Monte Etna, an active volcano laying at the heart of Sicily, dominates the island's landscape and culture. Cities and villages sprung up along its coastline where rocky slopes met the Mediterranean Sea, and most people who lived there eked out hardscrabble lives as farmers or fishermen. By the early twentieth century, while King Victor Emmanuel III ruled Italy, young men often found work as sailors in the king's navy as an alternative. Two of them - Eligio Monte (later Monti) an orphan from Catania and Carmelo Gianino from Augusta - followed that path and eventually emigrated from the island, first to Boston's West End, then to the Hill in St. Louis, Missouri. Their story affords the opportunity to examine in detail the broad historical roots of Sicilian immigrants as they acclimated to the New World and their descendants' slow but steady assimilation and loss of Old World ethnic identity. Biographies of the children of Eligio Monti and Sebastiana (Gianino) Monti, some of the first generation born on U.S. soil between 1908 and 1928, complete this saga of two Sicilian immigrant families traveling and taking root in new American soil. Photographs, maps, documents, and a Proper Name Index will aid the genealogical researcher in finding their own roots. Also included is a descendants chart with numerous surnames, including: Baynes, Beishir, Biffignani, Combrevis, Dolan, Egler, Farabee, Frattini, Furham, Gegg, Gianino, Hall, Lebeque, Monte, Monti, Palmer, Renfrow, Schmitt, Virga, Viviano, Willis, and others.
About the Author: Reared in St. Louis, Missouri, Mary Linda Miller graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Maryville University in 1978; worked for twenty-five years doing design, drafting, and technical writing in the fields of civil engineering and architecture while living in St. Louis, Phoenix, and Kaneohe, Hawaii; and traveled extensively in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. She currently resides in Orlando, Florida with her husband of over thirty years Carmelo L. Monti, AIA, who is a descendant of Eligio and Sebastiana (Gianino) Monti. Their son Jason lives in Otoba, Japan where he teaches English to fifth and sixth grade students. Her writing includes poetry; a technical manual for interpreting American with Disabilities Act Design Standards for the Hawaiian State Commission on Persons with Disabilities; a technical manual for corporate civil engineering AutoCAD drafting standards written in Phoenix; three other books of genealogy and family history; and a children's early chapter book "Terry Trackhoe Goes Missing" that was illustrated by husband Carmelo Monti. She also participated with a group of online writers and poets in producing three anthologies of poetry and short stories. "An Hour Over Denali" includes 75 aerial photographs that Mary and Carmelo shot while flying over Denali National Park. Works in progress include a completed novel Liminality: The Fox Woman's Child, which combines Japanese mythology and religion with mid-20th-century American history for which she seeks representation; an unfinished sequel Terry Trackhoe Goes Swimming; and an unfinished novel that combines the Hawaiian mythological romance of Laieikawai with a modern event-Hurricane Iniki-which she experienced first-hand while living on Oahu. Hurricane Charley, which ripped through Orlando in 2004, reinforced that experience, and every hurricane season in Florida reminds her that she still has a story to tell. Visit her websites for more information. www.marylindamiller.com www.terrytrackhoe.com