Hi all!
Today I’ll take you in Val Germanasca in a hamlet of Bovile called Vrocchi. In this place I had the chance to visit a small but very interesting museum set into the town’s Beckwith school. This small school hosted the local students until 1932 and, for a short time, during the Second World War.
This school, as I was telling you, is dedicated to a deaconess, Ida Bert. Do you know what a waldesian deaconess is? In 1901 was established a training school for women to face the need of a female ministry. And so in Torino born the Italian House of Deaconesses, which was focused on the training for women to assist the poors, or to give care and instruction to the others.
Sister Ida Bert, which was hailing from Bovile, studied at the House of Diaconesses in Torino and in Germany, where she refined her proficiency in nursing. Back to Italy, she worked in the Evangelical hospitals in Milano and Genova. Since 1938, due to her poor health, she returned to Bovile, where she put on disposal for the population her experience in nursing for many years, until she got old.
Today, this small building has been restored, and inside it we can see the recreation of a bedroom with some women’s clothing used between the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th, when Sister Ida Bert lived. On the walls you can note many shelves with a lot of things of everyday usage. I never saw some of them, and this intrigued me very much! Who knows how was the life here at that time!
How to get here
From Pinerolo go straight into Val Chisone and, when you get to Perosa Argentina, take the road for Val Germanasca. In Perrero (Chiotti Inferiori) you’ll find on your right an upward road and the road sign indicating Villasecca, Vrocchi. Take this one and go on for 6kms until you reach the Vrocchi hamlet in Bovile.
Do you want to read the tale in Italian ?