Told by her Daughter Dolenna (Dolly) Vinnetti

  One day in 1978, a young teenage girl of 16, whose

name was Annabelle Vinnetti (who would become Dolly’s

mother) was walking home from her part time job in a

small town about 150 miles north of Rome.

  Anna’s mother had a small tomato farm a few miles south of town.

  While Anna was walking along the dirt-covered road

toward home, a big black car came speeding past; swerving this way and that, gravel flying in all directions. The driver was obviously drunk, high, or both!

  She heard a few ‘cat-whistles’ directed her way as they

careened on by. Being a beautiful young woman, she was

used to being whistled at so she didn’t think anything of it.

  It was a beautiful evening, so she loitered on the way

home. When she got to the yard in front of her house; she

was at first surprised, then scared, to see the big black car

sitting there!

  When she went inside she was horrified! Two men were

holding her mother while the a third one sodomized her.

She tried to pull the one who was doing it off her mother,

but the man on the left smacked her so hard that she was

knocked over a chair onto the floor!

  Then, the man involved in the intercourse; obviously

finished, turned around buckling up his pants; said. “Why

waste any more time on the mother when we’ve got this

little ‘hellcat’ to play with!” Another one said, “Lets bring

her with us, Buck! Lenny and the boys will want to get in on this, too!” The third one, a huge black man laughed and said, “I’ve got ‘firsties’ on this one!”

  The big black and the man who sodomized her mother

grabbed Anne and forced her out the door into the big

black car. The third man stayed in the house.  While being pushed into the car, Anne heard two gunshots from inside the house! Immediately, she knew her mother was dead!

  Three days later, the occupants of a big black car drove

to a desolate spot on the Mediterranean beach and threw

out of the back door what appeared to be a battered and

torn corps! The car barley slowed down enough to do it!

  Anne woke up lying twisted on the sand with the only clothes on her torn body the mini-skirt she had been wearing and a small mans unbuttoned shirt; her bruised and battered breasts exposed to the noon-day sun.

  She could hear voices off in the distance, but could not utter a sound though her swelled lips and mouth. So she just lay there, ready to die!

  It was a gorgeous and warm day in June when little 10

year-old Thomas Veristo told the nuns that he was going to take a walk on the beach to see if he could find anything of value. He was told to be home by suppertime by Mother

Superior Avella as he walked out the door of the dilapidated monastery where he and the nuns lived.

He spent the early afternoon searching for valuables, finding only a pair of tennis shoes; too big for him, but maybe the nuns could use them.

  Then, unknown to him why, Tommy had this

premonition to search along a stretch of beach he seldom

went to because very few people used it; thus less chance to find ‘treasure’!

  He walked over a sand dune covered with wild oat

plants and saw the horrific site of Anne’s body! Not

knowing what to do, he cautiously approached the body and poked her in the side. All Anne could do was grunt, ‘uh, uh’, and opened one swollen eye, but it was enough. The boy now knew she was alive!

  Like all boys, fascinated with female anatomy and despite her terribly bruised and swollen breasts and body, she noticed the boy stare at them for a second or two, then he bent down, straighten out Anne’s body and drew the shirt together and buttoned a couple of buttons. He then pulled her mini-skirt to its proper position and, without thinking, told Anne not to go anyplace. That he would go for help!

  The next conscious memory my mother had was waking

up to see four nuns in full habit, staring down on her. She

was spoon fed some broth and then she fell back into a deep sleep. She didn’t wake up until late the next day!

  Upon waking, instead of four nuns hovering over her,

there was a very old man looking down on her who could

have been somewhere between 80 and 100 years old, for all she knew. His face hardened and lined by a lot of life and tragedy.

  His name was Minto Saga and he was a retired doctor

who offered his services to the area residents; asking them

to pay, ‘whatever they could’.

  She was told that she would have to have ‘female’

surgery and was asked if she had any insurance.

Italy had basic health care set up for the poor at the

time, but not for surgery that wasn’t life threatening.

She was also told she would never be able to conceive to

have a child of her own.

  The more immediate problem, though, along with everything else, was that the Doctor believed she had been infected with syphilis. Luckily, the old Doctor had Penicillin on hand (and not much else) and it

was effective against the strain my mother had!

  Dolly continued on. My mother told me she convalesced

with the nuns, who waited on her hand and foot for two

months before she was able to finally get out of bed.

  One good thing that happened during this time was that

a French couple that was living in Rome at the time adopted Tommy, the young boy who had found her mother on the beach.

  After she was up and hobbling around for a few days,

one of the nuns drove her into town in their ancient Fiat to

have a thorough check-up at the old Doctor’s residence. (His clients in the area where too poor for the doctor to be able to afford an office) After the check-up, the Doctor told my mother some news that he felt would surely devastate her. She was pregnant!

  To his great surprise, my mother was ecstatic with joy.

After she calmed down a little, she asked the doctor how

that could be, since only a few months ago the Doctor had

told her she could never conceive. The answer was that she

must have conceived before the worst damage had been done during the rape!

So, my mother stayed with the nuns, helping out wherever she could.

  On the night I was to be born, they all waited in

anticipation. The biggest question on their minds was would I be half black, Oriental, Arabic or white? (For the six men who raped and abused Anne that night nine months ago where represented by all four of those races!)

  Dolly continued, “Well, as you can see, I turned out to

be white and I’m thankful to be alive! If there ever were a

candidate destined for abortion, you would have thought it

would have been me!”