Wings of Man
The news came by way of the Fresno Republican, the paper creased and smudged with vineyard dust. Antonio Sieli read it aloud under the shade of the sycamore, his voice half disbelief, half wonder.
“Two brothers from North Carolina… flew a machine heavier than air. Stayed aloft for twelve seconds.”
Giuseppe looked up from mending a fence post. “Flew? As in birds?”
Antonio nodded, squinting at the small illustration of a strange contraption with wings like stretched bedsheets. “That’s what it says. A flying machine. They call it the aeroplano.”
The women paused their shelling of peas. Maria crossed herself. “Twelve seconds? That’s not flying—that’s falling with a prayer.”
Rosa laughed softly. “If God wanted men to fly, He would have given us wings. Some things are better left in Heaven.”
But Giuseppe kept staring at the image, his brow furrowed. “Still,” he said, “if they can fly even for twelve seconds… maybe someday they’ll go farther.”
Antonio shook his head. “Bah. It’s a trick. Like those snake-oil salesmen in town—‘miracle tonics’ and ‘electric carriages.’ You watch. It’ll never take off.”
Lucia smirked. “That’s what you said about the telephone.”
“And I was right!” Antonio fired back. “Half the time, you can’t even hear the person talking. Just noise and static. People should stick to writing letters. They last longer.”
The family laughed, the sound carrying across the rows like a warm breeze. In the distance, the afternoon sun lit the dust of the harvest wagons, the world still bound to earth and muscle.
But Giuseppe, ever the dreamer, kept his gaze fixed on the horizon. “Maybe not in my lifetime,” he said, “but someday men will cross oceans in the sky the way we crossed them by ship. Imagine—Italy to California in a single day.”
Maria smiled indulgently. “And I suppose they’ll serve wine and supper up there in the clouds too?”
“Why not?” Giuseppe said, eyes glinting. “If man can make vines grow in dust, who’s to say he can’t make wings out of wood and wind?”
The others chuckled and went back to their work. But that night, long after the lanterns were out, Giuseppe stood alone by the rows. The stars glittered above the valley, bright and unreachable. He thought of the sea he had once crossed, of the land he had built with his hands, and of the sky that waited, endless and untamed.
He whispered softly, “Maybe someday, even the soil will look up.”
Votes, Voices, and Vineyards
The summer of 1912 had been a hot one, even by Fresno’s standards. The air in the Sieli vineyard office felt heavy, as though the heat had slowed even the light. Yet inside the family kitchen, the conversation was electric.
Rosa set a pitcher of iced tea on the table. “You saw the paper today?” she asked. “They marched in Sacramento—women demanding the vote.”
Giuseppe looked up from his ledger, brow furrowed. “Women want to vote? What’s next, women in the vineyard giving orders to men?”
Maria, stirring tomatoes for the sauce, looked over her shoulder. “If a woman runs this household, she already gives orders to men.”
Antonio grunted. “I’m not sure I’m ready for female politicians and debates.”
In the corner, young Lucia Sieli, their niece, sat perched on a stool, listening with wide eyes. She’d read accounts in borrowed journals about Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Carrie Chapman Catt. She cleared her throat. “They say ‘no taxation without representation’ applies to women too. If women pay taxes and raise children, shouldn’t they have a say in the laws?”
Giuseppe’s expression softened. “You have a point, hija. But people fear change. They always do.”
Antonio shook his head. “Fear or not, I remember when they thought trains couldn’t cross deserts, when men said flight was a folly. They called it a fad. Now look at automobiles, airplanes—some of them take off after all.”
Maria added, quietly, “Votes are not a fad. They are a promise.”
The family spoke late into the evening, their shadows cast long by the lantern light. They considered how suffrage had already been granted in some states—Wyoming in 1869, Utah in 1870, and, closer to home, in parts of the West women had won school or municipal votes. (In fact, by 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment would guarantee that the vote “shall not be denied … on account of sex.”)
Giuseppe spoke of memory. “In Italy, they have voices rising too—women demanding education, charity, rights. The world is changing, whether we like it or not.”
Rosa wiped a tear. “I want to vote someday. Not for show, but because my voice matters.”
Antonio studied her. “If women vote, they must be educated for it. Know the issues. Not just follow their husbands.”
Lucia nodded. “That’s exactly what they demand—equal voice, not political theater.”
Years later, when the 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, it would not instantly cure all inequalities; many women of color and in rural states still faced barriers in practice. Yet for the Sieli family, the victory was personal and symbolic—something they would mark quietly in the vineyard, with Rosa’s first ballot, with Sofia’s proud tears, and with the brothers who once scoffed now standing respectfully.
Antonio watched Rosa walk to the polling station. He whispered to Giuseppe, “Maybe the soil remembers that day.”
And in the fields, the vines nodded, as though affirming that every voice, like every shoot, deserves light to grow.
The Age of Temperance
Epigraph: Fresno Morning Republican (Feb. 12, 1906) — “WOMEN’S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION RALLIES: ‘NO MORE WINE, NO MORE WHISKEY’”
A New Century
At the dawn of the twentieth century, the Sieli vineyard stretched in every direction—rows upon rows of vines planted by Giuseppe and Antonio now tended by their children. The railroad station, once a bitter compromise, now shipped Sieli barrels not only to Sacramento and San Francisco, but as far as Portland and Denver.
Marco, tall and broad-shouldered, strode the rows with the quiet assurance of a man who had grown from child to steward in the shadow of vines. Caterina, bookkeeper and mediator, kept the accounts neat and the laborers loyal. Antonio, his beard silver, still cursed at mules and the weather. Giuseppe, older now, walked with a cane, but his eyes stayed sharp.
“Look,” he said one morning, tapping his stick at a row heavy with grapes. “Roots endure, even when men do not. These vines are your inheritance. Guard them better than I guarded mine.”
Trouble in the Air
The prosperity of the vineyard was shadowed by a growing storm. In Fresno’s courthouse square, women gathered in white dresses, carrying banners that read: Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine.
One afternoon, Rosa returned from town, cheeks flushed with indignation. “They held a rally,” she reported, setting down her basket. “Said wine is the devil’s tool. They called it poison.”
Antonio spat. “Poison? Our wine saved men through drought and plague!”
Giuseppe, calmer, frowned. “Do not dismiss them. A woman with conviction can move mountains—and voters’ hearts.”
Indeed, the local papers brimmed with headlines: TEMPERANCE UNIONS GAIN STRENGTH. Politicians whispered of statewide prohibition.
The Tavern Boycott
At Whitcomb’s, the old tavernkeeper—now stooped, his beard white—shook his head. “Sales are slipping. They don’t raid the bars yet, but they shame the men who walk in. One preacher stands outside, shouting names. Even my own nephew refuses to pour.”
Seamus, older but still quick on the fiddle, plucked a tune in defiance. “Music won’t dry throats forever, but it helps a spell.”
Marco leaned across the counter. “We must fight them.”
Giuseppe’s voice cut steady: “No. We must outlast them.”
A Divided Community
Even within Fresno’s Italian colony, debate flared. At St. Alphonsus Church, some argued that wine was sacred, part of Mass itself. Others, fearful of harassment, suggested planting raisins instead.
At a meeting in the church hall, tempers rose.
“We must protect our families,” one man said. “If they ban wine, we grow grapes for raisins. The railroads will carry them east.”
Antonio slammed his fist on the table. “Raisins! Grapes shriveled into dust! That is not our heritage. We came for vines, not dried fruit.”
Marco raised his hand. “Our heritage is survival. If we refuse to bend, we may break.”
Giuseppe, leaning on his cane, spoke last. “Wine is our name. Raisins may feed bellies, but they will not feed memory. I will not see the Sieli name dried like a grape left in the sun.”
The Earth Trembles
In April of 1906, news came like a wound: San Francisco in ruins, shaken by earthquake and fire.
The Morning Republican carried sketches of toppled buildings, headlines screaming: CITY DESTROYED — THOUSANDS DEAD.
The Sielis read by lamplight, silent. Caterina whispered, “Our barrels—our customers—”
Marco shook his head. “The city will rebuild. And when it does, it will need wine.”
Giuseppe murmured, “And bread, and stone, and prayer. Always prayer.”
That year’s shipments north were delayed, but when they finally went, merchants wrote back desperate for any supply. San Francisco drank Sieli wine in taverns rebuilt from ash and ruin.
The Preacher’s Visit
By 1908, the temperance movement had sent its apostles into every valley. One autumn afternoon, a preacher rode up the Sieli lane. He was tall, stern, with eyes like cold water. He dismounted and tipped his hat only out of form.
“You are the Sielis?”
Giuseppe nodded. “We are.”
The man’s voice carried the cadence of pulpits. “Do you not see the destruction your drink brings? Families ruined, men in the gutter, wages squandered on the devil’s brew?”
Antonio bristled. “Our wine is food. Medicine. Memory. You dare—”
Giuseppe silenced him with a hand. “Our wine, sir, is moderation. We teach our children to drink with reverence, not to drown in it. If men abuse it, blame their choices, not our vines.”
The preacher’s jaw clenched. “Your vines will wither. The law is coming.”
He turned and mounted his horse, leaving dust and threat in his wake.
Legacy at the Table
That winter, the family gathered around the table. Giuseppe, old now, his hands trembling, lifted a glass.
“When we came here, men spat on our name. Called us dagos, garlic eaters, papists. We survived mobs, drought, and envy. Now they come with laws instead of fists. But it is the same struggle.”
Marco lifted his glass in answer. “And we will endure again.”
Caterina touched his hand. “Not by hiding, Marco. By teaching. By showing them what wine truly is.”
Giuseppe’s eyes glistened. “Yes. We must outlast them—not with anger, but with roots.”
They drank together, the wine dark and alive, even as whispers of Prohibition rustled through the valley like dry wind over vines.
_____________________________________________
The Fields of Struggle
By the turn of the century, California was no longer the frontier—it was a factory of sun and sweat. Orchards blanketed the San Joaquin Valley, and vineyards rolled over every hill that could hold a root. Labor was the crop behind every crop, and the men who bent their backs for pennies kept the state alive.
The Sielis watched from their small vineyard outside Fresno, proud that their hands alone tended their vines. They weren’t rich, but they were free. That freedom, Giuseppe often said, was the true harvest.
Still, they could not ignore what the valley had become—a kingdom of growers and bosses, of strikes and broken promises.
One afternoon in 1913, the Fresno Republican arrived by wagon, the headline splashed across the page:
“RIOT AT WHEATLAND—FOUR DEAD IN HOP FIELD STRIKE.”
Antonio read aloud the words of the sheriff’s report: angry workers, armed police, the chaos of gunfire. “They only wanted clean water,” he muttered. “Shade from the sun. A fair day’s wage.”
Lucía crossed herself. “And for that, they are killed.”
Giuseppe nodded. “We came here to escape the masters of Europe. But men find new masters everywhere.”
The Cry of the Workingman
The years that followed were restless ones. In Los Angeles, the Times building bombing of 1910 still haunted the papers—proof, some said, that the unions had gone mad. But the Sielis knew better than to believe everything printed by the rich.
When an organizer named Manuel Torres passed through the valley one evening, his shoes caked with dust and his voice hoarse from speaking to the fields, Giuseppe gave him bread and wine. “You fight for justice?” he asked.
“For dignity,” Torres said. “They call us agitators. But we only want to be paid in money, not tokens. To drink water that isn’t poison.”
Giuseppe nodded slowly. “Then you fight for something holy.”
Between Rows and Ranks
Antonio kept a small ledger of expenses and prayers. That night, he added a line not meant for the books:
“A vineyard grows because it is tended. A people grow because they are heard.”
When the Industrial Workers of the World—the Wobblies—marched through Fresno and Stockton, singing “Solidarity Forever,” some of the Sieli neighbors spat at them, calling them anarchists and foreigners. But Giuseppe and Lucía stood by the road and tipped their hats as the marchers passed.
“Foreigners,” Antonio scoffed. “That’s what they called us once.”
Lucía replied, “And will again, when we forget to be kind.”
The Sielis never joined a union, but they quietly raised wages when harvest came, shared meals with their laborers, and let them rest under the vines at noon. In return, the workers stayed loyal.
Word spread that the Sielis’ vines never went untended, even in the lean years.
The Roots of Tomorrow
By the late 1920s, as the Great Depression loomed, the Sieli family began to hear whispers of new movements—farmers talking of cooperatives, priests preaching about “the rights of the worker.”
And in dusty fields not far away, a boy was born who would someday become a name known to all—César Chávez.
Rosa, barely a child then, remembered hearing of his family. “They worked near Selma,” her mother said. “Good people. Mexican, like the ones who helped us plant the west field after the flood.”
“They’ll have to fight for everything,” Giuseppe sighed. “The land doesn’t give justice easily.”
Years later, when farmworkers marched under Chávez’s banner in the 1960s, carrying signs that read Huelga! and Sí Se Puede, the Sielis would remember that prophecy.
They would remember the songs that drifted through the fields in 1913, the sound of hope beneath the roar of injustice.
And Rosa, grown and wise, would one day tell her children, “The vines that feed us were watered with more than rain. They were watered with struggle.”
As the labor strikes quieted and the new century marched on, the Sielis turned their attention back to the vineyard. But the world would not stay quiet for long. By 1914, the newspapers spoke of gunfire across the ocean—of alliances, assassinations, and the names of places most Californians could not yet find on a map. Pietro, restless and full of conviction, listened to the stories of Europe’s turmoil and felt a pull he could not name.
“Another man’s war,” Dominic muttered. But Pietro only looked toward the horizon, where the vines met the sky, and said, “Maybe. But it will shape our world all the same.”
_______________________________________________________
By 1915, the vineyard rows stood firm against the wind, but the headlines from Europe rattled the family’s calm like hail on a roof. The San Francisco Chronicle lay open on the kitchen table, its pages smelling faintly of ink and coffee. The front page screamed of battles at Ypres and Verdun—trenches that swallowed whole towns, clouds of poison gas drifting over fields that once grew grain.
Marco pushed his plate aside and jabbed a thick finger at the map printed in the paper. “Look at this madness. Austria against Serbia, Germany against France, England pulling in her empire—and now Italy too, though our grandfathers never called themselves Italians.”
Across the table, Dominic, older now but still sharp, gave a dry snort. “Our ancestors were Ligurians. Genoese. They knew their vineyards, their parishes, their villages. Not this nonsense of nations tearing each other apart. But now they fly the tricolor and shout for glory. I say, let the kings kill each other if they must. America is our home.”
Sofia, still young then but never shy, tilted her head. “And yet, Uncle Dom, don’t you feel it a little? A pull when you hear that Italy has entered the war? As if we’re supposed to care because of where Nonno’s bones lie?”
Marco’s eyes softened. “I care for the soil that feeds us, child. But that soil is here. Our roots are here now. That flag outside”—he gestured toward the porch where the Stars and Stripes hung still in the evening air—“that is the flag I would fight for, if I must.”
Rosa’s eldest son, barely out of school, leaned forward. “Wilson says America is neutral. But how long can that last? The Germans sink ships, the English beg for help. Sooner or later, we’ll be dragged in.”
Giuseppe’s eldest, hair silver at the edges now, clasped his hands. “A vineyard can be neutral. A man can try. But a nation? No. The world will not let America stay out forever.”
For a moment, the kitchen was hushed but for the ticking of the wall clock and the distant cry of a night bird. Then Marco spoke again, his voice low but resolute. “If war comes, we will not fight for kings or emperors. We will fight as Americans. And when the war is over, God willing, we will come back to these rows and plant again. That will be our victory.”
The Mask and the Vine (1918)
The guns had fallen silent overseas. But back home in Fresno, a quieter enemy was already spreading through the valley.
The first cough came from the packing shed.
By the time the Sielis heard about it, men all over Fresno were calling it “the Spanish fever,” though nobody knew where it really came from. Some said soldiers brought it from the trenches of France, others whispered that it started in Kansas. All anyone agreed on was that it came fast and it came for everyone.
By October, the church bells tolled more for funerals than for weddings. The newspaper headlines screamed MASKS REQUIRED—CITY LOCKED DOWN.
At the Sieli vineyard, Giuseppe folded the paper with a sigh. “They’re saying no Mass, no schools, no saloons. The sheriff says we stay home.”
Lucia crossed herself. “Then we stay home. God can hear prayers from the kitchen as well as the church.”
But Antonio frowned, arms crossed, a smear of dust on his cheek. “Stay home? The vines don’t wait. Grapes don’t care what the newspapers say.”
“You’ll care if you can’t breathe,” Lucia snapped. “You saw Mr. Pagani’s boy. Strong as a mule, gone in three days.”
Rosa, barely sixteen, looked up from sewing a mask of cheesecloth and twine. “They say you have to wear one everywhere,” she said. “Even outside.”
Antonio muttered, “If God wanted men to cover their faces, He’d have made us born that way.”
That night, Giuseppe stood on the porch as dusk fell over the vineyard. He could see the glow of lanterns down the road where Whitcomb’s store used to be bustling. Now the streets were silent, the laughter gone. Only the coughing carried through the air.
The next morning, the family gathered around the radio—one of the few in the neighborhood. A nasal voice from San Francisco read the orders again:
“All gatherings prohibited. Masks mandatory. Violators subject to fine or jail.”
Dominic, their cousin, burst out laughing. “Fined for not wearing a rag? I’d rather take my chances.”
“You’ll take them with me, then,” said Giuseppe firmly. “And you’ll wear that rag, because it’s not just your life you gamble with—it’s mine.”
“But it’s not even proven!” Dominic shot back. “You think a bit of cloth will stop death?”
Lucia slammed her spoon down so hard it rattled the plates. “You think arrogance will? You want to call yourself a man, start by protecting your family.”
The kitchen fell silent except for the bubbling of the soup. Outside, a crow cawed in the cold wind. The sound felt like a warning.
By mid-November, the sickness reached their own road. Old Mr. Pagani, who had refused the mask, was buried two days after he took to bed. His daughter watched the funeral from behind a window—no mourners allowed, only the priest, who prayed from a distance, his own face veiled in white gauze.
That night, the family held their own rosary at the table.
“Saint Rocco, protector of the sick,” Rosa prayed, fingers trembling, “watch over us.”
“Saint Rocco won’t help fools,” Antonio muttered, staring into his wine.
Lucia glared at him. “Then thank heaven you married a stubborn woman.”
In town, tempers boiled. A group calling themselves the Anti-Mask League of Fresno staged a protest outside City Hall. Banners waved:
NO MORE TYRANNY!
MY FACE, MY FREEDOM!
OPEN THE CHURCHES!
Antonio went, out of curiosity more than anger. When he returned, his voice was a mixture of shame and disbelief. “They shouted at the police, at the priest. One man tore off his mask and coughed on the steps like it was a joke.”
Giuseppe’s eyes hardened. “And?”
“And he was dead four days later,” Antonio said quietly.
Christmas came muted. No midnight Mass, no choir, no crowded feast. The family set the table anyway—bread, wine, lentils, roasted quail. Lucia placed a candle in the window for the souls of those lost. “The angels will find their way,” she said softly.
When the ban finally lifted in the spring of 1919, the townspeople filled the reopened church. The priest’s voice broke as he gave the homily: “We have buried the proud and the poor alike. Let this be our lesson—humility is not weakness. It is wisdom.”
Outside afterward, some people cheered, tearing off their masks. Others kept them folded neatly in their pockets, unsure whether to believe the danger was gone.
Giuseppe said nothing. He took Rosa’s hand as they walked home, past fields just starting to green again. “The world forgets too easily,” he murmured. “But the soil remembers. It always does.”
Rosa looked up at him, eyes bright with youth and fear and hope.
“Do you think it will ever happen again, Papa? A sickness like this?”
He hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally. “And when it does, they’ll argue just like we did. Some will wear the mask, some won’t. But maybe—maybe a few will remember what we learned.”
He looked out over the vines, the same ones his descendants would someday tend through another plague, another century.
The earth, patient and unjudging, waited to see if mankind would remember its own lessons—or repeat them.
Dry Years, Secret Barrels
Epigraph: Fresno Morning Republican (Jan. 17, 1920) — “NATION GOES DRY: VOLSTEAD ACT TAKES EFFECT”
The Last Legal Pour
On the night before Prohibition began, the Sieli family gathered in the farmhouse kitchen. Lanterns flickered, casting long shadows on the walls. A single barrel, tapped fresh, stood at the center like an honored guest.
Giuseppe—frail now, his hair white as frost—raised his glass with trembling hands. “This may be the last time the law lets us drink what we grew.”
Antonio grunted. “Law or no law, men will not give up wine. They will just drink it in cellars instead of taverns.”
Marco, now the master of the vineyard, looked at his father. “And we? What will we do?”
Giuseppe’s eyes, clouded but fierce, locked on him. “We do as we always have. We endure. The vine was never meant for easy soil.”
They drank in silence, the weight of history heavy in each swallow.
The New Reality
The Volstead Act changed Fresno overnight. Taverns shuttered. Barrels were smashed in the streets. Signs appeared: KEEP THE VALLEY DRY.
But railcars bound east began loading “grape bricks”—compressed blocks of Sieli grapes sold with a warning: Do not dissolve in water and do not allow to ferment, or wine will result.
Marco laughed bitterly when he saw the labels. “We sell them instructions on how not to make wine. And every man who buys them ignores the warning.”
Caterina, ever the bookkeeper, worried aloud. “The government has agents now. If they come here—”
Antonio slammed his hand on the table. “Let them come! They cannot make raisins out of our blood.”
But Marco shook his head. “We will not fight them with fists. We will fight them with cleverness.”
The Church Loophole
It was Father Bianchi—older now, but still sharp—who arrived one afternoon with the solution. He sat at the kitchen table, sipping cautiously from a hidden glass.
“The law allows sacramental wine,” he explained. “For Mass. For Communion. Every parish needs it. But the paperwork—ah! It requires trusted suppliers. Men whose names are strong.”
Marco’s brow furrowed. “You ask us to sell to the Church?”
“I ask you to save the vineyard,” Bianchi said. “The Lord works through many vessels—even barrels.”
Giuseppe, from his chair, nodded. “Wine began as sacrament before it was commerce. Let it return.”
So the Sielis filled casks for parishes from Fresno to San Francisco. Their vineyard became, in part, holy ground.
Visitors in the Night
But not all their customers carried rosaries.
One evening in 1922, a black motorcar rolled up the lane, headlights cutting the vines. Two men stepped out—slick suits, city accents, the scent of cigar smoke and money.
“Mr. Sieli?” one asked, voice smooth as oil. “We represent buyers in San Francisco who handle distribution. Discreet distribution. We’ll pay twice market price. Cash.”
Antonio’s fists curled. “Bootleggers.”
The man smiled. “Entrepreneurs.”
Marco hesitated. The vineyard needed money. Repairs, wages, new vines. But Giuseppe’s voice, frail but firm, cut through the silence:
“Our wine carries our name. I will not see it poured in speakeasies beside poison gin.”
The men exchanged glances. One shrugged. “Suit yourself. Others will not be so particular.” They tipped their hats and left in a roar of engine and dust.
Antonio muttered, “One day they’ll come back with guns instead of hats.”
Marco nodded grimly. “And we will be ready.”
Tensions in the Valley
Prohibition bred strange alliances. Some farmers ripped out vines for raisins, cursing the past. Others thrived in shadows, building fortunes selling to bootleggers.
At a meeting of the growers’ cooperative, accusations flew. “The Sielis think they’re saints, hiding behind the Church,” one German farmer sneered.
Marco answered calmly. “Better saints than thieves. Better Mass than mob.”
Still, the family felt the pressure. Whispers followed them in town. Some called them smugglers, others traitors to Italian neighbors who sold freely to bootleggers.
Caterina, steady as always, told her brothers: “Let them whisper. When the law changes—and it will change—our name must be clean enough to drink.”
Ashes of Gold
The news came up the valley like smoke carried on the wind: forty-seven miners trapped in the Argonaut Mine in Jackson, the worst mining disaster in California’s history.
For days, the Sielis followed every update in the Fresno Republican and the Sacramento Bee. The papers spoke of fire, of gas, of rescue shafts that collapsed before they reached the men. Antonio Sieli set the newspaper down slowly and rubbed his temples. “We almost went there once,” he murmured. “After the war, when times were hard.”
Giuseppe nodded, remembering the letter they had received years before from a friend in Amador County, promising steady pay for strong backs. “God spared us,” he said softly. “But not them.”
Rosa crossed herself. “They said most of the miners were Italians,” she whispered. “From Piemonte, Liguria, Sicily. They left their homes like we did, for work.”
The family sat in silence. Outside, the vines shimmered under the late-summer sun, each leaf bright and alive — a cruel contrast to the dark shafts where their countrymen still lay.
That Sunday, after Mass, Father Bianchi led prayers for the dead. When the bells tolled, Giuseppe removed his hat and stood at the vineyard gate, staring toward the east where the foothills rose. “We came here chasing gold,” he said to Antonio. “But what we found that shines lasts longer.”
Antonio nodded. “The earth takes the miners,” he said. “But she gives us the vines.”
The Church That Would Not Bow (1923)
By the early 1920s, the old adobe chapel the Sielis and their neighbors had built half a century before was little more than a memory holding itself upright. Its plaster flaked like dry bread. Its roof sagged under the weight of a hundred valley summers. Even the bell had grown tired, its once-clear ring now a hoarse tremor that faded into the wind.
But Father Leone, the new parish priest sent from San Francisco, saw what others could not.
“This house was born of survival,” he told the congregation one Sunday morning, his Italian accent still thick and musical. “But survival is not enough. It must be reborn—a church worthy of the faith that built it.”
And so, for two years, hammers sang beside the rosary. Brick by brick, the people of the valley raised a cathedral where once there had been a mission hut. The plans had come from Genoa itself—a Romanesque revival crowned with a modest bell tower and tiled roof that shimmered crimson in the California sun. Yet the builders had given it a California soul: wide Spanish-style arches, Moorish patterns in the plaster, and courtyards shaded by olive trees.
When it was done, the church seemed to rise from the very soil like a promise fulfilled.
The façade—cream stucco trimmed with terracotta—glowed against the blue valley sky. Twin doors of carved oak opened into a sanctuary washed in warm gold light. Inside, stained glass windows told the story of the Virgin, St. Francis of Assisi, and the Sacred Heart—each pane brought by ship from Italy and set lovingly by hand.
In the side alcoves, saints stood like sentinels: St. Joseph holding a lily, St. Anthony cradling the Christ Child, St. Catherine with her wheel. Their faces were painted in the soft hues of fresco and candlelight. The air smelled of beeswax and incense, of polished wood and olive oil.
The high altar, built of marble quarried in the Sierra foothills, gleamed like sunlight on stone. Behind it rose a painted dome—Mary crowned Queen of Heaven, surrounded by cherubs who looked suspiciously like the parish’s children. Above the tabernacle, gold leaf letters declared: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam — To the Greater Glory of God.
Opening day dawned clear and radiant, the San Joaquin wind carrying the mingled scents of vineyards and fresh bread. Every family came dressed in their finest. Women wore lace mantillas. Men carried rosaries in their pockets like secret talismans. A brass band from Fresno’s Little Italy tuned up in the courtyard, their trumpets gleaming like halos in the sun.
But across the street, another gathering formed. A smaller one. Louder.
A man in a brown hat held up a wooden sign: “NO POPERY IN AMERICA!”
Beside him, another shouted, “Papists! Idol-worshippers! Go back to Rome!”
Their accents were sharp with the high nasal twang of the Midwest—men who had come west for work and brought their prejudice with them.
Giuseppe’s son, Marco Sieli clenched his jaw as he guided his mother, Rosa, toward the church steps.
“Don’t look at them,” he murmured.
But Rosa’s eyes lingered. “They used to call us dagos,” she said softly. “Now they call us idolaters. Always another name for the same hate.”
Father Leone appeared at the top of the steps in full vestments—crimson and gold glinting like flame. He lifted his hand, not in rebuke but in blessing. “Peace be with you,” he called to the protesters. His voice carried calm authority, the kind that no anger could reach.
One man spat into the dust. “You’ll burn for that idol house!”
The priest smiled faintly. “Then may the flames light the way,” he said, turning to his flock. “Come, children of God. Let us dedicate His home.”
The brass band struck up When the Saints Go Marching In. The congregation followed, singing Ave Maria in Italian, their voices rising like incense. The taunts from the roadside faded beneath the music. Inside, the sunlight poured through stained glass, scattering color over the bowed heads and clasped hands of a people who had earned their sanctuary.
During the homily, Father Leone spoke from the pulpit, his voice both gentle and firm:
“They say we worship statues,” he said. “But we do not kneel to stone—we kneel to the love that made the stone holy. They say we do not belong, yet our prayers have tilled this earth as faithfully as our hands. We came with rosaries, not rifles. And still they fear us. But today, let them see—not fear—but faith.”
The church erupted in applause. The bell in the tower rang for the first time, its tone rich and sure, echoing through the fields and over the vineyards.
That night, Rosa stood in the courtyard, looking up at the bell tower against the dusk. “They said we would never build this,” she murmured.
Marco placed a hand on her shoulder. “They say a lot of things,” he replied. “But the walls still stand.”
From somewhere beyond the olive trees came the last faint echo of the protestors, their anger already fading into the hum of crickets. Inside the church, candles still burned before the saints. The Virgin glowed softly in the dark, serene and unbent—a silent reminder that faith, once rooted, does not bow to scorn.
As the Sieli family lingered beneath the new bell tower, Rosa looked up at the carved stone cross catching the last of the sunset. “May our children, and their children after them, never forget what this church cost to build,” she said quietly.
Giuseppe nodded, his voice low but steady. “And may they keep the faith alive,” he added. “Not just in their prayers—but in their hearts, in their homes, and in their streets. So that even when we’re gone, this church will still remember who we were.”
The family stood together in silence, the last rays of gold brushing their faces. None of them could know that a century later, their descendants would still march under the same sun—Ave Maria on their lips, the same faith carrying them through a changed world.
Shadows of 1924
Just as the family adjusted to Prohibition, another law cast its shadow over their lives. In Washington, Congress debated a new immigration bill, one aimed at halting the “flood” of foreigners from Southern and Eastern Europe. Politicians railed against Italians, Jews, Poles, and Greeks as “undesirable.” Catholics, they warned, would never be true Americans, beholden only to Rome.
When the Immigration Act of 1924 passed, the quotas slashed arrivals from Italy to almost nothing. Newspapers in Fresno declared it a victory for “American stock.” At the farmhouse table, Caterina read the headlines with shaking hands. “They would have barred Papa. They would have barred all of us.”
Antonio spat. “They want us for labor but not for neighbors. They’ll take our vines but not our children.”
Marco, weary, folded the paper. “We cannot fight laws in Washington. We can only keep the vineyard alive.”
But Sofia’s great-uncle Pietro, then just a boy listening at the door, would never forget the bitterness in the room.
Not all in politics agreed with the restriction. On the radio, fiery voices like Congressman Fiorello La Guardia of New York defended Italians and immigrants of every stripe. “America,” he thundered, “is not a fortress. It is a promise. And that promise is not built on fear.”
In the valley, such words felt like distant thunder—comforting, but too far away to stop the storm.
The Passing of a Generation
In 1925, Giuseppe passed away, rosary in his hand, surrounded by family. His last words were whispered in Ligurian: Le radici sono più forti del vento. The roots are stronger than the wind.
At his funeral, Father Bianchi lifted a chalice of sacramental Sieli wine. “This man came to a land that tried to strip him of name, faith, and livelihood. He left behind not gold, but vines that grow still.”
Antonio wept openly. Marco, jaw clenched, vowed silently: The vineyard will not fall while I breathe.
The Raid
In 1928, as rumors of repeal began to stir, the vineyard faced its fiercest trial. A pair of federal agents arrived unannounced, demanding entry. “We’ve had reports,” one barked, “of illegal sales from this farm.”
Marco led them to the barn, where rows of barrels stood. “Sacramental wine,” he said evenly, producing papers stamped with diocesan seals.
The agents sneered. “Convenient.” One struck a barrel with his boot, splashing red across the floor. He dipped a finger, tasted, and spat. “Too good for priests.”
Antonio’s fists shook, but Caterina stepped forward. “If you accuse us, bring proof. Until then, you insult the Church as much as us.”
The agents, frustrated, left with threats. But the vineyard knew how close it had come to ruin.
The Sielis vs. The Klan
The long oak table creaked under the weight of bread, cheese, and a stew that smelled of garlic and tomatoes. The lamp above swung gently, casting yellow light across tired faces. Marco sat at the head, his sleeves rolled, a wine jug by his elbow. Across from him sat Elijah Turner, one of the men who’d worked the vines that season. He was quiet at first, his hands folded, shoulders broad but hunched, as though he carried more than one life’s worth of burdens.
After a silence, he began.
“My mama and daddy were born in chains,” Elijah said slowly. “I grew up hearin’ about whips, about the block, about families torn apart and sold like cattle. They were freed before I was born, sure—but freedom don’t always mean free. Down in Mississippi, they still called us boy. Still wouldn’t let us drink at the same fountain, still sent us to the back door for scraps. White hoods ridin’ at night, burnin’ crosses, beatin’ men for not steppin’ off the sidewalk fast enough.”
He paused, eyes low. The clink of a spoon echoed in the hush.
“I thought maybe California would be different,” he went on. “Folks said there was work out here, vineyards that needed hands. Thought maybe I’d get treated like a man, not just a shadow. But I found out quick… hate don’t care much about state lines. They call us the same names, give us the same looks. Only difference is the sun burns hotter.”
He looked up then, meeting Marco’s gaze. “But I never once thought I’d sit at a table like this. With people called ‘white’—folks like you—who treat me like kin. That… that near broke me, when you asked me to sit and eat.”
The room was quiet, the fire snapping in the stove. Marco reached for the jug, poured wine into Elijah’s glass, and raised his own.
“You listen to me, Elijah,” Marco said, his voice steady. “We know a thing or two about being spat on. Back in Italy, they called us dirt farmers. Here in California, they call us dago, garlic eater, papist. You think we’re white in their eyes? Bah.” He tapped his chest. “To us, none of that matters. You are a man. God made you. That is enough.”
Vincenzo leaned forward, nodding. “The Anglos treat us different, just like they do you. They don’t see us as the same as them. But we—” he motioned to his brothers, to Marco, to Elijah—“we know better. We know blood is blood, work is work, and a man who keeps his word is worth more than ten who spit at him.”
Elijah’s throat worked as he swallowed. “I never thought I’d hear words like that from any white man.”
Marco gave a wry smile. “Then maybe you ain’t sat with the right kind of men yet. Here, we don’t see color. We see children of God. That’s all.”
The lamp swayed again, shadows dancing along the wall. For a moment, there was peace around the table—bread breaking, wine passing, laughter warming the edges of pain.
None of them knew that before the night was out, the peace would be shattered by torches at the gate.
Prohibition brought more than dry laws to Fresno County. It brought suspicion, raids, and the kind of men who hid their faces behind white hoods. And one night, under a moonlit sky, the Sielis learned what it meant when the Klan came knocking.
The night was black as pitch over the vineyard, the rows faint silver in the moonlight. The air smelled of dust and grapes ripening on the vine. Out front of the Sieli home, twelve men stood in a crooked line, candles flickering in their hands, rifles and shotguns glinting dully in the dark. White robes dragged the dirt; their hoods bobbed like specters.
At their head, the Grand Dragon, Calvin Rourke—a man whose name carried fear in the county—took a step forward. His red-embroidered cross caught the glow of flame.
“We heard tell you’ve got a nigger hidin’ in there,” Rourke called, his voice flat and mean.
Marco Sieli, broad-shouldered, with the faintest trace of his Ligurian accent, stepped out onto the porch. He wore no hat, only a white shirt with the sleeves rolled, his arms knotted from years in the field.
“A what?” Marco asked, eyes narrowing.
“A nigger. A negro,” Rourke repeated.
Marco let out a short, hard laugh. “Well, why didn’t you just say so? But no, I won’t hand him over. I eat with who I please. This is a free country, and he is a man. I treat men like men.”
Behind Marco, the screen door creaked. His cousins—Vincenzo, Paul, and Carlo—stepped out, rifles and pistols in hand. They fanned behind him on the porch, silent shadows with sharp eyes.
Rourke sneered. “That’s the trouble with you spaghetti-benders. You don’t know your place. You don’t know how things work in this country. You need to learn—or else pack up and scuttle back to Italy.”
Marco’s jaw tightened. “My family has been here for decades. I was born here. I am as American as you.”
“You ain’t no American,” Rourke spat. “Not when you hire and break bread with niggers.”
Marco stood tall, his voice steady. “Actually, that makes me even more American.”
From down the lane came the crunch of tires over gravel. A Ford Model A rolled into the yard, headlights cutting through the dust. Sheriff Jack Hollis climbed out, tugging down his hat. He saw the rifles, the robes, the hard faces.
“What in the devil’s goin’ on here?” he barked.
At once, some of the Klansmen lowered their weapons, others shuffled their feet. Rourke didn’t flinch. He kept his eyes on Marco.
“Nothing at all, Sheriff,” Rourke said coolly. “Just a neighborly talk.” He leaned closer, his hood brushing the night air. “This isn’t finished, dago.”
Slowly, the Klansmen retreated, their candles bobbing like will-o’-the-wisps as they melted into the dark rows of vines.
The Sheriff lingered, hands on his belt. He knew both the Sielis and the Klan. Both gave to his election campaigns, both carried weight in town. Neutrality was the safest game.
“Any trouble here, Mr. Sieli?” Hollis asked, voice low.
Marco glanced back. His kin had already hidden their guns behind the door. “No trouble, Sheriff. Just talk.”
Hollis studied him a moment, then nodded and climbed back in his car. Dust kicked up as he rolled away.
Inside, with the lamps turned low, the family gathered around Marco. Paul’s voice broke the silence.
“Maybe… maybe we oughta do what they want,” he muttered. “Stop hirin’ coloreds. Stop breakin’ bread with ’em. Lord knows I don’t like it, but you saw those boys. They’re set for war.”
Marco turned, eyes flashing. “Are you out of your mind? We are not like them. Negroes are men—children of God same as us—and we’ll treat them so.”
“But Marco,” Vincenzo pressed, “if we keep this up, more trouble will come. If we want peace, if we want the vineyard to prosper, we gotta fit in. Act like the rest.”
“Fit in?” Marco snapped. “They still call us dago, wop, garlic-eater. You think treatin’ colored folk badly will make them love us? Never. They’ll never truly accept us. So long as our name is Sieli, we will always be different.” He thumped his chest. “And I say, so be it. Better to stand upright with dignity than crawl on our bellies beggin’ for scraps. We’ll run this vineyard honest, and we’ll break bread with who we damn well please.”
Silence filled the room, heavy as the night. Outside, the vines swayed, whispering against the dark.
The first warning came with the smell of smoke.
It was just past midnight when young Paul Sieli jolted awake to the frantic barking of dogs. From the upstairs window, he saw it: a thin, ugly orange line cutting through the vineyard rows, spreading fast with the valley wind. Flames licking up the trellises, snapping vines that had taken years to grow.
“Fire!” he shouted, scrambling into his boots.
The whole house erupted. Marco burst from his room with a rifle slung over his shoulder, Lucia pulling on her shawl, Caterina rushing the children down the stairs. Women carried buckets, children clutched at skirts, the air thick already with smoke.
By the time they reached the yard, they could see shadows moving out by the road — white hoods in the moonlight. The Klansmen didn’t bother to hide this time. Torches arced through the dark, landing with sickening thuds among the vines. Laughter carried on the wind.
“Goddamn cowards!” Marco roared, sprinting toward the fire line. Paul grabbed at his arm.
“They want you out there alone, Marco!”
A shotgun cracked, pellets scattering dirt near the porch. The women screamed. Marco dropped low, returning fire into the darkness.
From the road came the Grand Dragon’s voice — Calvin Rourke, hood off this time, his slicked hair catching the firelight. “How’s it feel, dago? Still think you’re American now? Let’s see if you eat with your nigger friends after we burn your land to ash!”
The words stung worse than the smoke. From inside the doorway came a rasping shout — old Antonio Sieli, now frail but still fierce, leaning on his cane. “Buckets! Form a line! Save the house first!”
The children and women scrambled to the well, tossing pails down, heaving them up, passing water in frantic rhythm. Flames gnawed closer to the barn. Inside were the barrels of pressed grape — the year’s harvest, their survival.
“Not the barn,” Paul muttered. He took off running with two older cousins, rifles in hand. Shots cracked, and one hooded figure cried out before scrambling into the vines.
The Klansmen fired back, but scattered as the Sielis returned fire from the porch. The vineyard echoed with shouts, smoke, and the roar of flames.
Then — headlights. A motorcar tearing up the road. Sheriff Hollis again. He leapt from the Ford, revolver drawn, shouting, “That’s enough! Drop your weapons!”
But the Klansmen melted back into the dark, their torches left smoldering in the dirt. One last voice, Rourke’s, floated on the smoke: “This ain’t finished. Next time we come, we don’t just burn vines.”
The fire took half a row of grapes before it was smothered. The barn, miraculously, stood. By dawn the vineyard stank of charred wood and ash. Blackened leaves curled like fists. The family collapsed in exhaustion, soot-streaked and hollow-eyed.
Marco stood among them, hands raw from buckets, rifle still slung. He looked at the ruined vines and then at his kin. “They think they can scare us,” he said hoarsely. “But this land has our name on it. Giuseppe and I’s father planted it with his hands. We’ll plant again. We’ll plant twice as much.”
Elijah Turner, the Black worker who’d dined with them days before, stood at his side, eyes wet from smoke. “Then I’ll plant with you,” he said. “I know fire. I know hate. But I also know roots. Roots don’t die easy.”
The family drew close, arms on shoulders, a circle against the dawn. The fire had not broken them. It had bound them tighter.
And in the ash, new seeds waited.
_________________________________
The night was still when Marco Sieli slipped from the vineyard. He carried no lantern. Just his Colt, heavy against his hip, and the steady rhythm of his boots on the dirt road.
Calvin Rourke’s house sat at the edge of town, a big white frame thing with columns he didn’t earn and lace curtains his wife kept neat. From the road it looked like every respectable Anglo’s home — but Marco knew the man behind the drapes, the Grand Dragon of the local Klan.
The door wasn’t locked. Of course it wasn’t. Who in town would dare step across Rourke’s threshold? Marco did.
He found him in the parlor, nursing a glass of bourbon, his hood tossed on a chair like a forgotten napkin. Rourke’s slick hair gleamed in the lamplight. He didn’t even have time to stand before Marco had the pistol drawn, the hammer back with a click that froze the air.
“Jesus Christ,” Rourke muttered, hands lifting. “You outta your mind, dago?”
Marco stepped forward, the barrel steady as a rail. “Don’t move. You so much as breathe crooked, they’ll be mopping you off your own rug.”
Rourke sneered, but his eyes flicked toward the revolver. “You think you can scare me, foreigner? You ain’t one of us. You never will be. That vineyard of yours won’t stand ten years if I—”
“Shut your mouth,” Marco snapped, pressing the gun closer. His accent thickened when he was angry, vowels rounder, sharper. “You think that sheet makes you a king? A Grand Dragon, a Grand Poobah, whatever fool title you give yourself — it don’t scare me. Not after what you did.”
Rourke tried to steady his voice. “You kill me here, and my men will hang your whole family before dawn.”
Marco leaned in, his face inches away. His voice dropped to a growl. “Listen careful. We’re Italians. And if you’ve been readin’ the papers lately, you’ll know what that means. Chicago. New York. Philadelphia. Even right here in California — Italians don’t roll over when men in hoods come knockin’. We bury our dead, we say our prayers, and then we fight back. Hard.”
Rourke’s throat bobbed. He tried to laugh, but it came out hollow. “So what are you, some gangster? Some bootlegger? You telling me you’re one of them?”
Marco let the question hang. He didn’t need to answer. Instead, he shoved the muzzle harder against Rourke’s chest, right where his heart beat beneath the starched shirt.
“We’re good men,” Marco said, voice rising, fierce with conviction. “Farmers. Workers. We tend vines, we build families, we mind our business. But good men can only be pushed so far. You light one more torch, you whisper one more threat, and I swear by God and all the saints — I’ll show you just how bad a good man can get.”
Silence. The clock on the mantel ticked.
Rourke’s lip trembled, just for a second. Marco caught it. He stepped back slow, lowering the pistol but never taking his eyes off the man.
“You remember this night,” Marco said. “Remember it next time you think about comin’ to my land. The Sielis don’t scare. Not from men like you. Not ever.”
Then he was gone, out into the cold night, the echoes of his boots fading into the dark. Behind him, Rourke sat slumped in his parlor chair, staring at the spot where Marco had stood — the hood still lying there, empty, as useless as the title that came with it.
____________________________________________________________
The Klan hall smelled of kerosene and sweat. The lamps burned low, throwing long shadows across the wooden floorboards. A massive American flag hung behind the dais where Calvin Rourke sat, his hood folded neatly on the table beside him like a crown set aside.
The door creaked open. Sheriff Hollis stepped in, boots heavy, hat low over his brow. Two Klansmen straightened from the wall, rifles slung, but Rourke waved them off.
“Well, if it ain’t the law,” Rourke sneered, swirling a glass of bourbon. “Come to join us, Sheriff? Or just makin’ sure your dago friends sleep well tonight?”
Hollis ignored the jab, settling into the chair across from him. He leaned back slow, spurs clinking against the leg of the table. His voice was even, measured, the kind of tone that could pass for friendly until you listened close.
“You stirred up a hornet’s nest the other night, Calvin,” Hollis said. “Set half the valley talkin’. The Sielis got friends in this town. Quiet ones, sure, but friends all the same. They hire men when no one else will. They donate at church. They line pockets. Mine included.”
Rourke’s jaw tightened. “And that makes ‘em untouchable? Sheriff, we’re talkin’ about wops here. Garlic-stinkin’, pope-worshippin’ wops breakin’ bread with niggers. That ain’t American. They need to learn their place. And that Marco? He broke into my house. Put a gun to my chest.”
Hollis’s eyes flicked toward him, steady as a gun barrel. “Maybe he did. And maybe you oughta think on why. Man don’t risk his neck like that unless he’s been pushed to the wall. You keep pressin’, you’re gonna find out just how far those people’ll go.”
Rourke slammed his glass down, bourbon splashing. “We are the law in this county, Sheriff! We set the order. You think I’m gonna let some dago farmer make a fool of me?”
The Sheriff leaned forward, his shadow falling across the table. His voice dropped to a gravelly whisper.
“You ain’t the law. I am. And here’s me tellin’ you: it ain’t worth it. You touch the Sielis again, you’ll find your own friends dryin’ up. Judges, bankers, even the newspapermen — they ain’t all with you. Some of ‘em like their wine too much to see the vines burn.”
For a long moment, the two men locked eyes. Rourke’s knuckles whitened around his glass, but he didn’t speak.
Finally Hollis stood, adjusting his hat. “My advice? Let it lie. Plenty of other folk to scare in this county. Leave the Sielis be.”
Rourke’s voice was low, bitter. “This ain’t over.”
But it was. At least for now.
From that night forward, the Klan left the Sielis alone. They never lost the looks — the sideways glances, the spit on the ground when Marco passed — but the torches didn’t return. In Fresno County, reputation carried weight. And the Sielis had earned theirs: Italians, yes, but men who couldn’t be cowed.
Epilogue of the Dry Years
When the news finally came in 1933—PROHIBITION REPEALED—the Sielis opened a barrel under the sycamores. The family gathered, glasses raised high.
Antonio growled, “We survived droughts, mobs, railroads, and now this madness.”
Marco smiled. “Because our roots ran deeper than their laws.”
Caterina added softly, “And because we remembered what Papa said—belonging is never free, but it can be earned.”
They drank, not as rebels, not as victors, but as survivors. The vineyard endured, ready for another century of storms.
Repeal and Renewal
Epigraph: Fresno Bee (Dec. 5, 1933) — “AMENDMENT RATIFIED: PROHIBITION ENDS — AMERICA LIFTS A GLASS”
A Vineyard Awakens
The repeal of Prohibition came like rain on parched soil. For thirteen years, the vineyard had survived in shadows—sacramental contracts with parishes, whispered grape brick sales, nights spent fearing a knock from federal agents. Now the chains were off.
Marco stood on the porch with the newspaper in his hand, reading the headline aloud. “America lifts a glass,” he murmured, half in disbelief.
Antonio snatched it, scanning the print with a snort. “They call it celebration. I call it confession—thirteen years of lies, and now they want to drink like nothing happened.”
Caterina set down her ledger and smiled thinly. “So we give them something worth confessing over.”
That night, lanterns glowed under the sycamores. Barrels rolled from the barn, their iron hoops clanging like bells. Neighbors crowded the yard—Italians, Irish, Mexicans, even Anglos who once muttered “garlic eaters” now raised cups freely.
Seamus struck his fiddle, the bow flying, filling the night with reels and arias. Antonio raised a jug, voice booming: “To freedom!”
Marco tempered him, lifting his glass steady. “To roots,” he said. “Roots that endured thirteen dry years.”
Caterina raised hers last. “And to customers who finally pay in daylight.”
The crowd laughed, drank, and for a moment the vineyard felt untouchable.
Lean Years
But repeal did not erase the Depression. By 1935, Fresno’s streets bore soup lines, and men with hollow eyes drifted in search of work. The co-op collapsed under unpaid debts. Banks foreclosed on farms with no more ceremony than a clerk’s stamp.
In the barn, Marco spread ledgers across a barrel, tapping the columns. “Our sales rise, but half our buyers pay late—or not at all.”
Antonio paced. “Then we demand payment.”
Marco shook his head. “A tavernkeeper with no coin cannot invent it.”
Caterina, who had spent her days tallying harvest wages, spoke up. “Then we must tighten. Fewer hands. More work from family.”
Antonio slammed his palm on the barrel. “Family already bleeds in these rows! What more do you want—our bones?”
The silence was heavy until Pietro, Rosa’s son, spoke from the shadows. Barely twenty, shoulders broad but face still boyish, he stepped forward. “What if we sell bottles, not just barrels? A man may not afford a cask, but he can spare a nickel for a bottle.”
Antonio scoffed. “Wine in bottles is for the French—or San Francisco dandies.”
Marco considered, eyes narrowing. “Maybe the boy is right. Times change. We must change with them.”
Caterina gave a small smile. “Spoken like someone carrying more than ledgers. Pietro sees not just vines—but markets.”
Antonio grumbled, but said nothing more.
A New Spirit
Pietro threw himself into the work. He designed crude paper labels—Sieli Vineyards, Fresno, California—and pasted them on bottles by hand. At first, merchants laughed. “Your jug red, dressed for church,” one sneered. But when families bought the bottles for Sunday supper, demand grew.
Lucia, Caterina’s daughter, helped keep track. She had inherited her aunt’s sharp mind and her mother’s stubbornness. “We must keep the books clean,” she told Pietro one evening. “If we don’t, the co-op will claim more than its share.”
He grinned. “Always numbers with you. I prefer names.”
“And I prefer that those names don’t end up bankrupt,” she shot back, though her cheeks flushed.
Antonio teased from across the room. “Numbers and names—you’ll make a good pair, if the vines don’t kill you first.”
They both laughed nervously, though neither denied it.
Clouds of War
By 1939, the papers screamed of Europe aflame. GERMANY INVADES POLAND. FRANCE FALLS. Fresno read the headlines in cafes and churchyards, muttering about another faraway war.
At the vineyard table, Pietro tapped the page. “We cannot stay out forever. The world will drag America in.”
Antonio waved a hand. “Let them fight their own battles. We bled enough building these vines.”
But Marco looked long at his nephew. “And if the world demands you fight?”
Pietro met his gaze steadily. “Then I will fight. For America. For here. For this.” He gestured to the rows outside. “So that our name is never taken by another storm.”
Wartime Fresno
When Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, the valley erupted in fear and fury. Pietro enlisted the next week. At his farewell dinner under the sycamores, Antonio clasped him in a fierce embrace. “Come back with both arms and both legs. The vines will wait.”
Lucia pressed a rosary into his hand. “Write us. Even one word.”
He smiled softly. “The word will be home.”
As Pietro marched off to war, the vineyard turned into a place of waiting. Women and elders worked the rows. Caterina organized shifts like a general, barking orders, her skirts catching dust. Seamus, too old for service, played at rallies raising funds for the Red Cross.
But suspicion gnawed. Italians were labeled “enemy aliens.” Posters warned of saboteurs. Some neighbors looked sideways at the Sielis, as if Mussolini himself hid in their barn.
One afternoon, Marco returned from town, face pale. “They want Italian families to register. Some on the coast are losing land.”
Antonio spat. “We fought mobs for this land. We bled in ditches. Let them try.”
Caterina’s voice steadied them. “We endured worse. We endure again—with silence, with dignity, with roots.”
Letters from Afar
Pietro’s letters came like drops in a drought—rare, precious.
The vines here are dust. Pray for rain in Italy.
I dream of the rows. Tell Uncle Antonio not to curse the mules too much without me.
One letter, longer than the rest, came folded and stained. I fight for America, but I fight also for the vineyard. If we win, it will be more than land that survives. It will be our name. Do not let it fade before I return.
Lucia wept reading it aloud. Marco folded it carefully, setting it in the family Bible.
The End of War
In 1945, Fresno rang with church bells and whistles. Victory. Pietro returned leaner, eyes older, but alive. The family feasted, barrels tapped, music spilling across the vineyard.
Antonio gripped his nephew’s shoulders. “You kept your word.”
Lucia laughed through tears. “And our name.”
Pietro raised a glass of the first post-war vintage. “To Giuseppe,” he said, his voice strong. “To roots deeper than storms, wars, or prejudice. To the Sieli vineyard—may it never dry.”
The family echoed, glasses raised high. Outside, the vines whispered in the wind, roots sunk deeper than ever, carrying memory into the future.
Thanksgiving, 1945
The vineyard had never looked so peaceful. The vines stood bare but proud, their work done for the year, the earth resting under the pale gold of late November. Inside the farmhouse, the smell of roasted turkey mingled with garlic, sage, and red wine. It was the first Thanksgiving with Pietro home.
The long table gleamed beneath a lace runner, crowded with abundance: a golden-brown turkey surrounded by rosemary sprigs, bowls of mashed potatoes glistening with butter, yams dusted with cinnamon, and cream corn beside bright yellow cobs still steaming from the pot. In between the American dishes were the family’s traditions—stuffed shells bubbling with ricotta and mozzarella, a deep platter of lasagna layered with sauce and love, and loaves of crusty Italian bread waiting to be torn by hand.
Lucía moved quickly, ladling gravy, refilling glasses, her rosary peeking from her apron pocket.
Pietro sat at the head of the table, leaner now, the light in his eyes dimmed by what he had seen. When Rosa passed him the bread, his hand trembled slightly before he steadied it with a faint smile. “In Italy,” he said, “we used to thank God for the harvest. Now I thank Him for making it home.”
The family murmured amen together, but when the plates were cleared and coffee poured, the talk turned to the war.
“It’s true then?” Antonio asked quietly. “The camps?”
Pietro nodded, staring into his cup. “Worse than anything I could tell you. Piles of shoes, of glasses, of hair. People burned because of who they were.” He swallowed hard. “They killed the Jews, the Romani, the sick. Entire families.”
Lucía crossed herself. “Madness. How could men do such things?”
Frank sighed. “It is what happens when the world forgets Christ. The Jews rejected Him long ago, and yet…” He shook his head. “Even they did not deserve this.”
Across the table, Rosa frowned. “Papa, don’t say that. The Church teaches us that all are children of God.”
Frank hesitated, embarrassed. “Of course, of course. But you cannot deny who owns the banks in Europe. Even before Mussolini—”
“Stop,” Pietro said, more sharply than he meant to. The room fell silent. “I saw what hate like that becomes. Words like those become bullets. You think it starts with soldiers? No. It starts at tables like this, with talk that sounds harmless.”
Antonio leaned back in his chair. “He’s right,” he said. “We’ve all heard the stories, the whispers. But look what came of them. Never again.”
For a moment, the only sound was the ticking of the old clock on the wall. Outside, a soft wind stirred the vineyard rows, bare but alive. Rosa reached across the table, taking Pietro’s hand. “Then we promise,” she said quietly. “Not in this house. Not in this family.”
Pietro nodded. “That’s the only victory that matters.”
The family bowed their heads, not to say grace, but to remember.
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