Word: lupatoto
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Maria Alfonsina Ghini was different from the other peasant girls of the village of San Giovanni Lupatoto. While they worked in the fields and vineyards, laughed, danced at festivals, married and bore children, Maria grew more lonely. She dressed always in black, like a nun. Almost every day she made her way alone along the dusty grey road from her family's farmhouse to the parish church. She ministered gently to ailing peasants who came to her for cures. Though she performed no miracles, it was said that once, when she was caught in a drenching storm...
Three months ago Maria announced that she would die on the night of the Feast of the Assumption, Aug. 15. When the day arrived, the village of San Giovanni Lupatoto was crowded with 20,000 visitors. They came afoot, on bicycles or riding two-wheeled donkey carts. As they waited for Maria's death, their own life brawled through the narrow streets. Barrels of wine flowed at the village inns. Sidewalk loafers opened up parking lots for bicycles, hawked Maria's autograph to dusty pilgrims. In the village square a rusty gramophone was grinding out popular waltz tunes...
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