WRITERS AMONG US

What a talented group of people we are, we Barbary Coasters. In addition to the venture capitalists, CPAs, nurses, stockbrokers, tech types, managers and ad men among us, I was surprised to learn that some of us are authors.

Rags to riches via hard work

It’s said that there’s a book within each of us. Each of us has a story to tell of our life experiences. But rather than tell a fictional or autobiographical story, Maria Matson, a resident of The Commons, dug deep into her family’s history to relate the immigrant life in America as told by her grandmother.

Gelsomina’s Story of Caesar Lucchesi is a first work for the author and a labor of much love. Like most of us, Maria wishes she’d listened more, asked more questions, and taken notes when the elders of her family reminisced about coming to America from Italy.

"A story worth knowing. . ." Gelsomina's Story Gelsomina's Story of Caesar Lucchesi

It was after her mother had died and while in the process of cleaning out the family home that Maria found a plethora of memorabilia from the first generation. There were notes written by her grandmother, old photos and newspaper articles about the Lucchesis."The pieces of the story were all there-[I] just had to figure out how to put them together," says Maria.

Maria Matson Author Maria Vezzetti Matson

“The Barbary Coast is such a great place to live and work. I’m very lucky.”

Maria’s tale could be told by many Americans. It’s a story of immigration from Europe to a new land; of hard work, perseverance, assimilation and success in their new country.

Research into the three generations of the Lucchesi family brought Maria face to face with what days and nights must have been like for her grandmother, an innocent, young girl brought from Italy to a small mining town in Michigan in the 1800s. The scandalous elopement. The building of a family and a business. Intertwined within the story is the growth, not only of the Lucchesi family but also of America-from horse-drawn carriages, to automobiles, to airplanes, and, finally, the information age and computers.

Maria tells us all to “get it down on paper while you still can.”

Final printing details are being completed. The book will be released the spring of 2011 and will be available for purchase via the website at www.TheLucchesiStory.com . A small, independent publishing house that focuses on Italian-American immigrant stories, Polenta Publishing, is the publisher.

So many clever people in the Barbary Coast! Must be the air.

**********The Barbary Coast News San Francisco, CA**********