Iride Falconi is an ordinary woman. Behind the bar at Caffe Turismo, she wipes the counter and serves iced tea to her customers making conversation in her pleasant dialect. She pauses periodically to refill her husband's wineglass and bring it to him, out of sight in the back room, and returns to speak proudly of her four grown children, Reginaldo, Anna, Romero, and Luccio. Her family has always been her first concern, she explains, and her children her greatest love. They are all grown now and have families of their own, but Iride still thinks of motherhood as her primary role.

Iride Falconi is an extraordinary woman. Her pale blue eyes shimmer and a coy grin keeps appearing and disappearing on her 74-year old face. Though she leads a simple life as a barista and a dedicated wife and mother, Iride has a story. In fact she has several, and she begins pouring them out in her sweet voice, intent on sharing all. "I have many stories," she says, "but my stories are true." Her expression becomes serious, honesty is important to Iride Falconi.

The letter arrives while Marino is at work, so Iride sees it first. Her husband has been accepted to a program in Belgium where he will be trained to work in the mines. The work is dangerous, and Iride will not be able to go with him until his apprenticeship is over. She is afraid for her husband, so she tears up the letter and throws it on the hearth. World War II has just ended and work is scarce in Italy. Many of Cagli's men are looking for work in Belgium's mines, and several of Marino's friends have been accepted to the program. Weeks go by, and the young lumberjack is depressed because he has not received his letter. Tearfully, Iride tells him what she has done. He takes her in his arms. "Don't worry my darling," he says, "I am too tired to work in the woods. I promise that soon I will bring you to me."

Nine-year-old Iride is watching her father cut wood. She loves to watch him work. He is a good man, kind to his wife and children and it is striking to his daughter that he can be both so good and so strong. She watches him work outside in the summer sun, and notices for the first time the stub that used to be his thumb. Crying, Iride runs into the house to her mother, and understands the importance of her father's work. Without a thumb and in the intense heat of summer, Iride's father works to provide for his family. Young Iride vows to dedicate herself to work.

Iride Falconi is a hardworking woman. For 42 years, she has awakened at 4 a.m. every day to open and manage her family's bar. She is very tired, she says, but very happy. Her hard work has taught her one thing -- her "treasure," she calls it, "When you are tired and upset, you must stop everything and take one hour to think of your family." The happiness of the family is the reward for hard work. Iride works while her husband rests, but she explains that his rest is well deserved. Like his wife, Marino Baglioni has worked hard. He married Iride when he was 19 and she 15, and went to work in the woods as a lumberjack; Iride went with him. When she became pregnant with their first child, she returned to the countryside outside of Cagli but Marino remained in the woods to struggle to make a good life for his wife and child. He still came home monthly to take his wife dancing.