A Northeast Minneapolis Italian Immigrant's Story

Anna loved living on the side of a mountain in the middle of Italy. In 1905 this determined Italian lady refused to come to America, but her mother insisted she leave her home and join her husband who lived in the United States. After a depressing stay in a dumpy boarding house in Buffalo, Anna insisted they travel west to Cumberland, Wisconsin. The disappointing Cumberland stop soon gave way to a move to Northeast Minneapolis, Minnesota, where they discovered they needed to fight to survive in a rapidly growing industrialized city. Their first home was nothing more than a chicken coop located alongside a railroad track. Over the years Anna gave birth to seven children. Sadly, three died as infants and one died as a toddler. In 1930 her husband committed suicide, practically in front of her. Her three surviving children needed her unending care and support. She didn't have any skills, she didn't have any money and she wasn't about to do anything illegal. She and her children scraped by through the depression, and they struggled through World War II. One by one Anna's children moved to California. At eighty-three years of age Anna was certain she was dying. She wanted to see her children again, but the only way she could get to California was to sit on her pillow in a truck that was speeding almost nonstop across America.