Bernadette Conte, a lifelong Knightsville resident, is making a documentary chronicling the area and its diverse history with the hope of revealing a three to four minute trailer at the opening of the newly renovated pocket park this summer.

Designed with influence and architecture from sister-city Itri, in Italy, the Knightsville revitalization has inspired Conte to continue the work of documenting the history of the area and its connections to the many immigrants who came to the area, including members of her own family.

“I feel like it’s a calling,” Conte said. “I started this in 1975 when I was asked by my pastor. He asked me to research and write the history of St. Mary’s Church. Because there was controversy and a lot of people who didn’t like the pastor they didn’t listen to anything he said. I got caught in the middle. They didn’t want me to write the history so I let it go. It wasn’t until 36 years later that I had a miracle in my life, and my life was spared.”

Conte said in 2009 her health took a turn for the worse. Constant pains and discomfort plagued her and doctors were unable to find the cause of the condition.

“I wasn’t feeling well, and the doctor’s weren’t paying attention to me,” she recalled. “They kept telling me I needed antidepressants. I’ve never been a depressed person. I’m very active, and I just kept telling them I’m not depressed. Of course, they felt I was being rebellious. So, my daughter suggested that I go to Florida for a few months and bask in the sun, because it might make me feel better.”

So she did, traveling down to Florida in 2009 to spend a few months in her condo to try to soak up some healing rays of light.

After some time, her daughter came to visit with her own family. The whole time, she was still feeling more and more like her health was declining. One day, after visiting a friend who lived in a complex nearby, she was walking home and felt deep pains in her chest.

Conte managed to walk all the way back to her condo without telling anyone of her distress. The following day her daughter arrived for a visit and Conte picked her daughter up from the airport.

They tried to have a nice visit, and Conte put her own health aside so as to not ruin her daughter’s vacation. However, on the last day of the visit, Conte said she took a shower and went to bed but found herself shaking, shivering and “feeling like a building was on her chest.”

Still she attempted to steel herself against the discomfort and not put her struggle on anyone else’s shoulders until it was clear to her that the problem was something she couldn’t avoid. The next morning while she watched her daughter make breakfast, Conte finally admitted something was wrong and asked her to take her to the hospital. Tests revealed Conte had suffered from a heart attack.

“They said that I was critical and that they needed to intubate,” Conte said. “Then of course my son came. My family was told that there was little chance that I would live, because I had too many complications. I had congestive heart failure. I had an embolism in my lungs. My mitral valve and a papillary muscle had burst. I was basically drowning in my own blood.”

In her near death moments, Conte said she saw the face of Christ. Appearing in four colors with medical tubes of his own, Conte said that he looked at her and then before she knew it she had woken up with a sense of peace that has never left her since.

Inspired, Conte decided to go back and write the history of St. Mary’s church that she had put down more than 30 years earlier.

In “Eviva Maria” Conte takes a look at the history of St. Mary’s and the stories of the many immigrants from Itri, Italy who made Cranston their home. Published in 2014, writing “Eviva Maria” helped to inspire Conte to continue looking into the area’s history through a lens of her own personal connection to the city.

Six years later she followed her first work up with her second book, “Under the Pear Tree.” Chronicling her own life, the stories of her mother growing up in Itri and the pear tree outside of their home in Knightsville where Conte, her family and her friends made so many memories, the book helps to provide an image of Knightsville and its people from the perspective of a lifelong resident.

“There’s this bond still, even if we’re all older now,” Conte explained. “We grew up under that tree. They all still keep in touch and we talk about these memories all the time. In my heart for years, especially when I was writing this, I am reminded that I grew up with immigrants. My father was an immigrant.”

Conte said that one of her major drives in these projects has been the growing feeling that the sense of community people shared when she was a child has been dwindling.

“I really feel that we need to preserve our history,” Conte said. “I feel that’s what I’m supposed to do. My mother would just push the kitchen table over, and she’d make an abundance of food. All of our neighbors would come over and we’d have these sing-a-longs. It’s not a relationship you see in neighborhoods anymore.”

When she finally had the strength to sit up, a doctor asked her if she had any unfinished business, because he was amazed that she had managed to survive and that she was “a doctor’s nightmare.” With her health improving, Conte couldn’t get the thought of unfinished business out of her mind.

Even writing two books has not satisfied her need to tell the story of Knightsville and the many immigrants who have settled there.

“We thought of many things, including a nice reunion — I’d already organized one in 2001 that had over 1,000 people attend,” Conte said. “But, they all said that we’d never get that kind of turn out again at this point. So, I thought about it, and I said you know what we need to do a documentary so people can see what it was like back then when people supported one another.”

It was at this point that Conte reached out to the city of Cranston for help. She went to City Hall and visited Director of Economic Development Franklin Paulino and told him about her desire to make the documentary. He’s been her biggest supporter ever since, Conte explained.

“I could tell what she wanted to do was worth it,” Paulino said. “We are trying to help her file for grants, maybe through the RI Foundation or the Rhode Island Art Council. Because we’re doing the revitalization of Knightsville, and that’s going to be opening up in July or August. We don’t have time to do the whole documentary film at like an hour long, so we’re trying to complete like a two or three minute trailer. We want to help her move this forward.”

Paulino and the city are trying to help fund this first step in the documentary-making process. Conte said that she has spoken to, and has found, several people willing to help produce the film for a greatly reduced cost, which the city is trying to help her pay.

“What we’re trying to do is help her with the cost,” Paulino said. “For this first short film, I’m working to see if we can raise about $700 to help pay for the production costs. After that first short one we will probably have an entire year to make the whole documentary.”

Conte said once the trailer is made they’re hoping to have a big screening outdoors to drum up interest, and hopefully funding, for the full film.

With her passion and drive continuing to grow, Bernadette Conte has no intention of letting a small problem like funding stop her from continuing her work of documenting the history of Knightsville and its connection to her own ancestors. Conte said she is grateful to all the people who have already helped to put this project in motion and that she looks forward to the future work of finding people with amazing stories and views of the area’s history.