Giovanni Maria (Giomaria) Ruffinu

Giovanni Maria (Giomaria) Ruffinu, son of Giovanni (Giuseppe Salvatore) Ruffinu and Mattia Culeddu, was born on 7 Aug 1857 in Ozieri, Sardinia and died 1921 (?) at age 64. For notes on this death-date, see below.

The Ozieri church archives record his baptism (see thumbnail on right) on the 9th of August 1857. In that record he appears in Latin as Ioannes Maria Ruffinu. If I understand the record correctly, his godparents are listed as Giuseppe and Luigi Solinas Salis, who may have been brothers.

In 1877 Giovanni Maria was subjected to his military fitness exam. The records for that exam can be found in the Sassari state archives (see thumbnail on right), and are one source for his exact birth date. These records confirm the names of his parents as attested elsewhere. They list his assigned military enlistment date in 1878, and give the name of his assigned unit, which appears to be the 57th Infantry division. His height is given as 156.5 cm, which would have made him roughly 5 foot 1 and a half inches.

On July 1, 1883, his marriage to Antonia Mouschitta Ruzzone or Buzzone was reported. Antonia was the daughter of Francesco and Giovanna Maria. Giovanni Maria is listed as a contadino, aged 26, his father Giuseppe Salvatore dead but his mother Mattia Culeddu living. Both their names are attested therein.

His signature is in a different hand from the text drawn up by the recording official, apparently the same hand in his 1886 signature: he could sign his own name. Put this in context: in light of a 79% illiteracy rate among children at age 6 in Ozieri in 1881: Cabizzosu Chiesa e Societa nella Sardegna centro-settentrionale (1850-1900), Ozieri 1986: 31, citing a June 13, 1890 page 1 article in L’Unione Sarda called L’istruzione elementare in Sardegna.

Giulio Ruffini recalls that Giomaria was said to have a small vineyard, but is not sure that this vineyard was his sole source of livelihood, and suspects that he may have been a tenant farmer as well. Phylloxera devastated the Sardinian vineyards, destroying over 42,000 hectares from 1883 to 1912.

In October of 1884, Giomaria, then aged 27 and listed as a bracciante, reports the birth of his child Antonio Ruffinu Muschitta, daughter of Antonia Muschitta, and signed again, in his distinctively tiny cursive. The witnesses include an Antonio Satta, bracciante, and a Giusseppe Dessie, facchino.

What puzzles me here is that he next reports the death of a daughter named Antonia, aged just a few days, in Nughedu, in 280 Sant’ Antonio. Why wasn’t Antonia’s birth declared in either Ozieri or Nughedu? Antonia Muschitta must have died in or because of child-birth, as she is described as dead in the death report of her daughter Antonia. But she does not appear in the death rolls in either Ozieri or Nughedu. If there were indeed two children, Antonio and Antonia, perhaps she died in complications from birthing twins.

On August 15, 1886, was reported his marriage to Pietruccia Lai, aged 27, a domestica. He is listed as a bracciante, as is Lorenzo Culeddu, one of the witnesses, whom I take to be a maternal cousin of his. In the pubblicazione of this marriage, Lorenzo again witnesses, as does Giovanni Brundu (sp.?). Giomaria may appear therein as Giovamaria, and appears clearly therein as a "Ruffino" in three different places. Giuseppe Salvatore and Mattia Culeddu as his parents are both verified therein. In his son’s marriage records in San Francisco, CA, his name is given as Giovanni Ruffini.

On October 14, 1887 Giovanna Lai reported the birth of Giovanni Ruffinu at 1 Corralzu in Ozieri, the house of Pietruccia Lai, "moglie di Ruffinu Giommaria bracciante entrambi d’Ozieri."

On June 4, 1890 he reported the birth of a daughter named Antonia in a house on Sant’ Antonio belonging to his wife Pietruccia Lai in Nughedu. Antonio Puddino witnessed the declaration. Again, his signature there clearly reads "Giovanni Maria Ruffino." He is described therein as a contadino. No house-number is given.

Births of other children of a Ruffinu Lai marriage are reported in the Ozieri birth indices, almost all of them matching with subsequent deaths of the same name. I have not researched these entries, but suspect they may all be forgotten siblings of Giovanni and Antonia.

One of them, a Matteo Rufinu, is strangely described as the son of Giommaria Ruffinu and Francesca Lai, rather than Pietruccia. I assume this to be an error. He is reported as dying at Vignazza 72. This is perhaps to be taken as the Ruffinu family home. (See picture under Giovanni Ruffini.) Giovanni Maria’s mother died there in 1891. It cannot now be located. The home in Nughedu is equally unplaceable, although comparison of the maps in 1920 and 2007 allow a determination that it was once located on what is now Via Asproni, or perhaps the apparently now unnamed street next to it.

The book on Nughedu published by its Amministrazione Communale includes a picture I have attached to this entry. I propose, although I cannot prove, that the man shown in this picture in 1900 is Giovanni Maria.

I see no indication in the Ozieri death indices of this man, and cannot establish his place of death. I have only checked the Ozieri death indices through 1905. I had originally indicated his year of death to be circa 1902, based on an old note that said "Approximate from T. Fregosi." I had further originally believed that his son left after his death. But Tommy says he has no information on his death date, and we now know him to have been alive as late as 1921.

The February 1921 manifest of the S.S. Ferdinand Falasciano, detailing the arrival of Antonia Ruffini, her husband and his children, and Maria Meloni, lists the nearest relative of Antonia and of her step-children as Gio Maria Ruffinu in Nugheddu S Nicolo, Sassari. Nugheddu is given as the birth-place of both Antonia and her step-children. If Pietruccia Lai did not leave Sardinia while her husband lived, we might guess that Giovanni Maria died between the departure of the Ferdinand Falasciano in late 1920 / early 1921 and the departure of the Caberta in mid-1921, on which Pietruccia went to America.

Discussing this Nugheddu connection in October, 2006, Julio Ruffini volunteered that he could remember his parents talking about walking to Nugheddu from Ozieri. On personal experience, this would have been a 45 minute walk at a leisurely pace.

Giovanni married Pietruccia Lai on 15 Aug 1886 in Ozieri.

Marriage Notes: The documentation for this marriage is in entry 36, 1886, on Ozieri roll 1805476.

Witnesses to the reporting included Lorenzo Culeddu, a bracciante in his 20s, and a Giovanni (?) Brussido, age 24, no occupation given. The husband appears to have signed in his own hand.

Children from this marriage were:

Giovanni Ruffini

Antonia Ruffini was born on 4 Jun 1890 in Nughedu and died 1972 (?) in Alameda (?) at age 82.

Matteo Ruffinu, 1891-1893 was born on 17 Oct 1891 in Ozieri and died on 15 Mar 1893 in Ozieri at age 1.

Maria Ruffinu was born on 12 May 1896 in Chiaramonte.

Mattia Ruffinu was born on 7 Mar 1895 in Ozieri.

Matteo Ruffinu (1898-1898) was born on 7 Oct 1898 in Ozieri and died in 1898 in Ozieri.

Luigi Ruffinu was born on 16 Feb 1893 in Ozieri.

Giovanni next married Antonia Mouschitta, daughter of Francesco Mouschitta and Giovanna Maria Ruzzone, on 24 Jun 1883 in Ozieri.

Children from this marriage were:

Antonio Ruffinu was born in Oct 1884 in Ozieri.

Antonia Ruffinu was born in 1884 and died in 1884 in Nughedu.