Courage of Innocence: A Saga of Italian Immigrants in the American Frontier - Brossura

Federici-Martin, Ann

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1438923147 ISBN 13: 9781438923147

Casa editrice: AuthorHouse, 2009

Riassunto

Courage of Innocence is a non-fictional account of author Ann Federici-Martin's saga of growing up the daughter of Italian immigrants Narciso Federici and Divina Mazzoni. Her father gathered the strength to leave his family, friends, and impoverished life behind in the hills of northern Italy to follow his dream to L'America where, it was said, "gold grew on trees like apples." But, to get there, Narciso's journey first leads him to Egypt where he worked as a stone mason on the first Aswan Dam to earn his passage across the Atlantic Ocean. His story, and soon thereafter his wife Divina's, pass through the halls of Ellis Island and from there to the frontier of northern New Mexico; land of cowboys, coal miners, cactus, and open range. Ann's memoirs read like a western novel, set against a backdrop of empty spaces the size of which the immigrants could hardly comprehend. But the family settles into their new, rugged and unpredictable life, and indeed prospers. There were no golden apples, but there were towns and villages of coal miners and cattlemen who needed groceries, homemade "Dago Red" wine, and amusements to offer distraction from their hard lives. The Federici family provided them all. Narciso even built a two-story stone opera house in the village of Cimarron, assuming that these culture-starved Americans would jump at the chance to attend a good Italian opera if it was put before them.

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L'autore:

Ann Federici-Martin was born in a back room of an opera house in rural Cimarron, New Mexico in 1914. At least, the building was supposed to have provided a venue for Italian arias when her father built it out of stone that he had quarried himself from a nearby hillside. But it soon gave way to more humble and less aristocratic purposes and became a successful dance pavilion, athletic club, and silent movie house. It was in this wild west environment of miners, cattlemen, and fellow immigrants that Ann grew up. Through her world passed traveling musicians and actors from almost mythical places like Chicago and St. Louis, and people from countless ethnic backgrounds: Italians, Greeks, Slavs, Spaniards, Mexicans, Native Americans...and Texans. Ann fell in love at a young age, with the man who would become her husband and life-long companion, Curtis Martin. After his return from the South Pacific and World War II, Curtis, with Ann at his side, would attend Harvard University where he completed his Ph.D. in political science. Ann and Curtis ended up in Boulder, where he taught at the University of Colorado, and where Ann completed her own education; securing a double Bachelor's degree in Italian as a second language, and Fine Arts (at the age of 68!) Her work in the art department allowed her to persue a life-long dream; being a sculptor. She worked in a number of mediums, including wood, clay, and bronze, but it was the chiseling of marble, sandstone, and granite that satisfied her creative urges the most-following in her father's footprints as a worker in stone. She is 94...going on 50.

Product Description:

Book by FedericiMartin Ann

Su questa edizione

• Editore: AuthorHouse
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1438923147
• ISBN 13: 9781438923147
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 188