GILARDI, Margherita (Nonna)

MARGHERITA MARIANA GILARDI Margherita "Nonna" Mariani was born in Bre, Lugano, Switzerland, on July 21, 1885, to Giovanni and Apollonia Mariana. In 1903 Margherita met and married Eliseo Gilardi, who returned to his native Switzerland after becoming discouraged as a prospector in Arizona. Eliseo returned to Arizona in 1905, leaving Margherita with a baby daughter, and went to work at the Senator Mine. He saved enough money to pay for Margherita and two-year-old Leonita, as well as the two hundred dollars required by the Immigration Department at Ellis Island. As Margherita came by ship to New York, she learned to speak only two words of English, "baby" and "milk". When she reached Chicago she found a couple of men who were speaking Italian. They offered to get her on a train, which turned out to be the Southern Pacific. So she and Leonita landed in Phoenix, than took the Santa Fe to Prescott where Eliseo met them at the depot in 1907. Festivities attendant to the unveiling of the Buckey O'Neill statue were in progress when she arrived. The Gilardi's second daughter, Florida, was born at Maxton on April 18,1908. When the mine closed Eliseo moved his family into a boardinghouse at Granite and Gurley Streets in Prescott overlooking Granite Street, where their third daughter, Elvezia, was born on June 8, 1910. Eliseo went to work as a bricklayer on the new Arizona Pioneers' Home. He bought a café near the old Rex Arms Hotel, expecting Magherita to manage it. She refused. So the café was sold. Eliseo then took his wife and daughters to Trinidad, Colorado, where he worked in the coalmines. About 1916 the Gilardis moved back to Prescott and Eliseo worked briefly for the Santa Fe Railroad as a bricklayer in the roundhouse. In 1922 they moved to the Verde Valley where they went into business with Margherita's brother in the Clarkdale Diary. At about this time Margherita concluded that Eliseo did not have a business head, and she took over the finances. Everyone pitched in and helped in the diary, including the girls. Eliseo died in 1929, leaving Margherita a widow. She and her son-in-law bought the Verde District Dairy in 1932 and a communal arrangement began, shared by Margherita, her three daughters, their husbands, and their children. The combined family moved back to Prescott and bought the Sanders Dairy on Ruth Street, which was on leased land. Unable to purchase the land, they bought forty-seven acres on Hassayampa Trail (now White Spar Road) and began construction of a house and barn. Family folklore says that the women (and the men) laid boards on the ground, showing the house plan they wanted it built. The home has seven bedrooms, two dining rooms, a big basement for laundry, a recreation room, a wine cellar, and cedar closets. Because of its size it was given a nickname and the townspeople, as well as the family, always referred to the savoini-Fornara home as "The Big House" at 601 White Spar Road. The home was finished on July 4, 1941. On that day and on every Fourth of July thereafter for many years, there was a big celebration/barbecue to commemorate its completion. It was at this location that the savoinis and Fornaras operated the Hassayampa Dairy. In the early years during the cold winter months, as Margherita and her son-in-law milked, separated, and bottled, they drank aro sumada, a mixture or raw eggs and wine. It helped to warm them up. During World War II there was no one to come in and milk the dairy cows. Margherita, at that time in her sixties, rolled up her sleeves and went right out with the men and helped with the milking. The business evolved into the Hassaympa Market, a convenience market of one little room that grew into quite a big market and served the community until 1979. The dairy was phased out after World War II and the family began selling milk, cream, and buttermilk on the premises. Margherita, matriarch of the Fornara and savoinin families, died on January 8, 1986, at the age of one hundred. She was a stalwart member of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Prescott. Her husband's body had been moved from the Cottonwood Cemetery to Mountain View Cemetery in Prescott, and she is buried with him in the family plot. Margherita's daughters, Leonita Gilardi Savonini, Florida Gilardi Fornara, and Elvezia Gilardi Fornara are also commemorated in the rose garden. Donor: granddaughter, Anna Mary Fornara Olsen June 2006