About My Book

Book Summary

An Immigrant Mother’s Journey: From Loss Through Courage to Triumph is a vivid memoir of a family who immigrated through Ellis Island in 1902. They were the ancestors of author, Susan Pauletti Nelson, several of whom she personally knew as a child and young adult growing up among them. Nelson draws upon the questions they answered, their numerous conversations she remembers, and the research she undertook in archives of small Tuscan towns, to reveal details often overlooked in memoirs and family sagas.

The book opens with a tribute to the author’s great-grandmother, Giuditta, after which the story begins when Giuditta’s husband died of consumption, leaving behind a young widow and six small children in a country of turmoil. Nelson exquisitely details the political climate and the danger to the family, especially considering that Giuditta’s husband had worked in local government before his passing.

From there, Nelson meticulously draws upon her research to poetically describe the trip across the ocean; the arrival onto a new land; the unexpected changes of first or last names given by authorities at ports of entry, the quest to settle, and the sacrifice of each of the family members, however young, to help anchor their shaky beginnings in America.

An Immigrant Mother’s Journey is meant to be a multi-layered, historically accurate, yet family-nuanced account. Inside the chapters Giuditta and her Children in Chicago, A Religion Runs Through It, and The Future of the Ancestry, Nelson uncovers mysteries related to scandalous affairs and possible faked deaths, while in Food from the Old Country, she shares family recipes for readers to enjoy. Nelson devotes pages to the subject of abortion, and an entire chapter to what it means to become an American, each generation assimilating into the greater society while holding on to its heritage from the homeland, hence straddling two cultures simultaneously, which fades over the course of time. An astounding 230 photos, including ship manifests and archival manuscripts, enhance the descriptive text.

Against all their challenges, what was the unchanging, the constant force that led to their ultimate triumph? The conclusion suggests that values learned from one generation to the next, are universal. Indeed, it is through the anchoring of values that common ground can be found throughout the generations among all families.

Susan Pauletti Nelson, a teacher, social scientist and poet, writes poignantly about the significance of ancestors. Why is it important to learn about our forebears if not to glimpse nuances of the family of long ago in order to understand the dynamics of our family in the here and now? Hence, An Immigrant Mother’s Journey: From Loss Through Courage to Triumph is a tribute not only to the author’s family but to all immigrant families, whose courage changed the trajectory of their descendants forever.

As one reviewer stated, this book definitely deserves to be read.

I offer presentations, free of charge, about highlights researched for the book of interest to readers. Signed copies are available for purchase following the presentation.