<  FRANCA'S STORY

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Franca's Story chronicles a young girl's determination to help her family survive World War II in Italy, spanning the years 1937-1945.  The onset of war shatters Franca Mercati's priviledged childhood in Florence, devastates her aristocratic family, and threatens the Italian way of life.  Her sisters' fiances, then two of her brothers are sent to the front.  A third brother, award-winning author Krimer, befriended by Hemingway and Picasso, volunteers as a war correspondent in Tripoli.  The family flees their palatial home in Florence to escape Allied bombs and settles in their beach home at Viareggio.  One brother is soon killed and a second is missing in action.  Franca and her father secure a private audience with the Pope – will his influence help them find the missing Lieutenant Mercati?

Franca discovers her father is helping Jewish children escape; she secretly uses his connections to rescue a wounded British pilot.  She watches in horror as her school friends die in the bombing of a train station; helps when her brother-in-law is severely beaten by Fascists; and survives a harrowing ride with a deserting Nazi doctor.  The family's beach home and all their possessions are destroyed before their eyes.  Franca and her family slide from wealthy aristocrats to impoverished refugees surviving hand to mouth at Pianore, an old Hapsburg palace on the Italian Riviera.  She and her friend Lilly scavenge for food to feed 300 older citizens living there.  Franca overcomes obstacles with courage, ingenuity, good humor, and a deep faith in God as her dreams of living a traditional adolescent life are shattered by a world filled with turbulence.