Anthony Barker

Gabriele D’Annunzio

Before he died, my uncle Tony gifted me his first Italian edition of Il Fuoco (The Flame, 1900), signed by Gabriele D’Annunzio himself. I regret that I didn’t record where or why he acquired the book. He did teach himself Italian, but I don’t know if he mastered it sufficiently to read the original. IContinue reading “Gabriele D’Annunzio”

Anthony Barker died April 3, 2022. I was able to visit him the week prior. He had been released from the hospital to the assisted living facility that he shared with his wife, Betty. He was on hospice with a prognostication of three more months. Although he was thinner and frailer than I had everContinue reading “Anthony Barker”

Genetics and New England Pathology

I am a W.A.S.P (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) eligible as a card-carrying member of both the Mayflower Society and the Sons of the American Revolution. My maternal grandmother’s sister invested the time and patience to complete the proofs required by the Mayflower Society.[1] That lineage, the Messinger–Taft branch, is documented cleanly from Plymouth Rock to me,Continue reading “Genetics and New England Pathology”