Litany of Sorrows

By Peter J. Marzano

Karl von Richter, a handsome young man with a dark past and a sinister future, is injured while skiing in the Italian Alps. He falls in love with Katrina Amorino, his dark-haired, blue-eyed nurse. Unaware Germany is preparing for war, Katrina naïvely moves to his home; but before she arrives, Karl joi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Swan Publishers
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736682715

Peter J. Marzano

Peter J. Marzano is the son of Italian and Irish families, immigrants to New York City in 1908 and 1928 respectively. Born in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, he grew up in Staten Island. After attending Staten Island Community College, Peter worked in construction and eventually migrated into sales with divisions of General Dynamics, United Technologies, AT&T, and an American division of Air Liquid. His broad business experience spanned 45 years, allowing him to travel nationally and internationally in Europe for work and pleasure while living in NYC; Atlanta, Georgia; Orlando, Florida; Hartford, Connecticut; and Wilmington, North Carolina. His unique skills, knowledge and technical experience allowed him to help customers in a variety of industrial settings. Father of four and grandfather of eleven, Marzano has been married to his high-school sweetheart, Kathleen (Coyle) Marzano almost 50 years. He is an avid photographer who loves capturing family, friends, outdoor scenery and wildlife. He currently resides in Connecticut.

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Litany of Sorrows

Peter J. Marzano

Swan Publishers

Durham, Connecticut

Copyright © 2021 by Peter J. Marzano

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For information visit: www.litanyofsorrows.com.

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. References to historical people, real places and events are used fictitiously. Any names resembling characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions or locales is merely coincidental.

Editing and interior layout by Rita M. Reali

(https://persnicketyproofreader.wordpress.com)

Cover Design © 2021 Peter J. Marzano

Final cover assembly – Al Esper Graphic Design

Cover Photo – soldier by shutterstock.com

Cover Photo – nun rosary cover artwork by Andrew Sokol

Cover Photo – Italian church and cattle car by Peter J. Marzano

Published by Swan Publishers, Durham, Connecticut

Printed in the United States of America

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations and others. For details, contact the Special Sales Department at the web address above.

Litany of Sorrows / Peter J. Marzano – 1st ed.

ISBNs

Paperback: 978-1-7366827-0-8

E-book:      978-1-7366827-1-5

"The essence of government is power; and power,

lodged as it must be in human hands,

will ever be liable to abuse."

– President James Madison

1751-1836

Virginia

Dedication

To my uncle Vincenzo Marzano, born in Reggio, Calabria. A soldier in the Italian Army during World War I,

he fought and died for Italy in the cold and snowy Italian Alps.

***

To my uncle Frank Marzano, born in Greenwich Village, NYC. He served in the 157th Infantry Regiment of America’s 5th Army, in World War II and fought in Africa, Sicily, Italy and Germany. Two days before his unit freed Dachau, he was gravely wounded. He survived and was awarded a Purple Heart.

***

To my uncle Robert Finbarr Burges, born in Cork City, Ireland. He immigrated to the U.S. as a child in 1928 and joined the American Army in WW II. Upon returning from war, he discovered his wife of two years had left him.

***

To my father-in-law, Harry Coyle, born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He joined the American Navy after Pearl Harbor, serving in the Pacific on a PBY Catalina. Returning from the war, he graduated from Manhattan College and worked at Catholic Charities in three cities devoted to building low-income housing.

***

To my neighbor Gene Ammann, born in Germany in 1922. His family moved to NYC in the 1920s. In WW II for the American Army, he flew P-51 Mustang sorties from England over France. His best war story: Escaping German Messerschmitts chasing him in France, he flew so low he hit a mound of dirt. Upon landing back in England, he found his propeller tips bent, and a crop of radishes in his air scoop.

To my friend’s dad, Juanito Bob Rohan, born in the US Virgin Islands. He was a sergeant for the American Army’s 92nd Infantry Division, an all-black combat group known as the Buffalo Soldiers. In WW II he was a forward artillery observer in the 600th Field Artillery, Battery A, fighting in Italy along the Gothic Line

against Germany’s Wehrmacht General Field Marshal Smiling Albert Kesserling. Post war, Bob served as a New York Port Authority Policeman. Retired for many years, Mr. Rohan is an active and healthy 100-year-old as this book is published.

***

Finally, to my dad, Louis Vincent Marzano, born in NYC in 1908, shortly after the family arrived from Calabria. Too old for World War II, he left his executive role on Wall Street to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. From 1941 to 1944, he helped weld the USS Missouri battleship… upon which the Japanese surrendered.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my dear wife, Kathleen, for her support in allowing me focus on the book by going lightly and limiting my honey-do lists.

Thanks to Kathy and dear friends Cathy Tolk, Bill Loudermilk, Pat McGarry, Al McConaghie, Leo Rohan and Tom Mensi for reading early drafts.

Thanks to my beta readers, including Chris Kopyt, Susan Ciani, Bill McGrath, Greg McLaughlin, Nancy Robitski and Denise Stemmler – all career educators – who provided excellent reviews to chew on.

A special thank you to my award-winning editor, Rita M. Reali, for her editing skills, guidance and exchanges we shared. Our conversations were interesting, enlightening, painful and encouraging – in that order.

Thanks to our children, Peter, Tricia, Kathy and Shawn for their encouragement, and to our eleven grandchildren for brightening each day with their smiles, for their effort in school, sports and music, for playing word games and chess games with me online, keeping me challenged and balanced and allowing me to enjoy life from a wonderful perspective as a grandparent!

Thanks, Shawn for your book savvy and guidance. Your own experience as an author helped so much.

Donation

Ten percent of the profits from the sale of Litany of Sorrows will be forwarded to the Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma Research Foundation (ACCRF) to help find a cure for this uncommon cancer that affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. It will be sent on behalf of our daughter, Shawn Elizabeth George, who suffered from the disease.

Author’s Note

Summer 2019 was a particularly difficult time for my wife and her four siblings. When August arrived, their father, Harry Coyle, a 94- year-old World War II veteran, was in the final weeks of his life. Harry joined the Navy days after Pearl Harbor, like so many other young men. He served proudly as a radioman and gunner on a PBY Catalina, performing search-and-rescue missions for American pilots, and patrolling the South Pacific for Japanese warships.

The hospice staff at the VA Hospital in New Jersey kept Pop comfortable in his final week. Our children and grandchildren all visited, saying goodbye to their grandfather and great-grandfather. During my last visit, I leaned over to kiss Pop. Barely able to speak, he whispered, Have a good life. Four days later, he was buried on Staten Island, in a military funeral attended by Naval officers. The Greatest Generation had lost another good man.

After the burial, my wife and I stayed at her brother’s home on the New Jersey shore. During dinner we reminisced about good family times. The August night was stuffy, hot and humid. Despite the airconditioning, I became uncomfortably warm and restless around 4 AM

As dawn approached, a lengthy dream came to me. Recollecting it fully upon waking, I grabbed a pencil and wrote a dozen pages of notes. What followed was several months researching details of World War I and World War II, including how the WW I Treaty of Versailles terms were not well enforced… and how divisive politics, extreme nationalism, revenge, religious prejudice and the fear of communism ignited Europe and the rest of the world into World War II. My characters all had their place and roles during the period.

I started writing Litany of Sorrows in mid-September 2019, four months before the Covid-19 pandemic hit. While I was writing, we all heard divisive politics and rhetoric during a national election, watched impeachment hearings and saw individuals die from prejudice and hate. I listened to elected officials spout fake theories, witnessed an assault on our nation’s Capitol and saw millions die from the coronavirus.

How unique, sad and sorrowful these last 21 months have been.

– Peter J. Marzano

Introduction

Litany of Sorrows is a work of fiction. The characters are integrated with historical facts, places and individuals of the period. The story begins with Katrina’s deepest sorrow, then flashes back to 1912, when Otto von Richter and Valentina DiBotticino meet and marry.

Decades later, their young adult son, Karl, falls badly skiing in the Italian Alps, and is nursed to health by attractive Katrina Amorino, whom he met a year earlier on the slopes. He eventually returns to Italy and convinces her to live with him, but before she arrives, he’s drafted into SS Officer training.

Katrina eagerly awaits Karl’s return, but the SS attack Jews on Kristallnacht. Her hopeful love is dashed and then crushed as she learns of his horrific role in the Final Solution, and his return home one night.

Years pass. Karl has a final and critical Nazi SS task in Berlin as the war ends. Returning home, he learns his parents have died, and Katrina and their child are missing. During his search for them, his conscience, corrupted by Hitler’s false promises of a pure national race, emerges and begins to haunt him. Despite coming face to face with the horrific reality and guilt for what he has done, his anger and rage remain and are easily triggered by frustration.

Now, Katrina must look past her mistakes and move on. But how can she? The story flashes forward to 1951, Katrina’s search and an unexpected end.

The story presents immature love and want, self-centeredness, distraction, politics, religious bias, indifference, Jewish genocide, and adoption. It reminds us how mistakes of judgment have lifelong effects, upon ourselves and others, and sadly upon next generations. We are also reminded of the horrific destruction of war and genocide, and the pain parents and children suffer when separated – even years later.

Note: The Historical Background section at the rear of this book offers the reader insight into the period - how the fledgling German democracy post WWI moved to a dictatorship, how Hitler re-armed Germany and prepared for war. It highlights how the Treaty of Versailles was ignored, Germany’s effort to grab adjacent territories it had lost, its blitzkrieg attack on European neighbors, and then battling Russia, and how it declared war on the United States just days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

Chapter 1

Katrina’s Search… Fall 1949

Before and during World War II, Giovanni Cardinal DiBotticino held considerable political strength in the Vatican, and had made good deals for the Church, deals of all kinds. He immediately became a favorite of Giuseppe Sarto, Pope Pius X, when he first entered the seminary in Rome because of his family’s business interests. And most knew upon his ordination in 1910 it was only a matter of time before business relationships and politics inside the Vatican would lift Giovanni to the positions of monsignor, bishop and eventually cardinal.

During his different assignments in Rome, then Brescia and again at the Vatican, Giovanni accomplished things few others in the Roman Catholic Church could have. In fact, the joke among Vatican City clergy was DiBotticino can move mountains, cutting them with his family’s quarry equipment, if necessary. And, given his family’s deep financial resources, including the ability to finance the construction of new churches and the repair of old structures, Giovanni Cardinal DiBotticino was well known, even beyond Italy. A few openly commented, Giovanni could have been a Medici.

By fall 1949, Katrina’s relationship to the now-deceased cardinal no longer wielded any power. And so, as she began searching for where her baby son had been placed through adoption, her visits to Church officials in Brescia, Milan and Genoa, while referencing the cardinal, failed to develop any leads.

In January 1950, Katrina’s husband suggested a sizeable donation directly to the Vatican. It quickly cut through the Church’s red tape and, within the month, the agency in America that had handled the adoption and placed her son with an American family was identified.

Katrina had no intentions to reclaim the boy. She had let him go because she wanted the best for his future. Profound guilt and sorrow continued to pain her heart deeply. It gnawed at her conscience and pushed her to reconnect with him. She wanted to let her child know how much she loved him. She wanted his forgiveness. And she wanted her son to know about his history – about his grandparents, the von Richters and Amorinos – and his German and Italian heritage, including the history of the DiBotticinos.

But none of Katrina’s efforts to find her son was for his father. As far as she was concerned, he could sit in hell for eternity. Over the years, she had grown more bitter toward him for raping her years earlier. Her inability to relax now, even in bed with her husband, remained rooted in how badly he brutalized her that night during the war.

Now, Katrina prayed each day, thanking God for an understanding, patient, kind and gentle husband. His emotional support, especially his daily words of encouragement, helped her deal with her sorrow.

And now, she needed to find her son. Making sure he’d been properly placed, loved and well supported financially would resolve years of anxiety, and give her much-needed emotional peace.

chapter 2

Otto and Valentina Meet

It was the week before Christmas 1912. Valentina DiBotticino had spent the last three days skiing at St. Moritz with her three girlfriends from Brescia. The weather in the Swiss Alps had been perfect all week, and the light, fluffy powder from last night’s snow fall made the slopes perfect again for today’s skiing. Emboldened by her skills and today’s surface conditions, she flew at top speed down the mountainside. On her last run for the day, she unknowingly passed Otto von Richter.

Intrigued first by her ability to handle the steep slope at such a high rate of speed, the tall young German followed her. The woman, her long hair flying in the wind, turned off the main slope onto an even steeper trail – one with a skull-and-bones warning sign at the entry point.

Otto followed, but couldn’t catch her. After two jumps and a few breathtaking minutes of expert maneuvering, she reached the bottom of the run.

Seconds later, the handsome, dark-haired German ended his run as well, coming to a brisk stop alongside her. He purposely let one of his skis slide across hers. Then, politely, he said in Italian, Excuse me, miss. I’m so sorry for stopping so close to you. May I apologize further by buying you a drink this evening at the lodge?

Valentina pulled off her ski goggles and hood to take a better look at the young man. As she did, Otto was captivated by her beautiful deep-blue eyes, long dark eyelashes and fair skin.

His attempt to speak politely in Italian was nice, but Valentina knew right away he wasn’t Italian. She didn’t mind. She thought the tall skier was cute. In a flash, she upgraded her opinion. He’s handsome… and… well, curious! Why not? It’s my last night here, and I’d like to tell my girlfriends I met a tall and handsome, dark-haired German.

"Sì. Mi piacerebbe," she replied in Italian. Yes. I would like that.

After brief introductions, Otto and Valentina agreed to meet that night in the lodge.

Wintertime in the mountains was wonderful, and this season was no exception. Only last year, operators of the local ski areas, including here at St. Moritz, began using car engines, pulleys and long ropes to help skiers up the hillside to increase the frequency of their runs. Almost every mountain was using these car engines this season, and the sport received a sudden boost in popularity.

The ski lodge was beautifully decorated for the Christmas holiday. Snow had been falling for the past six weeks; the deep base and light powder made the mountains perfect for skiing. A slow-moving warm front with humid air drifted across the Alps and warmed the temperatures to just below freezing. Large fluffy snowflakes drifted to the ground on the breezeless night. As her girlfriends readied for dinner, Valentina said she had a dinner date.

Oh, and who is the lucky guy? they asked.

He’s a skier staying in the first slope-side cabin.

Does he have any friends?

Good question. I’ll see you all later tonight and let you know.

Otto and Valentina approached the lodge from different directions. They smiled upon seeing each other through the snowflakes. Her heartrate unexpectedly increased as the broad-shouldered skier approached. How perfect the setting! And the Bavarian-style lodge with its steep roof looks magnificent draped in snow.

His smile widened as they met, and he opened the carved wooden door with its colorful stained-glass inserts. They stepped inside and sat near the stone fireplace and its roaring fire. The interior of the lodge was decorated in brilliant red materials and lush green pine branches for the season. Otto suggested a cocktail of dry vermouth and a splash of scotch and she agreed. His small talk began.

He impressed her with his von Richter family history, which dated to the 1200s – with the Duchy and Kingdom of Württemberg.

We have a complete history of our lineage written in our two-hundred-year-old Lutheran family Bible, he told her with pride, adding he was the eldest of four, and again mentioned his strict Lutheran upbringing.

Valentina, raised Catholic, dismissed the religious difference. She wouldn’t let it be a hurdle to a relationship with the handsome young man.

I live in my family home in the village of Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. The Bodensee, as locals call it, is the third-largest freshwater lake in Europe and touches the shores of Switzerland, Austria and Germany. We sail in summer, and ski as much as possible in winter. When you look south from our backyard, you can see the Alps. As the oldest son, our old Bavarian house – the envy of many in our village – will be mine someday.

Otto took a sip of his cocktail and continued. I started working at a foundry part time as a teenager, and now I’m a full-time apprentice. He continued talking about the different parts they made at the foundry.

Valentina smiled. It was all interesting, but the detailed explanation became too complicated for her to follow. Maybe he should be a watch maker?

He concluded saying, I’m impressed with your skiing skills. Perhaps we can ski together tomorrow? I’ve added metal edges to my wooden skis. I’ll let you try them if you’re interested.

She nodded. I’d like that.

Valentina began telling her family story, as all DiBotticinos did, by telling of the Crusader who fought in the Siege of Acre, and how, fearing for his life, came to Brescia, Italy, to hide in the mountains.

A bounty was placed on the head of all Templar knights when Pope Clement V declared the end of the religious Templar Order on the morning of Friday, October thirteenth in 1307. They were made outlaws of the Church, and many were purposely killed. It’s why everyone fears Friday the thirteenth.

Otto’s eyes widened in interest.

The Templar Knight learned all about stone cutting while he was in the Middle East. When he landed in the mountainous area north of Brescia – at the southern foot of the Italian Alps and just west of Lake Garda – he began cutting and quarrying the limestone. The knight lent his family name to the limestone deposit, and the quarry expanded over the last six hundred years. By the way, my oldest uncle, Uncle Vincent, still has his sword, Templar tunic and chain-maille mesh armor hidden in a wooden box. We consider it sacred.

As they finished their cocktails, Otto suggested dinner and Valentina agreed.

He continued to impress her during dinner. She listened intently and her dreams expanded. She quickly became hooked on the muscular German.

After the main course, Otto asked about her father and his business.

By the late 1880s, our family’s quarry business became extraordinarily successful because of the quality of our stone. But the efforts of my father, Luigi, the youngest of the five DiBotticino brothers, made it grow beyond expectations. My father is an outgoing man – and an aggressive salesman with a wonderful approach. His reputation precedes him when he travels from city to city and church to church in Italy, France and Germany, and as far away as Belgium and Poland. People are attracted quickly to his witty, warm and vivacious nature. And, of course, my skilled uncles and cousins always provide timely deliveries, whether its statues or a column or some simple building blocks for foundations or walls. And my sweet father always promises a small gift at no additional cost. It might be a cornerstone for a church or building, or a carved grave marker if a customer’s loved one recently passed.

She paused, smiling.

Everyone appreciates his generosity.

As the plates were being cleared, Otto ordered a flan dessert with two spoons.

I have a younger sister and two young brothers. You?

My parents were blessed with my brother, Giovanni, and a few years later, me. That’s all. Giovanni’s carving and chiseling skills, like my uncle Tommaso, were exceptionally good even as a youngster. When he was twelve, he expressed interest in the priesthood. When Gio turned eighteen, he entered the seminary in Rome to study. He was welcomed there because the pope and cardinals knew our last name. Most of the Doric, Ionic or Corinthian topped columns inside the basilica are carved from our stone, and a few statues inside the Vatican were carved by my ancestors. The soft beige tone and absence of deep veins and faults in the stone made the stone from our quarry so desirable.

To finish the evening, Otto ordered a small plate of cheese and shelled nuts, with two glasses of twenty-year-old French brandy. He wanted so much to impress Valentina – and he knew it was working.

As the evening grew late and Valentina politely covered her third yawn, they finished their brandy and left the lodge, exchanging chaste side-to-side kisses as they parted company.

Valentina virtually floated back to her room, feeling warm and filled. She fell sound asleep before her friends returned.

For his part, Otto felt certain he had found the woman of his dreams. As he lay in bed, he knew he would marry Valentina.

They met the next morning, as planned, but spoke only briefly. She apologized, saying her girlfriends wanted to leave early. Otto was disappointed they wouldn’t ski together.

Before departing, they agreed to meet again, in St. Moritz, the last weekend in January.

Otto and Valentina saw each other several more times that winter and into the spring. Their fondness for each other grew quickly as they enjoyed skiing together. By April they considered making their relationship more permanent.

chapteR 3

Otto and Valentina Marry

In May, while enjoying their last ski runs of the season, Valentina and Otto became engaged and planned to marry at the end of the year.

Valentina invited Otto to the annual DiBotticino family gathering in June, where she would announce their engagement. Almost everyone in the town of Botticino was family; many relatives from Brescia attended, as well, as did a few cousins from as far as Lake Garda and Lake Iseo.

Their day in the foothills of the Italian Alps was beautiful. The unspoken rule was for everyone to arrive by noon time, as the church bells finished chiming. Confirming her aunts, uncles and important cousins were there, Valentina announced the celebration of her parents’ thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, which this year fell on the same day as the gathering. Next, she introduced Otto, standing beside her, and without pausing announced they would marry in December in the Old Cathedral in Brescia.

Being a proper Lutheran, a bit stiff in his manners, and not openly demonstrative, Otto struggled with the family cheers, hugs and kisses. But as the hours passed, he relaxed and warmed up to the day’s celebration.

A new barrel of Tommaso’s homemade wine was opened after the announcements. The pastor from the cathedral, Father Alfredo Pucci, was there at the party and told Tommaso he would use his homemade wine at Mass again this coming year. Anticipating the request, Tommaso had already set aside a thirty-gallon barrel for the priest’s use, which he promised to deliver to the cold cellar of the Old Cathedral, the Duomo Vecchio. But he knew, like last year, most of the wine would never make its way to the sacristy to be used for Mass.

Later in the day, Valentina’s aunt brought a hearty cheesecake to the center table. Then to Otto’s surprise, everyone began to sing, celebrating his June birthday, and moments later, the men and women danced the tarantella. As evening approached and darkness fell, the old men finished their Scopa card game and took their last gulps of grappa. Everyone hugged and kissed and said goodbye as they left for their homes. It was a happy and satisfying summer’s night in the DiBotticino compound. And Otto knew he had chosen the right girl to marry.

Unfortunately, a similar visit for Valentina at his family home on the lake in Friedrichshafen was never set up. In fact, when he suggested a lakeside get-together at the family home, his sister, Hilda, had a lot to say about his committing to marry an Italian Catholic.

Otto, you should know those Italians are unsophisticated – there is virtually no industry in Italy. And the Catholics! You know very well Luther was right about the pope, cardinals, bishops and priests being corrupt, selling indulgences. You must change your mind and avoid that woman you’ve been seeing.

His young twin brothers, Heinz and Helmut, standing next to Hilda, voiced similar objections.

Otto, you should marry a good Christian-raised Lutheran woman with a Germanic heritage. We believe Father wants you to keep our von Richter family heritage intact and purely German, Heinz said, as Helmut nodded his agreement.

Otto’s elderly father, Kristofer, heard from Hilda about Otto’s plans, but knowing the power of love, kept silent on the matter.

Despite the pushback from his siblings, Otto said he was deeply in love and planned to continue with his plans to marry Valentina two days after Christmas of 1913.

For Valentina and her family, excitement filled the air. Her parents were thrilled to have the tall, handsome German join the family. And Stella, Valentina’s mother, thought bringing some height into the family was a good idea, especially since her own husband, Luigi, stood a mere 5'5".

In late October, Otto told the plant superintendent he’d be getting married in late December during the factory’s slow period. He was in the last months of completing a three-year apprentice program at the Ravensburg Foundry, Milling and Machining Company.

Congrats Otto! That’s wonderful news, and when you return from your honeymoon, you will be promoted to a journeyman position, with full company benefits.

Otto and Valentina married in the Old Cathedral in Brescia, with Father Pucci presiding. A large reception followed in the church hall. It was cold outside, but several massive fireplaces kept the large room warm. Almost two hundred attended, including several Botticino customers and two high-ranking clergy from Milan who braved the day’s blustery wind and wet snow.

None of Otto’s family attended. In fact, his siblings never even responded to Valentina’s handwritten wedding invitations. Sadly, Kristofer died a month before the wedding. Otto believed his father would have made the trip were he still alive. Valentina felt hurt and sad for her husband.

Being avid skiers, they honeymooned in the Alps. They picked Innsbruck because while they each had skied there in the past, they never skied there together. Months earlier they’d invited their respective friends to meet them there for their honeymoon week to celebrate. The light powder Innsbruck offered was terrific, and the New Year’s Eve celebration was exceptional. The skiing that whole week exceeded the couple’s expectations. By week’s end, everyone was exhausted, and filled with wine, food and great memories of the extended marriage celebration.

On their last morning, Otto and Valentina bade farewell to their friends and returned to her parents’ home for a last goodbye. She wanted a few more days with her parents, and Otto understood. Stella, knowing they would be returning, planned a surprise.

Valentina’s brother, Father Giovanni DiBotticino, unable to attend the wedding because of impromptu meetings with the pope and a cardinal at the Vatican, would be there to greet her and Otto when they returned.

Like many Catholic families of the time, parents expected one or more of their children to consider the priesthood, become a monk in an abbey or, if it was a young girl, to enter a convent. Giovanni, the pious young man with the extraordinary stone-chiseling skills, had decided at a young age to join the priesthood to honor his parents and the family. Everyone in the family was happy for Luigi and Stella, and proud of Giovanni for his interest in serving the Church. The exception was his uncle Tommaso, who seriously believed the family would be better served with Giovanni – the most talented of the next generation of DiBotticino sons – applying his skills at the stone works than as a priest. Carving and chiseling stone had come naturally for him and, by learning to deal with the imperfections of the stone, he unknowingly prepared himself for his role in the priesthood with the virtues of patience, understanding, acceptance and forgiveness.

Valentina was thrilled to see her brother upon her return home from their honeymoon. She shared with Giovanni how she loved Otto and said, But Gio, I’m anxious about moving to his hometown in Germany and being accepted by his family.

Her brother comforted her. I can see how much Otto loves you and I’m sure his family will come to accept and love you.

The next day, as they prepared to say goodbye, Valentina hugged and kissed her parents and brother. They packed their bags in Otto’s 1910 Fiat Tipo and headed for Friedrichshafen. Giovanni stayed another day, then returned to the Vatican, driving a six-cylinder Aquila borrowed from a local businessman in Rome.

Driving long distances was tough. Roads across the Alps and those back to Rome in many stretches were merely muddy wagon tracks, and in the snowy Alps, treacherous at times. Having two or even three spare tires was crucial for a long trip – and having the strength and ability to change them – was just as important, as was carrying extra gasoline in cans.

Upon returning to her husband’s village, Valentina found the lakeside home to be beautiful. She was delighted with its gorgeous setting on the Bodensee and distant views of the Alps. And now, with the sudden passing of his father only a month earlier, he was the sole owner of the von Richter family residence on the lake.

Otto promised Valentina an addition as their family grew. For now, with his father’s passing, the Opa suite was empty, and the size of the house perfect for several children. Sadly, Valentina soon learned how Otto’s siblings resented his inheritance. As much as they said they valued traditions, they resented the family home going to Otto and the Italian Catholic.

Otto was everything Valentina expected from him as a husband and provider in the months following their marriage. Warm, kind and considerate, and even shy at times, he treated her like a princess, making sure her every need and want was met. He earned enough to meet their needs and even saved some money from every paycheck. Marriage was all the young couple had expected.

Life was good for the young couple, but off in the distance a political storm brewed. Several European countries aligned themselves with other countries, forming treaties and forging military alliances. Britain and Germany were competing in a military buildup on the high seas with the construction of large battleships. In mid-1914, Great Britain’s attempt to organize a political conference to resolve increasingly hostile disputes in other countries failed to materialize. Germany feared being crushed militarily by a Russia-Great Britain-France alliance, and aligned with Austria-Hungary. A flashpoint event occurred with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and, within days, Germany declared war against Russia. Two days later, on August 3, Germany declared war on France and quickly moved its armies westward through neutral Belgium with a plan to attack Paris.

Weeks after