“Ramsey County History – Fall 2013: “Growing Up in St. Paul: My Family and La Nuova Vita”

Growing Up in St. Paul: My Family and La Nuova Vita
Author: Eugene A. Rancone

This is a memoir of a man who grew up in the neighborhood of St. Paul’s Upper Levee in the 1930s and ’40s. He recounts his immigrant forebears who came to the city from Italy and worked hard to make a new life in America. Author Eugene Rancone stresses the importance of his parents, his Italian heritage, the City of St. Paul, and his Catholic faith in shaping his early years. He graduated from Cretin High School in 1947, enrolled at the University of Minnesota, and joined the Minnesota Air National Guard. Eventually, he became a pilot in the US Air Force, served in the Korean War, and married a woman from St. Paul. In 1953, he returned to civilian life and began a career in commercial real estate development and construction. His firm built the city’s Landmark Tower, which opened in 1983 with a statue dedicated to La Nuova Vita in its entryway.
PDF of Rancone article