#MD51
Ca. 1922
Full-leather small quarto album ca. 18,5 x 14,5 cm (7 x 5 ¾ in.) 40 leaves (8 blank), 1 group photograph pasted down, watercolors, pencil and color drawings, including two portraits of Tina, manuscript wishes. The entrees in the album are dated from 15 to 21 October 1922. By 8 November 1922, the ship carrying Tina and her parents has reached New York.
Historically interesting private farewell album of ‘Tina’ Martelli (ca. 1900-1975), assembled by her friends before her family’s emigration from Genoa, Italy, to the United States in 1922.
The album is filled with moving tributes from Martelli’s social circle in Genoa, including entries such as “Be proud to be Italian, remember your home country, your skies,” “Let the winds favorable to you,” “Even outside one’s homeland one can be hopeful, helpful and loved,” and a poem entitled “Song about Tina going to America.” The album finishes with the wishes from Eva, who writes “I will be the one who will have to close this album, make the last wish, but I still can’t convince myself of her departure. We loved each other, Sina, with a sisterly bond that unites souls and is carved into them. Even as a child, you held me in your arms; my little infant head rested repeatedly on your breast. From then on, I learned to stammer your name. You always showered me with kindness, you were always a true sister to me…”
Santina ‘Tina’ Martelli (1900–1975) eventually settled in California with her husband, John (Giovanni) E. Cadenasso, a fellow Genoese immigrant. The couple initially established themselves as farmers in Contra Costa County, living near Martinez before relocating to Oakland in 1945, where Tina spent the rest of her life.
