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DeFelice, Luigina Balzaretti

Last Name: DeFelice
First Name: Luigina
Dates:
*1908 (Date of Birth)
*2006 (Date of Death)
Biography/History: In 1924, Luigina Balzaretti traveled with her mother and siblings from the Langosco area near Milan, Italy to join her father in Spokane. He had left Italy 12 years earlier, seeking work other than farming and rice harvesting; the delay in sending for his family grew longer with the outbreak of World War I and tougher immigration laws. At a young age in Italy, Luigina had studied design and learned to cut patterns; her mother also worked as a tailor there, and even occasionally upset the household to raise silk cocoons for income. Now in Spokane, at age 16, Luigina anglicized her name to Louise, and established herself as a skilled dressmaker, while attending night classes in English at Lewis & Clark High School. She first worked out of her family’s home, but its lack of privacy pushed her to travel by bus and streetcar to prosperous South Hill and Browne’s Addition homes, where she measured, sewed, and altered clothing. After Louise met seamstress, Stena Lorenzi, they took the risk of renting downtown space from 1929 until 1933. Calling themselves Madam Lorenzi and Madamoiselle Louise, each maintained her own clientele in the shop called “Luigina Modiste” (Room 406 Ziegler Block at Riverside & Howard). Despite the challenge of covering the rent at about $40 per month, Louise managed the shop for five years until she was engaged to be married, noting that “there wasn’t much money in it.” With the start of the Depression, there was less interest in custom dressmaking and more ready-made clothing available. She sold the shop to Stena Lorenzi (1896-1989), who operated it briefly before moving her work space back into her home. In 1933, Louise married Fileno DeFelice, manager at the U.S. Macaroni Co. pasta factory started by his father and several other Italian immigrants in 1916. After their marriage, Louise made clothing for family instead of for clients.
Related Participants:
Related Objects:
4158.30 (Dress, Organdy Dress, 1940)