Mongrando

Mungrand

The three sections of the village occcupy a rather vast and varied territory. Ceresane forms a compact nucleus around the parish church of San Rocco, at the foot of a small hill on which are gathered around Borgo three smaller villages, San Michele, Ruta and Graziano; Curanova is made up of a group of smaller hamlets, Maghetto in the plain on the Elvo’s left bank, Trucco, Magnana e Monticello sit around the parish church of Santa Maria. The land on the West is wooded with numerous streams, fields stretch to East between Elvo and the stones fields of Bessa.

 “Poor Mongradesi, you walk on gold and die of  hunger”, as the saying goes, referring to the  famous gold reserves that were hidden, and could still be hidden according to the legend, between the long stony slopes bordering Serra. But the conditions of the village were not prosperous as described in the Reports of 1648 where “floods were a natural calamity causing enormous damages to the crops with heavy repercussions on local economy”.

  
In 1729 it says that there are no manifactories, but there is a presence of 206 bricklayers and 18 kiln workers, seasonal workers in Piedmont and areas nearby, and 66 linen weavers and a few cloth manufacturers. A few years later, it says that there are in the village seven “jacks” or fullers, probably first installed in the 1500s. Mongrando community was therefore divided between the seasonal workers , as in other Valle Elvo’s villages, leaving for Piedmont or France (Savoy) and the small manufacturing on hand looms of cloths for small contractors like the firm “Guabello Antonio and Brother”, founded in 1815. Eight were the forges employing 42 workers.

Around the second half of the 1800, jaquard machines arrived: in 1870 there were around thirty of them  and the firm Pistono increased their number in ten more years and in 1882 it used the first mechanical looms. The “Brothers Finotto Siletti” was founded in 1876 and in the same period also “Guabello, Delpiano and Colombo”. During this period we saw the birth of the first workers organizations and in 1872 the first women workers Society. Many were the women replacing men in the weaving sections of the factories, while they prefer to look for work abroad.

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In spite of the presence of the factories in the village, the population of Mongrando decreased between 1901 and 1931 from 4237 to 3668 and the absents were more and more numerous. Still referring to the same years, they increased from 252 (105 in Italy and 147 abroad) to 582 (130 in Italy and 452 abroad); to these we have to add 174 persones considered permanent resident abroad. Population continued to decreased until the 50s.

The biographies of the Mongradesi are 315, 7.8% of the inhabitant in 1911 and from here we can find that 65.2% emigrated to France, 15.8% to the United States (mostly to Patterson), 4.9% to Switzerland, 5.2% to the rest of Europe, 4.9% to South America, 2.7% to Africa, 0.8% to Asia and 0.5% to Australia. The family names most common are Veneis, Toso, Zanotti, Capellaro, Bertinetti, Rossetti, Guabello, Siletti, Graziano, Pistono. The oldest emigrant is Luigi Porta Variolo, born in 1835 and emigrated to Gap in France.