The Group’s elder, the “old mason” of the Giamosa fountain, grandfather to everyone
In November 2014, at eighty-seven, Ernesto Barattin decided to “put down his pack”. That was how he put it to the Group’s annual meeting: “having reached the age limit”. The Council would not let him go altogether: it made him councillor emeritus. And the Col Maòr, reporting on the evening, added a line that everyone in Salce would have signed: “He will always be, after all, our dear ‘Nòno Ernesto’!”
That nickname was no honorary title. He had earned it over thirty years of turning up, of work done with his own hands, of celebrations at which the Group felt a little like his family.
A name that keeps coming back
Ernesto was born on 28 October 1927. He first appears in the Col Maòr in 1987, with condolences on the death of his mother; then again in 1990, when the paper follows his stay in hospital and his convalescence. This is the kind of news a small village newsletter gives about its friends. But from December 1993, when the annual meeting elects him to the Council for the following three years, his name also begins to appear among those who keep the Group running. He would be re-elected in 1999, and again in 2011, when he was past eighty and Cesare Colbertaldo was taking over as group leader.
The old masons
More than the offices he held, though, it is the work that counts. In 1997 Ernesto is one of the seven members who restore the old fountain at Giamosa: a hundred and seventy-five hours of unpaid labour, shared between him, Caldart, Donadel, D’Incà, Girardi and the Tormens. In June 2003, at the Triveneto Civil Protection exercise “Pasubio 2003”, the Col Maòr singles him out, together with Mario De Luca, as one of the Group’s “veci muratori”, its old masons. With them that day were also Toni Fratta, Cesare Colbertaldo and Giuseppe Savaris.
In 2005 the setting changes but the spirit stays the same. With group leader Ezio Caldart and with Cesare Colbertaldo he walks into the primary school at Giamosa for the initiative “Un libro per la Bosnia” (A Book for Bosnia). That same year he marches at the national Adunata in Parma alongside Toni Fratta and Bepi Savaris.
Eighty
On 28 October 2007 his Alpini friends turn up with a cake. Ernesto is celebrating “his first 80 years”, writes the Col Maòr, and in the photograph it is he who cuts it, surrounded by friends. A month later, at the annual meeting on 25 November, the Group presents him with a parchment and a gold medal “for his dedication and for the intense and passionate work he has carried out on behalf of the Group”. Beside him in the photo stand the deputy mayor, Franco Gidoni, and Quinto Piol of the provincial executive; that year the paper calls him “Consigliere anziano”, the senior councillor.
In 2008 it is he who raises the lamb that serves as first prize in the raffle, and the following year, at the dinner for the Civil Protection team, first prize is once again “‘nonno’ Ernesto’s lamb”. In 2012, as the Group’s elder, he hands the award to the “Gran Maestro del Brùf”. Small things, and the Col Maòr notes them down with the affection people keep for their grandparents.
Ernesto and Lidia
Lidia is always at his side. They had married in 1954, and the Group’s paper followed their marriage the way one follows the lives of close relatives: their ruby wedding in 1994, when they had three children and a small grandson; their golden wedding in November 2004, marked with flowers at the meeting for the Group’s fortieth anniversary; sixty years of marriage in 2014, celebrated at the members’ lunch, in the very year Ernesto stepped down from the Council.
Farewell
Ernesto died in 2016, “just a few days before his 89th birthday”, as the December Col Maòr wrote in saying goodbye to the “legendary ‘nono Ernesto’”. The tribute, signed Cesare, called him “truly the prototype of an Alpino” and closed with a thought for Lidia and the children.
What remains of him, above all, are photographs in which he stands among the others: at the desks of a schoolroom, at the cutting of a cake, at a members’ lunch with his wife. And a fountain at Giamosa that, in 1997, seven Alpini set back on its feet with their own hands.
Key dates
| 28 October 1927 | Ernesto Barattin is born: on 28 October 2007 he celebrates “his first 80 years” (Col Maòr no. 4/2007) |
| 1954 | Marries Lidia: in November 2004 they celebrate fifty years of marriage |
| December 1993 | Elected to the Group Council for 1994-96 |
| 1997 | One of the seven members who restore the Giamosa fountain: 175 hours of voluntary work |
| December 1999 | Re-elected councillor |
| 15 June 2003 | Volunteer at the Civil Protection exercise “Pasubio 2003” |
| 2005 | “Un libro per la Bosnia” at Giamosa; national Adunata in Parma |
| 25 November 2007 | Receives a parchment and a gold medal at the annual meeting |
| 2011 | Elected councillor once more, as Cesare Colbertaldo becomes group leader |
| 2014 | Named councillor emeritus; celebrates 60 years of marriage with Lidia |
| 2016 | Dies, a few days before turning 89 |
In the MEMORIA network
- Ernesto Barattin, “Nòno Ernesto”: a life inside the Group, his story as told in the pages of the Col Maòr
- Antonio “Toni” Fratta, with him at “Pasubio 2003” and at the 2005 Adunata in Parma
- Antonio “Toni” Tamburlin, the standard-bearer, his fellow councillor
- Lidia Barattin, his wife
- Ezio Caldart and Cesare Colbertaldo, group leaders; Mario De Luca, the other of the “veci muratori”
Sources for this story
- Col Maòr no. 2/1987; nos. 2 and 3/1990; no. 6/1993; no. 6/1994; no. 5/1997 (Giamosa fountain); no. 6/1999
- Col Maòr December 2003 (Pasubio 2003); no. 3/2004; no. 2/2005; no. 4/2007 (80th birthday and the meeting of 25 November); no. 1/2008; no. 1/2009; no. 4/2011; no. 4/2012
- Col Maòr no. 4/2014 and the group leader’s annual report to the meeting of 29 November 2014
- Col Maòr no. 4/2016, p. 13
- Photographs: archives of the Salce Alpini Group and of the Col Maòr
If you have memories or photographs of Ernesto, write to us: this story can still grow.
