A Figgy Secret

But Anna had a secret. Before they left the farm, she took a cutting from the beloved fig tree and sewed it into the hem of her coat. She knew she had to keep it hidden, since plants, like fruits and vegetables, were not allowed on board the ship. It was worth the risk though; to bring the sweetest figs with them to America. So, concealed there in her hem, the fig tree left Italy with the LaVerghetta family.

Once on board the boat, Anna had to keep the fig alive. This would be a challenging proposition in the best of times — even more so with a cutting that needed to be kept hidden – and young children who needed care and attention. The family kept the fig cutting in a glass of water in their cabin. There was a window for light, and they kept the fig alive through the journey across the sea. Once they reached New York, Anna sewed the fig back into the hem of her coat and disembarked with her family.

Nan recalls the trip through Ellis Island. The rules were strict. You had to be in perfect health to come to America. Nan remembers officials examining her and her family, even checking her scalp for lice. But they didn’t check her mother’s coat hem, and the fig passed safely through Ellis Island.

From New York, Nan and her family traveled to Philadelphia where they planted the fig in a pot and kept it in their home. In the next few years, it lived and grew, and when they bought a house in Wildwood, New Jersey, they planted it on a sunny slope where it would be sheltered through the winter.

It needed the extra warmth. Figs aren’t reliably cold-hardy here in the Mid-Atlantic. Our wild temperature changes, which can soar to nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and plummet to the teens in winter, are very different from the temperate Mediterranean. So Nan’s family worked hard to care for their beloved fig, wrapping it in burlap, tarps and plastic in the winter so that it would be sheltered from the wind. In the summer, the family would collect manure from the farms in the West Chester area to spread around the tree. Once, Nan tells us, they collected so much for the garden in Wildwood that someone called the police because of the resulting swarm of flies!

The Giving Tree

The little cutting from Vasto, Italy became a tree. Then it became even more trees, as Nan’s family took cuttings to give to children and grandchildren. For example, when Nan’s grandson and his wife Leah purchased their first home, Nan gifted them a cutting which grew so large that their children, Nan’s great-grandchildren, would climb it to reach the figs at the top. They shared those fruits with their neighbors and teachers; anyone who had never tasted a fresh fig. It was a treat that crossed three generations and an ocean — from a bag of figs eaten on a dock in Italy, to a neighborhood outside of Philadelphia nearly a century later.

The tree grows elsewhere too; in New Jersey, West Chester, Havertown, Paoli and Philadelphia. One tree, with roots throughout the Philadelphia area. When you take a cutting, an exact copy grows the same genes in a separate plant. The conditions on site are different, more or less sun, different soil, but it is a genetic copy of the fig tree that grew on their family farm in Vasto.

In Leah’s words, “This tree was a legacy that is still passed on from generation to generation, and it will continue with my children.”

When she sold the home where she raised her children, it was to a woman who asked if the tree growing in the backyard was really a fig. They made a lifetime agreement upon the sale of the property that if that fig ever declined, the new owner could reach out to Leah for another cutting. When Leah and her husband purchased their new home, Nan had another cutting ready for the front yard.