Other People’s Lives – Carolina Volpicelli

Late in 1956 Carolina Volpicelli arrived in New Zealand. Well to be precise she wasn’t a Volpicelli yet but was about to be. She came to marry her distant relative Raefael. Carolina (also called Carlotina) was twenty years old. Where she grew up in the south of Italy she had been selling fish since the age of seven. Carolina was not afraid of hard work, but on arrival in the new country she cried every day: she wanted to go home.

But she didn’t. She married Raefi who was seventeen years older. Seen through the lens of 2015 it seems unfair, unthinkable that a young woman would marry a man she hardly knew and considerably older but it was common practice and often a successful practice in the Italian community. Many of the wider family had moved to New Zealand and the Italian community would soon flourish in Wellington’s Island Bay.

And her own family would flourish as well. 1957 Giuseppe (Pepe) was born, 1959 Salvi, and in 1963 Gina. Times were hard. Her first home was at Makara with no running water or toilet. Then Holloway Road in Aro Valley with the cold and the rats, but like all good mothers she made the best of it and gradually they worked their way to the heart of Island Bay where she and Pepe still live.

Pepe her first-born was destined to stay with Carolina his whole life. From birth she knew something was different with Pepe. Life had dealt him a different hand and while Salvi and Gina would head off for better or worse to forge their own lives Pepe would have to stay with his parents. Intellectually Pepe is differently abled but for 58 years Carolina has looked after them all. For the last 8 years it has been just the two of them as she lost Raefael in 2007.

Now as she approaches 80 Carolina worries. She has the worries so many other mothers in similar circumstances must have: What will happen after I’ve gone. For 58 years she has cooked and cleaned and taught and laughed and protected her beautiful son. For 58 years she has known that no matter what, she would be there for him. Now age forces Carolina to think of a future where she can’t do that. She has had her own issues with health over the years but defies every diagnosis almost by sheer will to keep going to ensure her Pepe is ok.

One thing is for sure – Pepe is not going to starve. Anyone who has contact with Carolina is not going to starve. Any time I visit Carolina and Pepe I come home full and with food to take home. Her homemade mozzarella is legendary, and her struffoli is featured in a fantastic book on the Italian community in Wellington.

Carolina is an extraordinary woman. Not only in her kitchen but also through her life. Since she was a seven-year-old selling fish she has worked. Worked to raise a family, worked in the Home of Compassion and the hospital laundry to bring what she could to the home. Worked to protect her Pepe.

If you passed her in the street you would think “there goes someone’s gran”, and you wouldn’t be wrong except like all those people we pass every day, behind them lies a story and while for many retirement and grandkids beckon, there is no retirement for Carolina, her working years might be gone but there’s still Pepe. Mother and son inseparable.

As told to Mark Sainsbury