There are love stories that have the flavor of an ancient novel. A flavor that comes from casual acquaintance in the compartment of a popular train in the 1930s, from the promise to remain united, despite everything, despite the dangers and divisions that war brings. The protagonists of this history linked to Sardinia and the Sardinian Union are Franco and Filomena, known as “Filina”. To make it re-emerge from the dust of time is Michelangelo Iossa, journalist, writer, but in this case first of all the nephew of Franco and Filina.
Michelangelo, tell us first of all who your two grandparents were:
“Franco Farina was born in Milan in June 1907. The youngest of seven living children (three died very young from incurable diseases at the time), he belonged to a family of the Milanese bourgeoisie. Franco had studied Engineering at the Polytechnic of Turin and, as an Army officer, he had trained at the Military Academy of the Piedmontese capital. At that time, we are talking about a little less than a century ago, the Academy had not yet been transferred to Modena. Grandfather Franco was animated by a deep love of country, fueled by the fact that he had lost his brother Renato, overwhelmed by an avalanche, in the First World War. The commitment in the ranks of the Military Engineers and the outbreak of the Second World War absorbed his life as a young officer ”.
And grandma Filina?
“Nonna was born in Torre Annunziata (Naples) in April 1917. Fifth of nine children, Filina came from a family of wealthy entrepreneurs from the industrialized Vesuvius area, the Japicca. Torre Annunziata, between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, was a very flourishing pole of wheat pasta production, even more flourishing than today's Gragnano. The Japicca were modern entrepreneurs: they were, for example, the first to publish yearbooks in dual languages (Italian and French) and to introduce the bilingual business calendar as a marketing object during trade fairs and business meetings. Nonna Filina was no less modern in terms of modernity: she was the first woman to obtain a car driving license in Torre Annunziata, a pioneer for her generation ”.
