She was born in the building that we now recognize as the Casa Branca de Gramido. She was born, married and became a mother. She spent more than 30 years there until one day, in the late 1980s, when she had to leave the house. And she went to live on the other side of the Douro, right across the street, “in the land of cornbread”, in Avintes. At the age of 71, she returned to Gramido for the first time today. “This was my world”, says an emotional Maria Manuela Ramalho Neves Monteiro. Maria Manuela belongs to one of 13 families, more than 40 people, who lived in the houses that we know as the Casa Branca de Gramido. Those who had not yet “departed for the land of truth”, as she explained, returned to the space that they had as their home and school. It was, therefore, a morning of emotions. And on the very day that marks the 172nd anniversary of the signing of the Gramido Convention, an important peace treaty that put an end to a civil war that had been raging for two years in Portugal, the day also marks the fifth anniversary of the Gondomar Interactive Tourism Shop. The house belonged to Francisco Martins de Oliveira who, together with his brothers, traded wheat and ran a warehouse right there in the structure built at the beginning of the 19th century. They were the “casas branca” (white houses), known for their strength, capable of carrying five heaps of wheat or lifting half a barrel and drinking from the barrel. At a certain point, the Casa Branca began to have tenants linked to the activity on the Douro River (fishing, transport of people and goods). When the coastal road (National Road 108) was being built, the house had a greater influx of people, also for reasons of convenience linked to the ongoing work.
Translated by Google •
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