Elia Luciani welcomed all to her table, but you’d better eat ‘lots and lots’ of her pasta - The Globe and Mail

Elia Clementa Luciani.

Photo credits: Tony Luciani/Courtesy of family

Elia Clementa Luciani: Mother. Immigrant. Seamstress. Polyglot. Born Jan. 30, 1923, in Carrufo, Italy; died Aug. 25, 2021, in Durham, Ont., of a negative reaction to antibiotics; aged 98.

Mother. Immigrant. Seamstress. Polyglot. Born Jan. 30, 1923, in Carrufo, Italy; died Aug. 25, 2021, in Durham, Ont., of a negative reaction to antibiotics; aged 98.

Elia Celli was the first of two daughters born to Domenico Celli and Teresa D’Orazio. As a child, Elia lived with her maternal grandmother, Nonna Anna, while she went to school in Ofena. Elia was passionate about studying and dreamed of becoming a midwife.

Elia was 14 when her father died suddenly. It was customary for either the widow or her daughter to marry to ensure a man held title to the family’s land. Her mother wouldn’t remarry, so Elia did by proxy. She met Giovanni Luciani three years later when he came back from fighting for Mussolini in Ethiopia. It was the first of many demonstrations of duty toward her family

Domenico, “Nick,” was the first of their three sons, born in 1941. Elia reminisced about walking the fine line between girlhood and womanhood during these years: She would play jump rope and hopscotch with her friends while baby Nick was in the bassinet beside her.

During the Second World War, food was scarce. Elia became a wet nurse to four babies in addition to her own. She also received training to become the village’s only vaccine administrator.

Terenzio, “Terry,” was born in 1947. Baby Terry was Elia’s adored little doll. She grew his hair out and dressed him up in white ruffled frocks with bows. Elia remained close to Terry all his life. Terry’s sudden death in 2005 was one of the most difficult experiences in her life.

In 1954, the young Luciani family immigrated to Canada, leaving war-wounded Italy behind. In Toronto, they integrated easily into the Italian-Canadian community. Elia found a job as a seamstress and eventually worked her way up to become head of sewing production at the factory. Because she needed to communicate with her sewing team – most of them immigrant women like herself – she borrowed books from the library and taught herself technical terms in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Cantonese and Czech, all the while she herself was learning English and working hard to improve her heavy Italian accent.

Elia often cackled with laughter when she told the story about trying to pronounce the word “stitch.” Her boss told her that if she could say the word “shit” she could say the word “stitch.”

And she could.

Her third child, Tony, was born in Toronto in 1956. As the parent of a teenager, a young boy and a new baby, 34-year-old Elia must have felt relieved that her mother joined them in Canada soon after.

Besides her children and grandchildren, Elia’s pride and joy was her home. Elia and Giovanni kept a tidy, productive garden in both the front and back yards. Elia’s kitchen table always had an extra seat, but she’d only decide if she liked you when you ate “lots and lots” of her pasta. She taught herself how to knit and made baby sweaters that are still being passed down in the family. But she could go too far: Once her grandson Stefan came home to find she’d patched up all the holes in his brand-new distressed jeans.

In 2004, Elia took a trip back to Abruzzo with her granddaughter, Angela. They stayed with Elia’s best friend from childhood, Marietta, and the older women sat up late whispering and giggling like they were young girls again.

Tony Luciani/Courtesy of family

Giovanni died in 1998, and Elia lived at home until she was 90. After a fall on a Toronto sidewalk, she went to live with Tony. She couldn’t do much physically anymore, but she still went around the house picking up pet hair or little pieces of fluff and putting them in her pockets to throw out later.

While her symptoms of dementia increased, Elia still found ways to express herself. She posed as a model for Tony, now an artist, whose photos of her became recognized and loved throughout the world.

As you used to say, Nonna: Bella, brava e buona.

Emily Watts-Luciani is Elia’s granddaughter.

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Lives Lived celebrates the everyday, extraordinary, unheralded lives of Canadians who have recently passed. To learn how to share the story of a family member or friend, go online to tgam.ca/livesguide

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Elia Luciani welcomed all to her table, but you’d better eat ‘lots and lots’ of her pasta - The Globe and Mail
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