TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1021151
In 1984, the book was published in America, and a co-worker, knowing of my father's wartime experience, suggested he read it, as it sounded a lot like his story. In fact, it was his story, and he reached out to Origo and they kept up a correspondence that would last until her death in 1988. Her diary ends July 4, 1944, 18 days after my father rejoined the Allied forces. "The whirlwind has passed, and now, whatever destruction it may have left, we can begin to build again," she wrote in her last entry. "The day will come when at last the boys will return to their ploughs, and the dusty clay-hills of the Val d'Orcia will again `blossom like the rose.' Destruction and death have visited us, but now—there is hope in the air." "War in Val d'Orcia does end on a very positive note," says Lysy. "But, unfortunately, after that, it became a very difficult period for La Foce, and for Italy, and most of the countries that had been at war." After World War II, all over the world, there was an exodus of people from small towns and farms to cities. Many men who had served were no longer content to return to rural life after experi- encing expanded horizons, and the women who had performed their jobs while they were away were less likely to settle for the drudgery of housework. Those in Italy whose businesses relied upon agriculture and farm- ing found themselves with a labor shortage, as the long-practiced Mezzadria system started to collapse. I n 1 9 8 4 , t h e b o o k w a s p u b l i s h e d i n A m e r i c a , a n d a c o - w o r ke r, k n o w i n g o f my f a t h e r ' s w a r t i m e ex p e r i e n c e , s u g g e s t e d h e r e a d i t , a s i t s o u n d e d a l o t l i ke h i s s t o r y. I N FAC T, I T WA S H I S S TO R Y.