Marianne Gilbert Finnegan

Marianne Gilbert Finnegan was born in Berlin, Germany. Her mother Elizabeth (Geldner), a singer, was Lutheran and her father Robert Gilbert (né Winterfeld), a well-known songwriter and composer, was Jewish. When the Nazi regime came to power two years later in 1933, the family fled Germany and eventually reached the USA. They settled in New York City, where Marianne's father tried to write in English for the Broadway stage and her mother worked in factories to support the household. Marianne earned a bachelor's degree from Western Connecticut University in 1968 and a PhD from the University of Connecticut in 1976. In 1978, she married Walter J. Finnegan, with whom she had three children. Her subsequent career included years as director of the Connecticut Humanities Council, as administrator and professor at Empire State College in Saratoga Springs, New York, and as owner of the Griffin Bookshop in the Algarve region of Portugal, where she lived for five years. Her autobiography Memories of a Michling: Becoming an American, was published in 2002. Other published works include Ourselves: Then and Now (editor, 1997) and a memoir, Dreaming of Portugal (2005).