"In 1938 my middle-class parents decided to send me and my sister Blossom to Italy to spend a year with our eldest sister Harriet. It was the most thrilling year of my young life. We girls from Joplin, Missouri found ourselves suddenly among the wealthy and sophisticated. We cruised the Mediterranean on an ocean liner, toured fascist Italy and saw Mussolini. We met people of many nationalities as they fled or braced themselves for the approaching war. We enjoyed the warmth and generosity of many new friends. We fell in love and grew wiser. It has been a great joy to recapture the girl I was so many years ago."

-Becky Fahrig Landrum

Except for her unusual year in Italy, my mother lived a typical life as a middle-class American wife, mother, and grandmother in small towns of the west and midwest. In 2001, Mom and I published her memoir, Americanata: Three Sisters in Italy, 1938. After she passed away in 2012, I've wanted to bring readers up to date with the rest of her life and to include details that have come to light about the trip in 1938. Becky Landrum was indeed a remarkable person and it is a rare privilege to be her son.