She was born among the Dolomite mountains where the histories of Italy and Austria meet....This is where my grandmother's - Viola's - story begins, of growing up amidst great love and the simple beauty of a northern Italian village. The deep losses she bore, the discovery of her abiding love for Gino and then having to leave him, her family, her town to emigrate to America with a man who was a virtual stranger to her. It is a story of strength and personal transcendence, of how beauty enhances our lives, of the saving grace of deep love. It is the chronicle of one woman who lived her life with an earthy grace that touched in its own humble way the lives of countless others.
