Anna and Franco Gennusa are raising six girls in Italy during World War II. Every day is a struggle for the family as they try to make their way farming olives and staying out of the way of the German soldiers stationed in their small Sicilian village. Anna is a talented seamstress and loving mother to her girls while Franco is a hardworking and devoted father. The Gennusas are a kind and loving family unit until Anna gives birth to their sixth and final daughter, Maria. The ...
Anna and Franco Gennusa are raising six girls in Italy during World War II. Every day is a struggle for the family as they try to make their way farming olives and staying out of the way of the German soldiers stationed in their small Sicilian village. Anna is a talented seamstress and loving mother to her girls while Franco is a hardworking and devoted father.
The Gennusas are a kind and loving family unit until Anna gives birth to their sixth and final daughter, Maria. The delivery is difficult and serves as a turning point for the entire family. As the war ravages Europe, Anna must rely on her older daughters to help her with the younger girls as she recovers from a life-threatening delivery. The older girls must grow up fast in a dangerous world where their responsibilities are many, and Franco feels that he has the weight of the world on his shoulders and depends on his wine to carry him through each day.
The love between man and wife is tested by the threat of war and responsibility for six daughters who will all require dowries to marry someday. Franco must go to great lengths to provide for and protect his family, including working with other members of the village in secrecy to form a resistance. His involvement with the Resistance Party may mean protection for his wife and daughters, but the burden of war and financial stress, in addition to Franco’s growing drinking problem, may be more dangerous than the German soldiers for the Gennusa family.
In an effort to do the best he can for his family, and to escape from the horrible situation he has created in Italy, Franco decides to take the family across the Atlantic where they will make a life and rebuild themselves financially in New York City.
Franco and Anna fell in love, had six beautiful daughters together, and survived life during World War II. They weathered the ups and downs of marriage and raising a family. They were able to love and provide for their children when many families went hungry. But a voyage across the ocean to the United States may be more than any of them can handle.
Mary B. (Gennusa) Patterson was born in a small village, Bisacquino, on the island of Sicily off the shore of Italy. She came to this country as a small child and grew up in Thompsonville/Enfield, Connecticut.
Raised in an ethnic Italian family, Mary’s parents said she was “always old enough to get married but never old enough to date.” Trying to fit into American young society, Mary found creative ways to balance her ethnic home and American back-yard life.
Mary moved to Maryland to help in her sister’s restaurant, the Topside Inn, in Galesville. There she met her husband; and after three weeks of dating, he asked her to marry him. It took her one week to say “yes,” and they were married six months later. Together they raised three remarkable sons in Crofton, Maryland.
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Overview
The Gennusas are a kind and loving family unit until Anna gives birth to their sixth and final daughter, Maria. The ...