On July 31, 1937, seventeen-year-old Elmo Melosi, an Italian-American from suburban California, boarded the ocean liner
Conte di Savoia in New York City for a nine-day voyage to Italy. He was headed to a Catholic seminary in the Piedmont region to prepare for the priesthood. Until he traveled to New York from his home in San Jose, he had never ventured beyond the West Coast, and had no idea what was in store for him living in what soon would be war-torn Europe.
A Journey of Body, Mind, and Spirit, narrated by his son – a retired history professor – recounts Elmo’s experiences in Italy from 1937 until his return to the United States in October 1941 – less than two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It details his trying existence in a financially strapped seminary, the heavy demands of school and work, his persistent health problems, his first-time connection with his Italian relatives, and his harrowing journey home. All of this is set against the backdrop of a country in the grip of Fascism and inching toward world war. The research for the book is based on Elmo’s diary from 1937 to 1941 while he was in Italy, another diary for the years 1945-1946, a book he wrote –
My Education – which is a series of annotations of his diary entries (1937-1941), family genealogy, dozens of photographs, his son’s recollections of his dad, and secondary sources on the history of modern Italy and the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Mussolini government.
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