Genoveffa Cook (nee Cernogoraz), a homemaker and writer, died peacefully Friday morning at her Severna Park home of breast cancer. She was 79.

Ms. Cook was born to a poor family in Torre di Parenzo, which was a northern Italian town prior to World War II. She was the seventh born daughter of a seventh born daughter and she always considered that a sign of luck. However, her childhood was not an easy one. Her father died when she young and the family fish store did not bring in a lot of money. She also had poor health as a child due to an accident where her flannel nightgown had caught on fire, and had to stay home most of the time.

Ms. Cook, her mother and sisters eventually left their town which had become part of Communist Yugoslavia and moved to the Free Territory of Trieste. Her luck changed one day in the summer of 1946, when she saw a group of boys and girls having fun picking mussels. As she was wishing that she could be happy like them, she slipped and fell into the water. She was scared, because she could not swim. It felt like an eternity as she sank to the bottom, but somehow, she was able to grab the rocks and pull herself out. Afterward she felt light inside, as if a big stone had been lifted off her chest. When she went to the doctor the next week, he noticed that her breathing had strangely improved. The doctor said she no longer had to come back for the weekly shots. She felt as if she had a new lease on life and that she should try to live each day to the fullest.

One day she was having trouble closing the blinds of the beauty parlor where she worked. An American Army soldier, Robert Joseph Cook, who was stationed in Trieste, stopped to help her. She did not think too much of it until he showed up the next day asking if she needed help again.

He started showing up regularly and eventually they started dating. As an Army solider, he needed permission to date an Italian. When he took that effort, she said she knew in her heart that he would be the one she would marry.

After a courtship which included sight-seeing and chaperoned visits to relatives throughout Italy, they married on March 23, 1954 and moved to the United States. They had one daughter, Ann Amalia Dean. They were mainly stationed at Aberdeen Proving Grounds until 1969, when they moved to their current residence in Severna Park.

In later years, inspired by her granddaughter's Washington College writing class, Ms. Cook decided to write the memoirs of her brother Alberto, who was arrested in 1943 as a member of the Italian underground and presumed dead. After the war, his family learned he was imprisoned at the Dachua concentration camp. Records from the camp show he arrived shortly before Christmas on December 20, 1944. He liberated from the Dachau concentration camp by American troops in 1945. He credited his survival to his good teeth that allowed him to chew roots that he found. She was especially proud that her brother's story is in the permanent collection in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.

In Italy she had wanted to go to school to become a writer, but she gave up that dream when she came to America. She was unsure of herself because English is not her native language and she did not have much formal schooling. Pleased by the positive comments she received on her brother's story, she was inspired to fulfill her childhood dream. From that moment on, it seemed like she was always writing. She especially liked writing about her experiences during World War II, her life afterwards, and about people she had known. As her illness progressed, one of her favorite things was to have her stories read to her.

Genoveffa Cook was preceded by her husband Robert Joseph Cook. Besides her daughter, Ann Dean, she is survived by two grandchildren, Ingrid and Anthony Dean.

Visitation will be held on what would have been her 80th birthday, Tuesday, May 26, 2009 from 5 PM until 8 PM at Barranco & Sons, P.A., 495 Ritchie Highway, Severna Park, MD 21146. A funeral service will follow the next day on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 12.30 P.M. with internment immediately following at Crownsville Veterans Cemetery, 1122 Sunrise Beach Road, Crownsville, Maryland 21032. Following the funeral there will be a reception at the Elks Lodge at 931 Lake Drive, Arnold, Maryland 21012. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.