Week 5: Oops

Spoiler alert: the dirigible above did not suffer any failures, it was decommissioned along with the remainder of the fleet in 1937 after the disaster involving its sister ship. This week’s “Oops” theme has nothing to do with air flight at all. It is about the house below the aircraft, one of the coolest genealogy pictures I have, so much I use it as the cover on my Twitter account. This house seen above, a much-maligned mistake, the source of much dismay, a veritable snafu, the mother of all oopses.

It belonged to my third great-grandparents, João Bastos de Almeida Pinto and Anna Tomásia Pinto Marques. They did not build it. Rather, it was built for them, without their knowledge or consent. If you are confused, you are not alone. This is how the tale was told by their daughter, my second great-gran Adalgiza Bastos Vieira, affectionately known as Vovó (Grandma) Benga, as recounted by my late cousin Nancy Bastos: the young couple got married sometime around 1870 (we lack records for that time and place), and traveled to the groom’s native Portugal on their honeymoon. João and Anna were cousins, I still search the connection to find out how, but I assume they were visiting mutual relatives. The details are scarce, but apparently one of them got sick and their sojourn in the old country lasted for close to one year. During his absence, João left his business partner in charge of the finances. The man, named Joaquim Duarte, was someone he had met during one of his business trips to the country’s then-capital, Rio de Janeiro. According to Benga, Duarte was a down-on-his-luck chap, but smart and street-savvy, which earned him a job offer.

The story goes that, when João and Anna’s boat approached the estuary (or barra) where the village is located, they thought they were on the wrong place. João’s business, as he left it, was a one-story warehouse with a dock for small boats, a trapiche. There were no two-story buildings, or sobrados, anywhere near the village before they left. The new addition changed the skyline dramatically. Joaquim Duarte waited for the couple with a smile on his face, proud of his business acumen: He had used the company’s money, the entirety of João’s savings, to expand the warehouse and build a home on the second floor, the perfect place for the newlyweds to start a family. He also thought that Anna, the daughter of a wealthy farmer from Porto Seguro, a bigger city in the state of Bahia, deserved a home that stood out.

João had different business and financial goals. Clearly his partner was not aware of them, and Anna, well, she hated the new place and refused to live above the warehouse, loath of going up and down the stairs. It is not clear how long they lived there, but it seems like the re-relocation happened fast. They established themselves on Rua Grande, their home on the same level as everybody else’s.

The couple had six children, some of whom I had not been able to research. Anna died in November 1888. By my estimation, she was not yet 40. João went on to remarry, having two more children before his death on September 30th, 1895. João and Anna’s only male child ran his late father’s business during the two decades following deep changes in the country’s politics and economy with the demise of the monarchy following a military coup d’état that inaugurated the First Republic. In the 1910s, the building was vacant as litigation with debtors went on. It fell into dire disrepair until it was sold on an auction to a family that used it as a store, a restaurant, and an inn.

Today, the building belongs to the city and hosts an art gallery and cultural center. It is arguably the most recognizable edifice in town, strategically located on a curve where the River São Mateus meets the Atlantic. Once regarded as a behemoth of a mistake and an eyesore, the old trapiche was vindicated, being chosen by an unnamed newspaper photographer to compose a beautiful picture on the day the Graf Zeppelin flew above. The sobrado went through many lives since João and Anna returned from their honeymoon. What was their nightmare and disappointment became a landmark and a tourist attraction.