braga survived the tragic sinking of the Canadian ship “Empress of
Ireland” that went down in the waters of the St Lawrence River the night
between May 28 and 29, 1914 , but their son Rino lost his life.
Enrichetta
Braga awaits for my arrival seated behind the window with embroidered curtains
of her house situated right after “the mill” of Turbigo, maybe a little anxious,
since she isn’t accustomed to telling the story of her family to strangers. Getting
in touch with her has been somewhat difficult but the presence of her niece Rosella who in the past has already been in touch with other scholars and also of her daughter Carla has contributed to making
the event pleasant and relaxed.
Enrichetta
Braga, who has turned 93 on February 16th, 2013, is a friendly and
lovable person, quite capable in spite of her age since she still lives on her
own and independent. An orderly house
filled with the memories of a long life centred by one of the worst maritime
tragedies of Canada. I explain my work as a researcher, aimed at conveying the
least known angles of Lombard emigration, and I tell her what I know about
their story, to fill the gaps with the testimony of Enrichetta and the clarifications
by Rosella and Carla.
Enrichetta’s
story begins at Ellis Island, New York on December 27th, 1908 when
the ship La Lorraine disembarks due emigrants from Turbigo : Egildo
Braga and Arcangelo Citterio, the former headed for Eveleth,Minnesota to reach
his brother Carlo, already there since 1906, the latter for Herrin, Illinois to meet his friend Pasquale Bianchini. Both future iron and coal
miners.
Egildo
Braga, a robust 21 year old, adapts fast to the rhythm of the life of the mining camp of Fayal where the
activity is in full swing : iron is mined and semi-processed on location to the
point that the population of Eveleth has increased from 2.800 in 1900 to over
7.000 inhabitants. As is the custom
Egildo boards like other miners with an Italian family. In fact the 1910
Federal Census indicates that he boards with the family of Frank and Josephine
Colombo. The meticulous statistic registers him as an iron miner at Fayal Camp
and informs that he has already filed the first papers to obtain the American
citizenship, usually the first step towards the decision to remain in the
States for good.
Actually
Egildo is willing to start a family but since he has no spare time and the
chance to find a wife or to return to Turbigo, he gets in touch with his
family. Since many young were abroad, the number of girls of marriageable age
was very high and so arranging a marriage through a photograph or a vague
memory was easy. Some young lady married by proxy but Carolina Braga, Egildo’s
cousin preferred to cross the Atlantic
directly arriving in New York on May 267th, 1911 on board La
Lorraine.
The ship’s
passenger list shows that she is going to her cousin Egildo Braga’s at 217
Grand Street in Eveleth, a clear
indication that he had left the boarding house but it’s not known whether
Carolina, then 19, had left Turbigo alone on her way to Le Havre where she
embarked on May 20th 1911. Enrichetta
remembers that her mother was probably travelling with some other fellow
countrywoman but the manifest shows no other people from Turbigo or other towns
going to Eveleth. The ocean crossing, always with the same connotation of
anxiety and sea-sickness and that famous piece of cheese from home that
wouldn’t go down, as Enrichetta vividly recalls with the recalls with the
absolute certainty of a person who has listened to the same phrases year over
year without ever getting bored and paying close attention to the smallest
details.
Carolina
leaves with courage and confident to go to Eveleth not to embrace a tree brasciacoll
a ‘na pianta but to marry the man of her life. Enrichetta repeats this and
the photographs sent afterwards to her mother Maria Romorini in Turbigo reflect
a proud and serene couple.
On June 3rd
1911, right after her uncomfortable
voyage, Egildo and Carolina Braga get married in Eveleth and start planning
their future. A son, Rino, is soon born and everything goes on well. Enrichetta
still cherishes the sepia photographs of weddings that many emigrants used to
send with pride to their families back in Italy.
Pretty soon
also Carolina would manage a boarding house and later she would tell on and on about
her having to care even for 17 miners which translated into preparing their
Italian dishes, washing and ironing their clothes.
Carlo,
Egildo’s brother, iron miner and boarder with another family, got married
instead in 1914. The procedure was always the same : request to the family in
Italy to look for a girl of a marriageable age within the family circle
swilling to emigrate. A well tested
rite.
The 19 year
old would be wife Giuseppa Garavaglia
left aboard the Rochambeau from Le Havre on March 14th 1914 and
landed in New York on March 24th 1911. This time the so-called work
ships carry several local emigrants. The final destination of Carolina and Rosa
Ronzoni is Eveleth and droves of emigrants from Castano Primo, Nosate are going
to St. Louis, Missouri while others from Lonate Pozzolo are crossing the
continent towards Crocket and San Rafael,California. In 1913 at least 90
Turbighese emigrated to the States but in 1914 on account of the political
turmoils the count decreased to only 15.
Giuseppa
left her family back in Turbigo still headed by her father Giuseppe who had
previously emigrated to Argentina where Giuseppa was born in 1895.
A great and
wonderful wedding photograph taken in 1914
patiently explained by Enrichetta shows Carlo and Giuseppa surrounded by
friends and relatives and most of all by Egildo and Carolina and their son
Rino. The dating of the photographs has necessitated much discussion and
hypothesis because there are no captions
and Enrichetta can humanly identify only the people she has known or the ones she has constantly heard about.
However, now everything seems much clearer. Giuseppa arrived on March 24th
1914 and she got married almost right away, certainly before the departure of
Egildo and his family for Italy that took place on the last week of May 1914.
The voyage started at Ville Quebèc, Quebèc,
Canada was solicited by the promotions of the shipping lines after a 2.250
train trip from Duluth, Minnesota.
Why did
Egildo decide to return home? Enrichetta has no definite answer: Carolina was
happy in America and work opportunities were there. We may speculate a family
request, then quite strong in many families, that may have compelled Egildo to
go back to Italy and verify the conditions of things after six years abroad.
Actually onboard the Empress of Ireland
there were many workers temporarily laid off by the Ford Company and many
miners out of work. The echo of the bloody strikes of 1913-14 in Copper County,
Michigan and the coal mines of Ludlow, Colorado, followed by those in the
Mesabi Range, Minnesota was still strong.
Sometimes
returning back home was better than the constant fight for the daily bread.
Egildo,
Carolina and Rino ended up in Ville de Quèbec amid a crowd of people on their
way to Liverpool, a convenient seaport for North Europeans but a little less
for the Italians who had over 1.250 more Kilometers to go.
On May 28th
the Empress
of Ireland left Ville de Quèbec
at 1630 sharp with captain Henry G. Kendall in command and 1.477 passengers –
first second and third class plus crew members – and ventured into the St.
Lawrence River.
Egildo and
Carolina declined the possibility to stay in the dormitory with the other
children – 138 altogether – and preferred to stay with him in their third class
stateroom.
Around one
twenty of May 29th , 1914 the visibility on the route was zeroed by
sudden fog banks. Both the Empress of
Ireland and the Norwegian collier Storstad,
that sailed in the opposite direction, realized it but in spite of the last minute course
corrections the Storstad was unable
to avoid the collision. At 0155 a.m. the bow of the Storstad, reinforced to
navigate in icy waters, penetrated the side of the Empress of Ireland creating
a gash of 4X14 metres at least seven metres under the waterline, and the ship began to lurch on one side. At 0200
am the Storstad managed to disengage.
Fifteen
minutes later the Empress of Ireland
was no more visible.
When the Storstad crashed into the Empress of Ireland,Egildo woke up with a
start and ran immediately to find out what had happened. Carolina, stà lì ca vo sù a vidè, Carolina wait for me while I
upstairs to find out. Egildo returned almost at once : Carolina
al funda, Carolina she it’s sinking.
Luckily
they had kept their son with them and they had not remained in the
dormitory.134 out of 138 children drowned and they, too, would have certainly
met the same fate.
Fog, fear,
the agitation of the crowd, Rino ; everything contributes to making the scene
dramatic but Egildo keeps calm, he somehow ties Rino and attempts to figure how
to survive. Carolina is terrified, they have put on the life vest but jumping
into the sea in the dark it’s not easy for fear of the suck since the ship is
going down. They manage to reach the deck, Egildo kicks an irrational passenger
obstructing the way while dragging his suitcase. Then they jump off. All of a
sudden Egildo senses that the violence of the water has taken away Rino from
him, he searches for him in despair and loses sight of Carolina. She has been
hit by a beam and hurt her forehead, she sinks into the freezing water and then
goes up again, and then she holds up hanging on an overturned lifeboat.
Enrichetta’s
eyes become moist at recalling her father’s words, he who got moved every time
, and this happened quite often, he focused his thought and speech upon the
tragic event feeling guilty for having been unable to save his son Rino.
Vusean tucc, in UN mument a vusea pù nisun, Everybody screamed, in a moment
nobody screamed anymore.
The rescue
by the Storstad itself and other ships were as fast as the sinking of the
Empress of Ireland had occurred but the tragedy was terrible.1012 people died
and only 565 survived.
The
survivors were taken to nearby Rimouski where the Brags tried in vain to
identify Reno’s body among the corpses that had been found and lined up for
identification.
At this
point there was nothing to be done but accept the unpleasant event and return
home as soon as possible. Canadian Pacific
reprotected most passengers aboard then Corsican that left on May 31st
1914 for Liverpool, with Egildo also the few Italian survivors.
Back in
Turbigo, Egildo Braga, son of Angelo and Vincenza Cavaiani got married again
with Carolina Braga, daughter of the late Felice and Maria Romorini, on
November 18th, 1914 in the parish church of Our Lady of the
Assumption of Turbigo. The records of the American wedding had not been
interpreted properly and the couple desired to start a new life.
America had
left many remembrances, a leather belt with the savings of the mine work and a
golden chain, miraculously escaped from the shipwreck. Nothing else. They had
lost everything, including their clothes. Carolina used to tell, quite amused,
that after their rescue she only wore the nightgown e for a while she covered
herself with a cuerta insu una cuerta da
là a blanket on and a blanket across.
Life
resumed. On May 17th 1914 Rina was born but she died on November 25th, 1917. At last on
February 16th, 1920 Enrichetta Braga, mother of Carla and Aurelia,
was born, she who continues to hand down
the story of the family. There followed Mario Braga ( October 5, 1924 –
February 1st, 2001) Rosella and Pierangela’s father and Rina Braga ( July 15th, 1930 –
June 6th, 1931).
At the end
of world war I dozen Turbighese returned or left for the first time for the
United States looking for new job opportunities, among them Egildo Braga. This
time he was alone and boarded Dante Alighieri – Genoa September 24th
1920 – New York October 9th, 1920. Same destination: Eveleth, Minnesota
where his brother Carlo, now definitely residing in the US, was waiting for him.
He
sojourned there for a couple of years but something didn’t function and he
elected to return to Italy. It would be for good because the political climate
didn’t favour emigration.
The regret
of that night would haunt him forever, his thought always pointed towards the
fog bank of Pointe-au-Père along the Saint Lawrence River where the now the
soul of Rino has rejoined that of Egildo and Carolina’s."
Ernesto R Milani Ernesto.milani@gmail.com 17 December 2014
| Pointe-au-Père - Historic Maritime Site |
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| Gatineau - Canada Museum of Civilization |
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