Home/School Life
The Italian migration to Barre began in the late 1880s and expanded rapidly until the early 20th century. The first wave of immigrants was mainly single Italian men who came to find jobs and establish homes. Once they were settled, these men would often send back for their wives and families to join them. Unmarried men would often write to single women back in the home country, having overseas courtships that usually ended with the young women traveling across the ocean to get married in the United States.
Single men would usually stay in boarding houses, which were typically homes run by older Italian families or widows in which rooms were rented out. Boarders were given a bed, a chair, a place to hang their clothing, and had three meals a day provided for them. Interestingly, there was usually a cycle for boarding houses. Single men would stay in boarding houses when they were trying to find work. Once they were established these same men would often get married, have kids, and buy their own house. They would then start renting out the extra rooms in their house to provide some additional income, essentially opening up a boarding house of their own. Boarding houses also became social gathering spaces for many young Italian men in Barre. Often the boarding house owners would sell wine or grappa, a traditional Italian drink, to the men gathering in their homes.
Many women were owners of these boarding houses, as it became their only source of income after their husbands were injured or killed at work in the granite industry. It was not uncommon to see boarding houses run by widows of granite workers killed by silicosis. These women often spent their days cooking and cleaning, both for their families and the men renting rooms from them. They often also had to take care of their children at the same time, until they were old enough to start attending school during the day.
There were several schools in Barre at the time; however, the Italian children mostly went to the Ward 5 and North Barre Schools for their elementary education and the Spaulding High School for higher education. Though the Ward 5 and North Barre schools were primarily filled with Italian children, Spaulding High School was a melting pot of all the different ethnic groups in Barre. Here the Scottish, Italian, Canadian, and American students all attended school together.
During the evenings, there was a different type of school being held. In 1911, Carlo Abate established the Barre Evening Drawing School, which aimed to teach the classical Italian style of drawing and design, particularly statues and architecture, to young men in the granite industry. This not only helped elevate their careers, as it was considered special training, but also provided a safer option than working in the quarry or carving sheds, which were prone to accidents and disease.