Story submitteD by: Rob boatti
Mary Boatti
Photo: Mary Boatti
My mom was born in 1918 in Italy. At age 2 her dad immigrated to the US for a better life, followed by her mom when she was 6. She and her sister were placed in one boarding school, and their brother in another. She ended up loving it, was a star student, also learning piano and doing gymnastics.
But at age 13 her life changed when their parents summoned the kids to the States… during the height of the Great Depression! They lived in a tenement. She was bullied at school because she spoke no English, and dropped out after a few months to work as a seamstress for $5 a day. Once her boss saved her from being sold to organized crime for “white slavery”; i.e. human trafficking, by claiming she was his niece.
She eventually went to art school in the late 1930s and had a long career painting the makeup on store display mannequins. She married my dad (also an immigrant and a hero ) during WW2 and they were able to buy an home in Astoria, Queens in the 1950s.
My mom often lamented that being uprooted from school in Italy, and her arrival here during the worst economic period in US history, prevented her from finishing her education and achieving her dream of becoming a lawyer. However, I’d say things turned out ok: she lived until the ripe old age of 97, volunteering at blood drives and reading The NY Times daily. And, she and my dad raised two boys who went on to Ivy League schools and became… lawyers.
My mom was a hero.
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