Matt and Carmella moved to Tuolumne County, California from Camarillo in 2005 to be close to their son’s family and to watch their four granddaughters grow into women. They were married sixty years when Carmella passed away in September 2022. Matt’s father grew up in Manhattan, and was a New York City policeman. Matt’s mother passed away from a brain tumor when he was eleven. He witnessed her battle to live and see her two sons grew but it was an incurable condition. Matt and Carmella were both born in New York. Matt went to Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx and Carmella to Cathedral High School in Manhattan. Matt won a New York State Regents Scholarship and was then able to afford college. Traveling on the subway system each day from his home in Queens to school in the north Bronx made it difficult to keep up with his studies and he only completed two years. Matt was friends with Carmella’s brother in high school. Matt and she first met at his Junior Prom. She was fourteen and he was sixteen. The following year Matt accepted her invitation to attend a Christmas Party. She remembered he was tall and was trying to fix him up with her tall girlfriend. It didn’t work out as she planned and they began dating soon after. In 1962 war seemed imminent and being in love they decided it was time to marry. Matt started his 43-year insurance career with INA inspecting elevators in New York City’s skyscrapers. He rode the tops of elevator-cars checking for breaks in the cables. The country mobilized for war and men like Matt were ordered to report to their Draft Boards. After the mobilization ended Chubb & Son hired him and he inspected property risks in New York. He soon became an underwriter for Chubb and moved the family to Denville, New Jersey. While living there he became a volunteer fireman. Chubb eventually promoted Matt into underwriting Surplus Lines which were risks uninsurable in the standard markets. In 1975, Matt accepted a position in Los Angeles underwriting entertainment industry productions. And he became a licensed Surplus Line Broker in California. Before moving west from New Jersey, Matt and Carmella adopted a baby girl, Christine, and a baby boy, Matthew. For the sake of his children’s stability, he did not accept his Chubb’s offer of a nice promotion back to New York City. He had to resign which was their standard practice if such a transfer was turned down. His career followed the path of underwriting and managing for facultative reinsurance, surplus lines brokering and earthquake underwriting companies. At the age of forty Matt developed Type 1 Diabetes and had to deal with that throughout his career. They were living in Camarillo in 1994 when the Northridge earthquake hit the LA area. Not only did his company suffer major losses but their office was heavily damaged. Matt stayed busy processing the claims resulting from all the damaged structures. All their claims were paid within the reinsurance treaties he had placed in London, Bermuda and New York. Some years ago, their son Matt and his wife, Trisha, and their four daughters Evelyn (Eva), Emma, Ella and Eden moved to Tuolumne County and purchased the Columbia Nursery, which they eventually sold. Christine lives in Southern California and has no children. Since retiring, Matt has enjoyed using the time for his hobby - writing. He has written both science fiction “Damalution 2072” and historical fiction “Never Go Home,” about East Europeans during World War II. Writing runs in the family as his father was also a writer and Matt has published his autobiography, “Badge #1843 NYPD”, a unique historical view of the early Twentieth Century in the Big Apple. Matt now volunteers on his senior community’s Emergency Evacuation Committee, is a Trustee at his Elks Lodge, helps prepare grocery bags at his church’s food pantry and ushers at their Sunday Masses. Matt also enjoys playing poker and chess.