Showing results by narrator "Catherine Marenghi" in All Categories

Raised in a primitive one-room farmhouse with no indoor plumbing, the fourth of five children, Catherine Marenghi begins her life in poverty and isolation. She leaves home at the age of 17. A decade later, she is a successful journalist with the means to buy her family their first decent house. But the past will not be put to rest so easily. Catherine unravels a web of long-buried family secrets, and a terrible betrayal that robbed her family of the home that was rightfully theirs. And she finally uncovers the story her parents never shared: the gladiolus farm that was once their dream.

Our Good Name is the story of Stefano and his young bride Celestina, both Italian immigrants who leave behind the back-breaking field labor in their beloved Northern Italy to find their place in a strange new country. Sailing in steerage class on the improbably named ship Champagne, Stefano gets a hint of the reality that lies ahead in the United States. From the squalor of the transatlantic voyage to the shock of their first encounter with Ellis Island to the lowest paid and most demeaning jobs they were forced to take, this is a tale of struggles, hardships, and loss.