Goodbye to Madeira

The charms of Madeira brought interesting people to Madeira.  Winston Churchill loved the Island and took his rest there.  It inspired him to take up watercolors. You can see that this would have been in the late 40's and perhaps later.  The development which has recently 

exploded on the Island was not yet prevelant.

George Bernard Shaw learned to tango in Madiera....

Sir Winston at his easel.

Madeira folk in the Village were very close.  When I did my genealogical research, I found out that they were rather a minority versus Azoreans in New England.  Yet, somehow they found their way to Taunton and their closeness did not diminish.  The New Bedford Madeira festival of the Blessed Sacrament is the largests festa in the world!!    Often Madeira folk from 

New Bedford would come to visit and vice versa.  Sadly we have not kept up with them.

This website will tell you more about the New Bedford festa which takes place annually in August, upcoming will be its 99th year.

http://portuguesefeast.com/page/feast-history

Madeira today is a cosmopolitan resort spot for Europeans and Americans as well.  It is to be hoped that the charms of my home island are not lost.....

I leave you with a YouTube video of the New Year's firework's display: the largest in the world

taking place each year in the Funchal harbor. It was recognized in 2006 by the Guiness World Records. There are usually many cruise ships in the harbor

for just this event.  Another dream on my bucket list....

Anyone know the history of these fireworks?  When they first began?

Enjoy this astounding display!

and one  more video...this music is somehow already imbedded in my memories.

shared on You Tube by somehow from Bristol, RI.  Thank you whoever you are.

Next: The Azores.....

I am hoping that more viewers will share their photos.  

Several readers have just returned from there.

 I will gladly pop them in as we go.

HISTORICAL MEMORIES OF FUNCHAL..

Sorry to have been away from my post, so to speak. I am back again with this new post which will talk about  Funchal, capital of Madeira. We continue the Origins of the People of the School Street village.

Funchal is where my maternal Grandfather, Manuel Motta was born.  I am noticing more and more that international readers are visiting this blog.  Manuel is but a shadow in our history.  No photographs exist of him, and only what my grandmother Isobel told us in a recorded interview helps us to know him.   Perhaps: someone is out there with some information about him and our family on that side.  I hit so many dead ends in my research that I need to jump start again.  What I do know puts a personal side to our description of this beautiful city.

Manuel was born  in Funchal in the parish and village of Santa Maria  Major on October 15, 1895 to Antonio and Maria C. da Motta.   This is a venerable church in the baroque architectural style that is also called Igreja de Sao Tiago Minor. It also had other names , as over the centuries it was rededicated when the need arose.  Here my grandfather, his parents and theirs and on into the past were baptized, confirmed, often married and in my grandfather's case had their funeral masses.  As an aside, land being so rocky and limited, burials took place only temporarily when cremation then took place and common sites were used.  For this reason there are few memorial name stones in Madeira.  This is a problem for those seeking genealogical knowledge as, of course, cemeteries are a large source of information,  In all of Madeira, there are only a few "cemeteries".  More to come as more photographs and input come in from our readers.

 My grandfather's paternal grandparents were Maria de Conceicoa and Manuel da Motta. Maternal grandparents were Helena de Jesus and Francisco Fernandes. This information was gleaned from two fragile letters that my mother kept from Maria and Manuel written in 1940 and 1941. This allowed us to get his birth certificate and. much later, his death certificate.

Manuel had at least two siblings that we know from one of those letters.  A brother, Jose, who was in South Africa, a common destination for Madeirenses.  We know from my mother that a sister named Carolina or Carlotta cared for my grandfather in Madeira when he was dying.

We must assume that my grandfather immigrated to the U.S. prior to 1915 which was when he met my grandmother Isobel in Bristol and they were married.  Isobel wrote that an uncle (was it maternal or paternal? ) introduced them in the shoe factory where they both worked in that town.

Manuel clearly loved his little family.  He, and they often, visited Madeira and he went there in his final illness. He died in his early thirties.  That little family found only tragedy in America.  Their little son died at 18 months of age.  Their daughter, my mother, spent her childhood from the ages of 9 1/2 to 18 in a Boston orphanage after my grandmother became seriously ill.

Funchal is a beautiful seaside city.  I can see why my grandfather so loved it. I was fortunate enough to find these photos on madeira,webcam. com which tell us what the city was like when he was born and probably for most of his life.

Today, from a website http://www.cyberroach.com/madeira_v300/historic_photos/views_of_madeira.htm
I found these great old photos.  Taken from an 1880 publication
"Views of Madeira" it contains 18 clear old photos of that time.

Here are just a few.

The first is taken in front of the Grande Hotel in Monte where the toboggan rides still originate.
The gardens in front of the old entrance to the hotel are famous today, according to the author of the site.  These fellows chose the sled ride down be accomplished with bullocks instead
of strong young men.

        Below is another photo from that time of the Cathedral in Funchal built between 1493 and 1514.

More to come about Funchal....and hopefully, more from all of you reading the posts.  

Thanks in advance.

Madeira Meandering

Madeira lies 400 miles west of Morocco, approximately 700 miles southwest of mainland Portugal.  Madeira means "wood" in Portuguese and is named after the forests and dense vegetation that makes up the island ( we hope it still does, although Unesco has named these forests a world treasure protecting them).  Forests comprise 16% of the island which is an evergreen cloud forest.  Madeira is 36 miles long and 15 miles wide.  However, much of Madeira is volcanic and mountainous so travel distances vary widely.  Madeira is not part of the Azores.

The archipelago of Madeira is mountainous, composed of volcanic rock which are summits of submarine volcanoes. Madeira makes up 93% of the land mass of the archipelago, some of the smaller islands not even inhabited.  A verdant volcanic extrusion, Madeira rises from the floor of the Atlantic ocean 16,500 feet below sea level to a height of 6,109 feet at Pico Ruiva where the peak cuts through the clouds, its ravines plunging into the sea.  According to legend, the Madeira archipelago may be the mountaintops of the fabled lost Atlantis.

It was in this beautiful island that three of my grandparents were born.  Joseph Nunes Souza and Delphina Viera shared this heritage with many School Street villagers and their links to each other remained strong all their lives.  Delphina and Joseph were natives of Arco da Calheta a beautiful village sitting atop a volcanic mountain side which dips down into the sea.
                                                        This is an aerial view of it.

Arca da Calheta was the first area to be colonized in Madeira sometime in the 1400's.  Talk about ancient! Who knows how far back the Souza and Viera family go... When we went to the village in 1985 , it was a daunting ride from Funchal through breathtaking gorges and winding roads which often took us through tunnels carved through mountains.  Note how the sea can be viewed from the Village: amazing fact, so near and yet so far.  My grandfather, Joseph Souza, never learned to swim growing up in this Village.  This would mean the loss of his life, at his prime, in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. For all of my grandparents the move to the dreams of a new world would end in tragedy. When we visited the higher country of Madeira, we learned that many people never travelled down to the coast, this being in the days before motor cars for most of them. This was from the front page of the Taunton Daily Gazette in July of 1927, 22 years after Joseph  left his home village of Arca da Calheta with his young wife Delphina and their firstborn following soon after.  That first child would not live to adulthood,

 

Back now to  focus of this village, a natal village for my family. Our histories are all entertwined with the places our  ancestors originated, the facts of their youths 

coloring the history of all the family to come.

                                                                The Village Church

 You can see the bell tower of the village Catholic Church clearly in the first photo on this page.  We visited there in 1985 and my nephew David and his wife, Linda in the 90's.

David and Linda took these photographs.  The Church, as shared by another reader is
Igreja de Sao Braz.

There is an amazing similarity here.  This church is so like the Church that would be built in the School St. Village: St. Anthony's: same blue color, same domed saint's altars...did this vision stay in the mind of the Madeiranceans that lived in the Village? For a small Village it is quite an astounding Church. It was in this Church that many of my ancestors were baptized, confirmed, married and had their funerals. When we were there a woman cleaning in the Church remembered our grandmother Delphina doing the alter linens.  We know she took that task right on to St. Anthony's in the Village.  For her it was a task of worship, I am sure.

                                              Below a view of leaving the Church and the choir.

          Above is the tiled courtyard of the Church which I recall very well. It was very peaceful.

My grandmother Delphina Viera Souza went to school up to the third grade in this Village. She told a cousin of mine that she had a slate hung from a tree in the family yard so she could practice her sums.

This was in the 1800's.  We know so little about her and Joseph growing up, including how much schooling he received.  It must have been a fair amount as he had 

much success as a businessman in Taunton.

It is a blessing to visit one's roots, I wish I knew then what I know now.  I would

have done much more research there in that Village.  I would also have scoured the area

for photographs. Luckily, the younger generation took over: as they should.

 On top of all that I have lost most of the photos I took on that trip.

I am hoping others on the trip will contribute theirs....  Luckily, the younger ones
took over when they went.

Next post: Funchal and the last grandfather of Madeira.