By Eleanor Parker (Upstream Newsletter, October 21, 1987)

Malvina Govoni Frank

Malvina Frank began helping her mother to make spaghetti at the age of 13 and never stopped until two years ago, when she was 86! Malvina’s mother, Clementina Lodi, and her father, Anthony Govoni, came from Bologna, Italy. At first, her father worked in the coal mines in Pennsylvania, but after his bride came over, they moved to Plymouth, MA, where Malvina was born. They often went back to Italy, and on one of those trips, her baby sister died and was buried at sea.

After her older brothers, Frank and Louis, were grown, they came to northern New England to work in the mills and finally came to Lincoln. Malvina had been taken back to Italy at the age of two to live with her grandparents. Her father died in Italy, and her mother moved to North Woodstock to make a home for the brothers. They bought the Chandler House across from Indian Leap on Lost River Road. At the age of ten, Malvina came back to her mother and brothers. Because she knew no English, she found the school in North Woodstock too difficult and stayed home to help her mother. 

People in the area had already discovered that Clementina Govoni made marvelous spaghetti. She had her own special way of mixing the flour and eggs, letting it set, and then rolling it out with a wooden roller, which was about a yard and a half long. John Gordon used to make new rollers for her when the old ones wore out. Malvina soon learned the secrets of good spaghetti-making and also how to drive the horse and wagon to deliver bowls of spaghetti to people’s homes and to the girls at the mill. Malvina would deliver the big bowls with sauce and cheese—50¢ a portion. The girls at the mill would eat it on the paper plates made at the mill.

Around 1929, standing outside the original Govoni’s Restaurant, left to right, Malvina, her mother, Clementina, and a family friend. Malvina’s son, Lou, is in front.

Eventually, so many people wanted Govoni spaghetti that they built a little building next to their home and opened a restaurant. Malvina and her mother did all the work at first. They would start making the spaghetti in April, but never have quite enough to get through the summer season.

At 16, Malvina met Paul Frank (b. Paolo Franceschelli), who was working for Charles Clark in the woods. Paul had left Italy at the age of 14 and worked for his brother in São Paulo, Brazil. He joined a company building a railroad through the Andes mountains. A skilled stonemason and woodsman, Paul had also learned tailoring by making buttonholes on vestments for priests. Paul and Malvina were married by the priest from St. Joseph’s in the living room of their home in 1915. They had two children, Rita and Louis.

Every summer, the little restaurant would be open all day until midnight because the hotel people would walk over at night after work to get a good spaghetti meal. Spaghetti, meatballs, and salad cost $1.35. They might serve as many as 2500 people in a summer. (Contrast that with $9.95 for spaghetti and salad now, and over 6000 people served this past summer.)

Meanwhile, Paul was doing more stonework. He did all the stonework at the Morse Museum in Warren, built all the fireplaces and chimneys at Indian Head, and completed the culverts on the Kancamagus Highway. This last job he finished when he was 80. He had also continued his tailoring as a hobby in the winter. His most popular items were hunting suits made of the bleached felt from the mill, dyed to suit the owner. Many men in town had these suits. He also repaired fur coats for women. When he died in 1969 at the age of 94, he was the holder of the Boston Post Cane for the oldest person in town.

From the late 1950s, Malvina with son, Louis, and husband, Paul Frank (b. Paolo Franceschelli).

The restaurant business eventually outgrew the little building next door. Across the street was a building which at one time had been a schoolhouse, then Hallworth’s souvenir store. Louis bought the building and land, and in 1966, this building became the new restaurant and family business. The restaurant is owned by Clementina’s great-grandson, Gil Rand, Rita’s son, and his wife, Wendy, who is now the spaghetti maker, using the same recipe and methods. 

In later years, Malvina in the kitchen.

Malvina and Rita like to reminisce about the old days… when Bob Mellett would drive his father’s truck to the top of Russell Farm Hill, and they would all pile onto traverses and slide to the bottom of the second hill on Lost River Road. And they remember when Governor Adams would bring up parties from Concord for a spaghetti dinner on a winter night. Through her smile, it is easy to see that Malvina has enjoyed the pleasure brought to others through her good food and that she loves the hills of New Hampshire. “We worked hard, but we had fun,” she says.

A small note for the record: As with so many cherished places, time eventually brought change. Govoni’s Italian Restaurant closed in 2010, and the building came down in 2015. What endures, however, are the stories, friendships, and a deep sense of nostalgia and affection for a place that brought people together.

NOTES

1. Parker, Eleanor. “Malvina Govoni Frank and Seventy-Three Years of Spaghetti.” The UPSTREAM (Upper Pemigewasset Historical Society), vol. 1, no. 6 (October 21, 1987): 2-3.
2. Reprinted in the December 2025 issue of The UPSTREAM (Upper Pemigewasset Historical Society).
3. All photos are courtesy of the Rand Family.