A Story of a Winchester Rifle

Our story today comes from Argentina and is a story that the grandmother of our listener would always tell him. It apparently comes from how her grandfather told the story so keep in mind some details may be lost in terms of accuracy. The story begins not with his grandmother, but rather his grandmother’s grandfather. Potentially even further we are not exactly sure how many greats are needed. He was born in the Northern part of Italy in a town near Milan in the late 1800s. At some point he escaped Italy, bought a Winchester rifle, and went to fight in the second Boer War. After going back to Italy he discovered that his entire family had left for Paraguay. They had escaped because they were accused of being free masons. With the political climate in Europe getting more treacherous every year, he decided to take his newly wedded wife and go to Paraguay as well. There he survived by using that Winchester rifle to hunt and they had 4 children together. One of these children was almost killed by a snake and after that incident they decided to go to Buenos Aires where they lived until their death in the 1940s. Nowadays that same Winchester rifle is a decorative piece in his room and every time he looks at it, he cannot help but wonder about all the things that rifle saw through its life. (Submitted by Listener Tomas Autilio)