Mariuzza, A Life

People who died before we were born are usually known to us only as a face in an old photo and as a person in a few scattered stories. However, there are some people whose life story absolutely should be recorded and remembered. Maria Bellino Amato is such a person. Her life is the central story of her whole family. Also, modest and unassuming, her life was typical of many human lives. Indeed, her life story is symbolic of a whole group of Americans who left Europe in poverty at the turn of the 20th century to become the backbone of America at mid 20th century. Usually these people are not famous or celebrities. During their lifetimes they appear to be just another person in the river of people who flow through history. The arc of Maria’s life was long and event filled. She was born in a small hill town in Sicily in 1895 and had a fatal stroke in the garden of her North Brunswick, NJ split level house in 1979.