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Marone Memoirs: An immigrant Story - Reviewed by Amanda Evans
Marone Memoirs – An immigrant Story by author Sarah E. Lingley is the story of her great grandparents Raffaele and Rosa Marone and their voyage to freedom in America. This book chronicles their journey and subsequent life in America. Raffaele Marone, tired of his life in Laurenzana, Italy, travels to New York to begin a new life. Raffaele continues to travel between America and his homeland of Italy where he is to meet and marry Rosa. His marriage is welcomed under the strict understanding that he does not take Rosa to America. This restriction is to be revoked later and both Raffaele, Rosa and their children immigrated to begin a new life in America.
The story portrayed in this book is that of the lives of Raffaele and Rosa Marone and that of their children. Author Sarah E. Lingley, with the help of Marone’s living daughters, recalls this story beautifully and reminds us all of family and family love. Sarah Lingley has an extraordinary gift for story telling and keeps readers intrigued throughout this book. Her attention to details is also outstanding. This book is a definite must for anyone with a keen interest in family history or if it is just a love for reading you will enjoy this also.
Amanda Evans amandawr@amandawrites.com
Marone Memoirs: An immigrant story - A Book Review - by VicToria Freudiger, Digi-Tall News & Media
This is an enchanting and well-written rendition of the Marone family's life in the village of Laurenzana, Italy, and how they came to the United States. Unlike many other immigrant stories, the Marones were not poor. They were, in fact, very well to do. They owned land, homes, crops and even had servants. Raffaele Marone leaves his rich and privileged life in Laurenzana and travels to New York to begin a new life. During the 1880's and 1890's, he travels back and forth and finally marries Rosa Pavese. For a while, Rosa lives in Italy and he in New York; but, finally, they all move together--children in tow--to live in the United States. The book chronicles the travels and subsequent life in America.
This is the story of the Marone's lives and their children's lives as they grew up in a New World and go from strangers in a new place to being at home with many. Sarah Lingley writes with flair and has joined the ranks of those who specialize in the memoir format. She writes in full description and portrays an exciting and wholesome story of family and family love. Engagingly written, this book would be one for the memoir genre's top one hundred list. This author is well on her way to book two and looks forward to being able to present her reading public with another well-written heart to hold upon pages. We at Digi-Tall News & Media believe those who find reading books about family, caring and history will want to add this one to their shelf.
Marone Memoirs: An Immigrant Story - A Book Review by Audrey Hebbert
Marone Memoirs reads like an early 1900s newspaper, interesting and at the same time factual. The story begins in 1867 with the birth of Raffaele Marone into a wealthy family in Laurenzana, Italy, and documents his life, including his marriage to Rosa under unique circumstances, and all those children. Author Sarah Lingley, Raffaele's great-granddaughter, pulls together the tales his living daughters have told her to reveal a story few of us can imagine. Raffaele and Rosa left behind a life of plenty in Italy to endure the challenges of raising a large family in a three- room New York apartment with a low income. How each family member contributed to the family's welfare would be unheard of today.
Rosa's start in life was most unusual, but she skillfully completed her role as housewife and mother, regardless. Here is an almost unforgettable era when European immigrants left home and family for unbelievable hardships in the new land of opportunity, where women bore the heaviest end of the load in primitive circumstances, yet with unbelievable courage and oceans of love. We owe these brave people a debt of gratitude for the strong religious and work ethics they instilled in their children and which trickle down to us. I enjoyed the story and read it with great interest, especially since it is historically accurate. Using a novel genre would have robbed the reader of the accuracy and detail Ms. Lingley instilled in the book. Young readers and old should read Marone Memoirs, for a peek into the reality of a bygone era that is seldom presented with such honesty and intrigue.
Marone Memoirs -An Immigrant Story - Reviewed by Kevin O'Halloran (www.cohalloran.com)
Sarah Lingley's inspiring book, Marone Memoirs: An immigrant story, tells of her great-grandparents Raffaele and Rosa Marone and their voyage to freedom in America. As a young man, Raffaele journeyed to America to work. He settled in to work in a factory in New York City. Torn between his homeland and America, Raffaele found himself traveling back and forth. His heart ached for a wife and on one of his trips back to Italy, Raffaele asked Rosa's parents for her hand in marriage. They allowed it under one condition, he could not take her to America. Rosa's parents had made their way to America years before where they endured the horrific experience of Rosa's disappearance at a year and a half old. Although she was found and her parents overjoyed, they took Rosa and her older brother back to Italy. Raffaele agreed to their condition, so he journeyed to America alone to earn a wage. But with each visit back to Italy, Rosa became pregnant. With children that needed their father and a woman who longed for her husband, Rosa's parents relented on the condition. Raffaele, Rosa, and their children boarded the boat and headed to their new home in America. Lingley's details description of their voyage to their new home is riveting.
February, 2005, in various periodicals across the United States and Canada
Recognized Wisdom - by Cindy O'Halloran
In a day when older generations are so often viewed as useless and a burden on society, one young author pays tribute to her grandmother. Sarah Lingley valued her grandmother and saw her as a gift from God, especially when it came to writing. “She believed I was a "real" writer and that one day she would see me as a published author.” says Lingley. “Understandably, she was overjoyed when I shared with her my vision for a family history and she worked beside me from the very beginning.” Even before Lingley, author of Marone Memoirs: An Immigrant Story, recognized the abilities God had given her, she found inspiration in the literary works of her grandmother. “She wrote beautiful poems that I still love to read,” says Lingley. “If ever I penned a piece of my own poetry or tried my hand at a story, she was right there to encourage me to keep going.”
Sarah Lingley's inspiring book,
Marone Memoirs:
An immigrant story, tells of her great grandparents Raffaele and Rosa Marone and
their voyage to freedom in
Raffaele agreed to their condition, so he journeyed to
Lingley’s grandmother helped her
research the memoirs, but unfortunately never saw the published book. Lingley
will never forget the love her grandma gave in the twenty years she had with
her. The death of her grandma left her sad of course, but God
gave the comfort Lingley needed. About a week after the funeral, Lingley woke up
with a shockingly vivid vision of a children's book. “I hurriedly copied down
the sing-song lines of poetry that were buzzing in my head and when I read it
back over, it was the autobiographical story of a little girl and her grandma. I
felt an impression in my heart to get this piece illustrated and published.” Lingley said. “This divinely inspired project was to be the tribute to my grandma that she was so due.”
Thursday, July
22, 2004, in The Caledonian
Woman Publishes Story Of Her Family's History As Italian Immigrants - by Arthur
McGrath
LUNENBURG, Vermont -- Some people wait until late in life but a 21-year-old Lunenburg woman has published her first book. Sarah Lingley, who recently turned 21, recently self-published her first book, "Marone Memoirs: An immigrant story." Written in novel format, it is an account of her family's immigration from Italy and their life here. It may be her first book but it is far from her last. Several years ago, in 2001, Lingley, a home schooled student, began researching her family for a high school project after talking the idea over with a friend who was doing a project on the elderly. "Immediately I thought of my own relatives," Lingley said. History is her passion, Lingley notes and she loves to write so it seemed natural to try to get the story down in book form. She began interviewing her grandmother and great-aunts on the phone, gathering as much information as possible.
The story is
about Raffaele and Rosa Marone and their nine children in the United States in the early
20th century. Lingley's grandmother was one of their nine children; when Lingley began her
interviews, four of the nine were still alive. Two have since died, including
her grandmother but their stories have been written. The oldest remaining relative at the time of Lingley's
research was 98 years old and fortunately remembered life in Italy and the voyage to the
United States. She was 8 when the family immigrated to this country and was
old enough to
remember Italy and the voyage; this made her invaluable for researching the
book as she was
the only surviving relative with this information.
The book itself is in novel format. While conversations and incidents are as
true to life as possible based
on Lingley's interviews, there were situations were she took dramatic license. Examples of
dramatic license might be the location of a known conversation, if she knew
about the conversation
but not where it took place or the exact dialogue in a conversation.
This book was not published through the traditional method of sending a
manuscripts to a publisher, who
then pays the author and publishes the book. This was done through a system
called "print on demand," an increasingly popular method of self-publishing in which the author sends the
manuscript to a publisher who keeps it in their computer system for a fee. When the author
wants a copy, she just calls the company and busy as many, or as few, copies as she
needs. Even just one copy. This way neither the author nor the publisher need keep an
inventory nor purchase too many. If only one book is desired only one is
printed.
Currently her book is available online at both Amazon and Barns and Nobles and will soon be on the shelves of Sullivan Drug in Lancaster. She has also donated copies of her book to the Lancaster and Lunenburg libraries and to several Italian-American immigrant foundations. Though she has enjoyed getting her book in print through print on demand, Lingley has no intention of remaining a self-published author but is going the traditional route with her next book, a book of children's poetry. The manuscript is already being evaluated by a literary agent before being submitted to a publisher. Often she said it helps to get a book published through self-publishing, it lends an air of credibility when dealing with agents or publishers. Besides the already published "Marone Memoirs" and the book of poetry for children her agent is evaluating, she has several other books in varying stages of being written, including novels, more family history and autobiographical works. She has no intention of continuing on to college but intends to pursue writing full time. Writing is her life, Lingley said. It is, she believes, why God put her here and what she is meant to do. In addition to her novels, she has contributed shorter works to a book compilation to be published next year. She is also part of an online critique group and critiques and edits the work of other writers. Besides writing she helps home school her sister and reads other authors, including her favorite writers, Arthur Conan Doyle and John Steinbeck. She is the daughter of Christine and Henry Lingley of Lunenburg.
An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. -- James McNeill