Entry 23: Maria Cecilia Pedulla
- Basilia Staltari
- Mar 5
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 20
Location: Calabria, Italy
Date of Birth: 8 April 1877
When their first child was born, Giuseppe Nicola Pedulla and his wife Maria Giuseppa Francesca Reitano, followed a religious ‘usunza’ (custom) and named their daughter in honour of ‘Santa Maria’, the Blessed Virgin Mary. They registered her birth name as MARIA CECILIA PEDULLA, but throughout her life, she was known by her middle name – Cecilia, which was also the name of her paternal grandmother.
Cecilia became a seamstress, learning her sewing skills from her mother. She developed into a gentle and delicate, yet determined woman, shaped in every aspect by the cultural norms of this period, with one major exception - literacy.
According to a popular, old saying: ‘Ogni paisi chi vai, l’usanza chi trovi.’
This translates to: In every town you go to, customs will be found.
It wisely points out, that in life, regardless where you live, there will always be entrenched customs (‘usanzi’) influencing behaviours. During Cecilia’s childhood, the village custom was to keep daughters at home and not send them to school. The outcome resulted in widespread illiteracy among women. Therefore, if you were a female who could read and write, your standout abilities made you unique and renowned within your community. This was the case with Cecilia. How, or from whom, she acquired her reading and writing skills remains a mystery. Her parents and grandparents were carpenters, labourers or dressmakers. Her brother Donato, was illiterate; when he travelled to the United States at the age of twenty, his immigration records showed he could neither read nor write. All these clues suggest that the source of her education came from outside the family unit. The most plausible theory is that she was self-taught. This process involves asking someone in your social circle who can read and write to teach you a few words, and then you continue to expand your knowledge by asking for additional words, either from the same or a different person. She had the determination to pursue matters she was interested in, so her strong desire to learn motivated her to achieve more, even if it meant defying a culture that didn't value education.
Cecilia was well ahead of her time. It wasn’t until the generation of her granddaughters, that girls eventually started to attend public schools. Their education, in general, was limited to no more than six years, but this was enough to provide them with a solid base from which to continue developing their reading and writing abilities from home. A major leap in formal education took place with the next generation: Cecilia’s great-granddaughters.
Summarised in the four stages below, it took more than a century after Cecilia's birth for female descendants to graduate from university.
Cecilia Pedulla, born in 1877, was literate, which was uncommon for her era.
Her daughter, Maria, born in 1907, did not attend school.
Her granddaughters experienced formal education ranging from 3 to 6 years.
Some of Cecilia’s great-granddaughters completed university degrees starting in1984.
‘Usanza’ in terms of education was slow to evolve, before it eventually gained momentum and accelerated forward between stages 3 and 4, resulting in permanent changes.
EXTRA INFORMATION 1
EXTRA INFORMATION 2
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