Maria da Glória Redondo was born on 27 October 1931, in Gália-SP. She was born in the rural area for her father Sebastião Redondo (born on 29 June 1907) worked in a farm.
15 April 2004 - The last time I saw my aunt Maria da Glória Redondo Batista:
Visit of Maria Redondo, widow of my uncle João Baptista Darin (* 18 April 1911 + 7 February 1984) at our house in Rio Pequeno.
Less than 2 years before my dearest Mother Yolanda Darin Amorim died (on 13 February 2006), her sister-in-law Maria Redondo rang us at home asking me if I could go and fetch her at her sister Cota's home in Vila Gustavo (a northern suburb of São Paulo) for she longed to see Yolanda again. I reckon she suspected Yolanda didn't have too much time on her hands any longer in which she was right.
I rang my cousin Beatriz Scarpetti and invited her to come along for it would be a once in a life-time chance to see an old relative and catch up with old times. Beatriz was glad to oblige, took a bus from Lapa, where she lived by herself in an apartment at Central-Park, and arrived at our place while I was still out having taken the long way to Vila Gustavo to bring our Special Guest to Rio Pequeno. Tia Maria (that's how we used to call her) had arrived from Marília a few days before and was staying at her sister's.
I always had a special predilection to aunt Maria Redondo since I was a child still living in Marília, 500 km West of São Paulo city, so I performed this task with the utmost pleasure. Actually, I felt honoured to be able to 'go & fetch' my dearest aunt. This would be the last time I ever saw her.
Now, what comes next is what I remember of what happened that particular Thursday, 15 April 2004. I made a point of taking notes and writing it all down on the following day, 16 April 2004, the very day my grand-mother Erminia Billò would be 128 years old if she hadn't died on 25 April 1934. I asked most of the questions for I knew it would be a rare occasion to shed light on many aspects of the Family's past. And here it goes:
Maria Redondo's relationship with her sister-in-law Maria Corsini aka Mariquinha.
Maria said that as soon as she was introduced to the members of the Darin Family, a few months before she married João Batista Darin on 13 October 1949, Mariquinha started spilling the beans about the skeletons in the Family's closet.
First we should take a look back how Maria got herself into the Darin family. Maria worked as a maid for dona Letícia who was the local director for Sudan Cigarettes Company in which João Darin Baptista worked as a driver.
As João had to see dona Letícia every time he made the rounds after having visited neighbour towns to deliver cigarette packets or collect money, he, one day, noticed the 17 year-old maid and thought he might start a romance. João was already a mature man having reached the ripe age of 37 in 1948. João soon fell in love with Maria.
In early 1949, Maria's parents, Benedito and Conceição, and all her 3 younger sisters, Cota, Benedita aka Ditinha and Mariza left Marília for São Paulo in search of better employment. Maria was supposed to go with them, but since she had already got a steady job and was dating João Baptista with prospects of getting married, she stuck to her guns and said goodbye to her family at the railway station when they took the night train to São Paulo, never to see them again in Marília.
João and Maria actually could have married before the Redondo family left for São Paulo, but Giovanni Battista Darin, João's father, was on the process of building a brick house on the same lot they had a wooden house on rua Campos Salles, 350, where the whole Darin family had lived for almost 20 years, since the early 1930s. The old man had saved enough money to pay for the dismantling of the wooden house and the building of a brand-new brick house that would be the pride of the Darin Family for the rest of the 1950s. It was in a good part of town, being opposite to a Presbyterian Church which was abuzz with activity on Sunday mornings and evenings. The house was not far from Saint Anthony Church, 4 blocks away from glorious Cine Marília and 3 blocks away from rua São Luiz, a major shopping centre.
João & Maria got married on 13 October 1949, as soon as the house was finished. Maria must have felt like Cinderella when she moved into the brand-new brick house on rua Campos Salles, 350. She and João Baptista had the main bed-room in the house which looked out into the front garden and the gothic Presbyterian church across the street; the old-man Giovanni (78) known as Senhor Darin had a smaller room off the living room with a single window to a small rectangle space between the next-door neighbour's wall. João's sister Rosa Darin (34) had the bed-room off a large kitchen with a great red-brick stove for burning logs.
When my Mother and I visited her Dad during the 1950s, he stayed in bed most of the time so Mother went to his room first to say hello and have a little talk before she went on to salute her sister or sister-in-law. I remember I used to stay by my Mother's side listening to her conversation and I realized looking out my Grandfather's window that this 'dead-end space' reverberated people's voice in a 'funny' way.
Maria Redondo told me she still remembered when Ivo João Darin visited Marília with Ruth de Mello in 1950, as part of their honey-moon. She said Ruth was a bit anti-social for she stayed in the guest's room most of the time not even taking meals with them. Some of Ruth's relations lived in Marília and apparently were well-to-do for they owned posh Casa Dias which was on Avenida Sampaio Vidal, the town's main drag. Maria said that even Nonno (our Grandfather) noticed Ruth's slight in not taking her meals with the rest of the family.
João & Maria's first child was a baby boy born on 21st February 1951, who they named José Carlos Batista. When João Baptista Darin married Maria Redondo in 1949, there was a mishap with the Notary official who mistakenly thought Baptista was João's surname, not his middle Christian name. That should have been easily fixed the next few days, but João Baptista never bothered with it and in the end this new family adopted a brand-new surname: Batista.
To complete the little family happiness, Maria gave birth to a baby girl on 28 February 1953, calling her Hermínia Maria Batista. She was named after João Baptista's mother Erminia Billò and Maria's own name. These kids were all born during the time their parents lived on the beautiful brick house on rua Campos Salles, 350.
My Mother (Yolanda Darin Amorim) used to visit her Father Giovanni Battista Darin at least once a fortnight so that house became part of my own upbringing. I used to like going there for the house was always filled with guests from various parts of town sometimes even out of town for the Darin Family grew larger by the 40s and 50s with 11 children having got married and had a lot of children some of them were already adults and had children of their own.
Giovanni grew older and more frail with the passing years having taken to his bed in the last couple of years. He didn't have a major illness of which I could talk about; he only was frail and developed bed sores for staying in bed for long periods of time. My Grandfather was revered by all and sundry especially by his offsprings. It was a great commotion when he finally died in the early hours of 28 August 1959.
I remember waking up in my bed on the morning of 28 August 1959. It was still dark, it must have been 5:00 am. The sound of the motor of a vehicle woke me up. It was my uncle João Batista Darin who had driven across town to tell his baby sister Yolanda that their father Giovanni Battista had (finally) died in the early hours of that day. That was to become one of the longest days in my whole life for soon we were on our feet to see how things progressed. I had turned 10 three months before and was a solid young man coursing the last year of Elementary Education.
We lived in a wooden plank house of 2 bedrooms on rua Mato Grosso, 393. Grandfather's house was on rua Campos Salles, 350; it was on the other side of town, but it wasn't too far; actually 11 blocks away, but it seemed far because one had to climb a hill, then descend it and climb it again. We only had to go up and cross Avenida República, rua Pedro de Toledo, rua Nelson Spielman, then turn left towards rua Paraná, turn right and cross the railway line until we got to Avenida Sampaio Vidal, the main drag. At the top of the hill we would turn left, past rua Arco Verde, walked one block and turned right into rua Campos Salles, before we reached Cine Marília. Then we started descending the hill past rua 4 de Abril, rua São Luiz, rua XV de Novembro which was at the bottom of the hill and started ascending rua Campos Salles again up to the middle of the block where 350 was on the right side.
I had a long talk with Maria Redondo on 13 February 1997, a Thursday, about those heady days in the late 1950s before Giovanni Battista Darin died.
I was staying in Marília for a few days and usually slept over at tia Rosa's, who occupied a small 2-bed-room house at the back of Maria Redondo's house on Rua 9 de Julho, 2008. Maria hardly ever stayed in that house for she preferred staying at her daughter's Rita de Cassia who had a few children and needed her mother's help.
By February 1997, there were not many Darin left. Rosa Darin had died in 1996, so Ecydir Darin was the only person living in that house on rua 9 de Julho, 2008.
had moved into with João Batista when they moved out of the house on Rua Campos Salles, 350 which was fsold after we had already left Marília, some time in 1961 or 1962.
2008Maria died on 31st January 2021, in Marília, 9 months before she turned 90 years old. She had come down with pneumonia and taken to a hospital on Friday, having died on the Sunday.
As previously said, I hadn't seen tia Maria for 17 years. A friend from Facebook who lived near my cousin Hermínia Maria Batista, told me some years back that Maria Redondo had come down with dementia, having wandered away from the house where she lived with Hermínia and wouldn't know how to go back again. It took them some time until they located her again. Ever since that, they had to leave doors locked for she might slip out again.