Southampton Summers shares a collection of heartwarming stories with the reader about five generations of an Italian American family who have vacationed near a little beach in eastern Long Island, New York for sixty years. The stories, as told by 14 different family members and one family friend, chronicle the family’s summer vacations beginning with their earliest forays into Southampton from the years following World War II and continuing to the present day.
Written in a friendly, casual style, the book paints colorful portraits of five siblings from the family’s first generation, working class Italian immigrants, who bought wooded lots in 1951 in an undeveloped part of one of America’s toniest vacation towns. A few years later, three of the family’s five siblings managed to cobble together the funds to build small bungalows on their lots with their children, thus setting in motion more than sixty summers of fun-filled family vacations in the Hamptons. The authors’ stories guide the reader from the family’s humble beginnings in an area that resembled total wilderness to the second generation (‘The Greatest Generation’) of the family to spend summers at the bungalows. These second generation, born in America vacationers, dutifully maintained the bungalows as a family legacy for the succeeding generations: the third generation, or ‘baby boomers;’ the fourth generation (called Gen-X, Gen-Y, Gen-Z); and the fifth, the un-named generation of youngsters who are great-great grandchildren of the family’s hardy builders.
Southampton Summers shares reminiscences about happy childhoods, about family fun in the sun swimming, fishing and boating. But there’s much more to the stories than mere memories. Delicately woven throughout the stories, the concepts of family bonds, as well as the many rituals, customs and traditions pertaining to both American and Italian cultures, continuously rise to the reader’s attention. These concepts can be easily enjoyed at their literal, superficial level as part of the stories, or in a deeper sense, to awaken in the reader a consideration of his or her own family origins and values. Regardless of the reader’s familiarity with or interest in Italian family traditions, spending time with the three families and their stories of sixty years of Southampton Summers will surely delight and entertain. Plus, it all takes place in a great setting: in the beautiful, historic Hamptons, one of America’s premier vacation destinations.
Table des matières
Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………………………..xv
Prologue: ………………………………………………………………………………………….xxi
A Big White Duck
Peter M. Nardi, Ph.D.
Introduction: ………………………………………………………………………………………1
Everybody’s Got a Story
Albert Marra
Chapter One: ……………………………………………………………………………………..17
First Generation Stories: Explorers and Builders
Albert Marra
Chapter Two: …………………………………………………………………………………….43
Second Generation Stories: “Our Greatest Generation”
Albert Marra
• Southampton: Our First Years …………………………………………………53
Judith Marra Scott
• Frank Marra, In His Own Words ……………………………………………..57
Frank Marra
• Sylvia Saracino, In Her Own Words ………………………………………….58
Sylvia Saracino
• Gilbert Maffei, In His Own Words ……………………………………………60
Gilbert Maffei
Chapter Three: …………………………………………………………………………………..63
Third Generation Stories: Boomers and Beach Bums
Albert Marra
• My Southampton Years ………………………………………………………….129
Sal Anselmo
• Espresso Summers ………………………………………………………………..139
Ellen Saracino
• Bungalow Clam Broth …………………………………………………………..149
Linda Saracino
• Woods and Water: A Boy’s Hamptons Paradise ……………………….153
Eugene Marra
• Our Little House in the Middle ………………………………………………169
Frances Maffei
Chapter Four: ………………………………………………………………………………….177
Fourth Generation Stories: Generations X, Y, and Z
Albert Marra
• Small Stories ………………………………………………………………………..179
Jon Resh
• Driving to Grandma’s Southampton Bungalow ……………………….191
Mark Saracino
• Feeding Frenzy: Summer, 1987 ……………………………………………..201
Gregory Saracino
• Three Decades of Hamptons Heaven ………………………………………205
Andrew Marra
• Rocks, Horseflies and Grandparents ……………………………………….213
Alex Marra
Chapter Five: ……………………………………………………………………………………223
The Fifth and Future Generations at the Beach
Albert Marra
Appendix One: …………………………………………………………………………………229
About the Contributors
Albert Marra
Appendix Two: …………………………………………………………………………………235
List of Photographs and Illustrations
compiled by Albert Marra
Appendix Three: ………………………………………………………………………………243
Documents Related to 1563 Noyac Road, Bay View Oaks
compliments of Frank Marra
A propos de l’auteur
Albert Marra retired from the US Public Health Service as Senior Contracts Manager after 34 years with the Health Resources and Services Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the US Department of Education, and the Social Security Administration. After moving from the DC area to Virginia Beach in 2005, he began a second career as supervisor of student teachers and assistant professor of Spanish and Italian at Old Dominion University and Tidewater Community College in Norfolk, Virginia. In 2018 he moved to Woodstock, (Howard County) Maryland, outside Baltimore, to be near his son and family. As a translator-interpreter for the United States Coast Guard (with 21 years of voluntary service), he was tasked with translating reports from the 2012 sinking of the Costa Concordia in Italy. For that act in 2014 the Commandant of the Coast Guard awarded him the Auxiliary Special Achievement Medal for Superior Performance of Duty.
A native of the Bronx and Yonkers, he completed elementary, secondary and undergraduate education in New York City. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Manhattan College, Master’s Degrees from the University of Valencia, Spain and Binghamton University, and a Doctorate from Catholic University. He married his college sweetheart, Adrienne Rinaldi, another Bronx native, in 1970. The couple has two sons, two granddaughters, and one grandson. He has published articles in several national magazines and journals as well as in Northern Virginia newspapers. A recipient of many awards from the US Surgeon General and the US Secretaries of Education, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services, his proudest achievement is his 1995 Pyramid Award from Montgomery County, Maryland as public sector Supervisor of the Year.
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