Theresa Maggio

My Roots

Dot and Joe, my parents, on their wedding day.

Papa, our grandfather, (left) making newspaper hats with his friend, Charlie Reina, both from Santa Margherita Belice. Papa and Nana emigrated first to Brooklyn, then set off on their own to the wilds of the New Jersey Meadowlands around 1915. This was my Sicilian grandparents' back yard at 515 Tenth Street in Carlstadt, NJ. Circa 1940.

Papa (r) and Charlie Reina, (l) best man at his wedding, playing checkers .

Papa taught me to play checkers and never let me win. My older cousin Marilyn, upon seeing this picture, told me he had taught her the same way.

Papa's brother, Great-Uncle Gaspare Maggio, who emigrated to NY. What a face! I never knew him.

My mother, Dorothy, to whom I dedicated my first book, and, left to right, my sister Susan, sister Dorothy and the author, age 8. As yet unborn, my little sister, Marion.

Here's Marion, a few years later. Santa brought plastic wigs that year.

Sister pile: Theresa, Dorothy, Susan,and Marion.

The Maggio clan. Uncle Barnie, father Joseph, Uncle Jimmy, Uncle Steve. Seated: Aunt Freda, Papa, and Nana. The occasion was Giuseppe and Alfonsa's Golden Wedding anniversary.

Theresa Maggio grew up in the New Jersey Meadowlands, the granddaughter of Sicilian immigrants. She has worked as a science writer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, as a reporter for Brattleboro, Vermont's daily paper, The Reformer and as a freelance travel writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Financial Times, London Daily Telegraph, Miami Herald and the New York Daily News, among other publications. She is the author of Mattanza, which was named one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2000 by the Los Angeles Times and the Christian Science Monitor.

She lives and writes, very happily, in Vermont, but every so often needs a dose of Sicilian sun.

I am so happy here.

Selected Works

Nonfiction

My Roots

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