via email from Domenico Marini, 3-12-06 |
|
Dear Mister Ralph ILVA was the name of the steel maker at the time of the photograph. The plant was built back in 1850 in the city of Torre Annunziata, by a French railroad rail manufacturer who named the company Ferriere del Vesuvio. When my grandfather, "nonno Domenico Marini," was first employed in ILVA about 1875, he very soon became the responsible engineer for the rolling mill and furnaces at a time when no electricity was available in the plant. Steam energy was used to power all of the rolling mill machines and to warm roll the rails and steel rods. Because of his daily and nightly production responsibility, my grandfather was granted an apartment inside the ILVA plant grounds, to be used by him and his family. His wife, my "nonna Antonietta," and his children Giuseppe and Renato, the future aviators, and my father Nestore, are present in the photograph. My father Nestore graduated in 1926 and was enployed as an Electromechanical Engineer in the plant. I was also continuously employed as an Electrical Engineer in the same plant. In early 1970, the company was divided 50% with U.S.Steel of Pittsburgh, PA, becoming DERIVER S.p.A. Currently, the company has been dismantled and the large area of the plant will be used as a ship-building yard. In the photograph, I can recognise many young workers who later became my old colleagues when I first started in the plant as a young beginning engineer. In total, three generations of Marini contributed to make steel in the company ! Best regards Domenico Marini |
|
|