Framing a Life: A Family Memoir, Geraldine Ferraro with Catherine Whitney. Scribner, 1998.
Gerry Ferraro’s last book was written as a testament to her mother Antonetta Ferraro. Gerry chronicles the struggles and sacrifices that her mother endured to provide Gerry and her brother Carl, a chance to successfully mainstream into American society.
Antonetta’s sacrifices more than paid off many times as reflected in Gerry’s many extraordinary achievements from building a strong family with her husband John, to her early rise as a Queens Assistant District Attorney heading up the Sex Crimes Unit, then when she became a US Congresswoman and then later when she was chosen, in 1984, as the first woman to be nominated as a Vice Presidential candidate for a major party.
While writing the story of her mother’s struggles and the path that Antonetta took, Gerry sought Regina’s assistance in researching the history of Italian immigrants from 1880 onward to ensure that the book accurately reflected the Italian immigrant movement to the US and specifically New York.
Gerry Ferraro thanks “Regina Calcaterra for her excellent work researching the history of the Italian American community” in the Acknowledgements section of the book.