‘So much of who we are, the kind of people we become, and the choices we make in our lives are due to the experiences of our ancestors’. – Lilian Camenzuli, 2019.

In telling the story of the author’s mother, Maria, her siblings and their ancestors, Lilian Camenzuli pays tribute to all those ancestors for their tenacity, their steely determination to survive (at times against all odds), but mostly for the way they loved and supported each other.
‘For them, blood was thicker than water and when the chips were down, they knew with absolute certainty that they could rely on each other. They knew how to love until death, and this is perhaps the most valuable lesson they taught us. When we understand where we have come from, and appreciate the struggles and triumphs of our ancestors, it leads to a better understanding of ourselves’.

When the author decided to embark on the task of collecting the evidence and doing the research needed to write this story, she did not realise the extent of the mammoth task ahead. In her mind there was a collection of stories, which Maria her mother often told her children as they were growing up.
As a child, Camenzuli listened to these stories and memorised several of the details. However, as an adult trying to put the pieces of this large family jigsaw together, the first thing that struck her was how many missing pieces there were. Nevertheless, certain family members who are natural storytellers came to the fore and contributed valuable sources of information to virtually complete this project.

‘This story is published more than 100 years following my mother's birth. Possibly in 50 or 100 years from now, someone yet to be born will find this book and read it, and in so doing, gain insight unto some aspect of themselves'.