Maine marriage record lists as “Bernice A.” of Revere, Massachusetts marrying Joseph A. Marmai of Boston, Massachusetts on May 12, 1939. Her sister, Angeline G. also seems to have been married in Maine, August 8, 1953 to Louis Lopilato, both of Everett, Massachusetts.

Sister’s obituary refers to her as Bernice.

According to sister’s obituary: Her family moved to the Boston area in 1908 from Albanelia, Italy. (Albanella, Salerno near Naples)

1930 Census has “Anna” age 13.

ANN B MARMAI 06-JUN-17 02050

ANN MARMAI
  SSN 029-03-6062
Residence: 02050  Marshfield, Plymouth, MA
  Born 6 Jun 1916
Last Benefit: 02050  Marshfield, Plymouth, MA
  Died 24 Apr 1990
Issued:
MA (Before 1951)

ANN B. MARMAI , 73
FORMER CO-OWNER OF CAFFE ROMA

Author: Date: 04/27/1990 Page: 19
Section: OBITUARY
Ann B. (Cuoco) Marmai , a former co-owner of the Caffe Roma on Hanover Street in the North End, died of leukemia Tuesday at her home in Marshfield. She was 73.

Mrs. Marmai and her husband, Joseph A., owned and operated the pastry and gift shop from 1972 until they sold it in 1985 and retired.

A founder and the first president of the Sons of Italy Lodge in Marshfield, Mrs. Marmai was also a trustee of the group's state and national lodges and organized statewide blood drives for the Sons of Italy in the 1970s and 1980s.

Born in East Boston, she graduated from Revere High School and Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing. She was a staff nurse in an MGH operating room in the 1940s.

Mrs. Marmai had been a notary public and justice of the peace, member of the Marshfield Democratic Town Committee, Catholic Daughters of America and St. Ann's Church Sodality in Marshfield, and solicited contributions to the March of Dimes and a number of other medical research charities. She was an honorary sheriff of Plymouth County.

In addition to her husband, she leaves a son, Joseph E. of Hanover; a daughter, Sugar Young of Marshfield; a sister, Angela Lopilato of Everett; two brothers, Anthony Cuoco of Tewksbury and Orlando Cuoco of Revere; and six grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be said at noon tomorrow in St. Ann's Church. Burial will be in Winslow Cemetery, Marshfield.

Author: Linda Matchan
Date: 11/06/1980
Boston Globe
The first thing to know about shopping for Italian pastry in the North End is that every pastry shop sells the best stuff. The owners tell you that right off. At Prince Pastry Shop, 2 Prince st., Angela Bradan- ese says her whipped toppings are the best around because she's the only pastry shop owner in the North End who uses real whipped cream. "I know that. I know because my milkman told me."

It's the same thing at Caffe Roma, 239 Hanover st. Owner Ann Marmai will tell you that her husband Joseph, who does the baking, is the only pastry maker in the North End who rolls out the cannoli shells by hand "and you won't find anybody else who does that, I don't care what they tell you." She'll also have you know that not just anybody eats her cannolis. "We get some big people here, the cream of the crop. From the State House, Mass. General, City Hall, the John Hancock . . ."

The second thing about Italian pastry is, as one observer drooled, "they look so good it's almost immoral." Italian pastries are culinary phenomena: Only in the North End do you find sugar on top of honey, custard on sugar, whipped cream on custard on rum on cake. Whether it's a cannoli that you choose, or a rum baba, parigina, sfogliatella, monackina or any of the myriad other Italian treats, you can be confident that the pastries will be as achingly sweet and tempting as they are hard to pronounce.

There are about seven shops in the North End that sell pastry-to-go. Besides Prince Pastry Shop and Caffe Roma you'll find sweets at Mike's Pastry, 300 Hanover st; Bova Bakery, 134 Salem st; Modern Bakery at 257 Hanover st. and 46 Cross st; Motolla's at 95 Salem st; and Rocco's Pastry Shop at 286 Hanover st.

Each has its own unique features, its own schtick. At Caffe Roma, it's the
window display: Marmai dresses the window with fancy dolls and frills and decorations and says she's "not bragging" but she happens to have the nicest
window on the street. Modern Bakery is known, among other things, for owner John Picarilly's torrone, an extravagantly rich $5-a-pound nougat of bittersweet chocolate, honey, and almonds, and for marzipan, which is hand- sculpted to look like carrots, strawberries, pears, even mushrooms.

Motolla's specializes in cookies of all kinds, Bova Bakery stays open around the clock, and Mike Mercogliano of Mike's Pastry insists that, all around, his cannolis are the best in town; his filling is smooth, not "lumpy like all those other places."

If you like sweet pastry, it doesn't matter if you confuse cannoli and canneloni. Here's a novice's guide to some of the many kinds of Italian pastries in Boston's North End. And while you're trying them out, keep in mind the old Italian expression: "Quel che non ammazza ingrassa." In other words, if it doesn't kill you, it will make you fat.

"They come in here and ask for canneloni, canneli, canellini, everything you can imagine," says Angela Bradanese of Prince Pastry. "I think it's on the tour agenda. Everyone wants them."

A cannoli is a pastry shell stuffed with a creamy filling. The shell is crispy and bubbly, and it's said that in the old days the pastry was fried wrapped around pieces of canna (bamboo cane). Thus the name cannoli.

As for the filling, the traditional stuffing is sweet, creamy ricotta cheese, but many North End pastry shops also sell cannolis filled with a chocolate or a vanilla cream custard. They're available at every North End pastry shop.

- Prince Pastry: Definitely the prince of cannoli. They look the nicest and taste the best. The chocolate-filled version tastes like chocolate, and the ricotta isn't sickly sweet as it is at several other shops. Chocolate chips are added to the filling - a nice touch - and fresh nuts are sprinkled on top. "We used to use pistachio nuts, but they came from Iran so we stopped," Bradanese says. "Other places use colored peanuts, but I won't use them. They're bad for the stomach. Green dyes are as bad as the red."

- Mike's Pastry Shop: Just as Mike said, cannolis are smooth and creamy, not lumpy. Mike's is the only place in the North End (says Mike) that sells the spectacular Florentine-style cannoli, a gooey pastry with a shell made of a sort of peanut brittle, with chocolate.

- Caffe Roma: High marks. Tasty and crispy, with chocolate chips on the inside and green nuts on the outside.

- Modern Bakery: Thick and creamy, very sweet.

- Motolla's: Ricotta cannoli is passable, but with your eyes closed you'd swear the chocolate and yellow cream cannolis were the same.

- Bova: The only pastry shop that did not fill the shell on order; the cannoli was sold ready-made. Also, no nuts, green or otherwise.

- Rocco's: Not a big hit. Pastry was too thick, the ricotta tasted sour, and the custard was heavy and starchy.

PARIGINA

Sold in squares, this layered dessert has a flaky pastry on top and on the bottom, and alternating layers of sponge cake soaked in rum, and creamy custard sandwiched between. It's easily identified by the decorative layer of confectioners sugar on the top.

With Caffe Roma running a close second, Prince Pastry was the big winner again. The sponge cake layers managed remarkably to taste dry and fresh, even though they were heavily spiced with rum. Motolla's and Mike's were tasty but slightly soggy, Modern's was tasty but a little too sweet, and Rocco's had a burned taste and so much confectioners sugar on top you almost needed snowshoes on your teeth to get through it.

RUM BABA

Also called baba rum, this spongy, golden, sweet bread is sold as an individual cupcake shaped like a light bulb. It's made with eggs, flour, sugar and salt and is soaked in a rum-flavored syrup. For an added attraction (hey, what's a few calories?), it's also available in a luxury model - split open, stuffed with cream custard and topped with a cherry.

The distinctive characteristic of about all North End rum babas is that they are literally drenched in rum (I almost lost a baba on the way home when it soaked its way through the bag). No shop's product tasted better or worse than any other; they will all numb your tongue and keep your sweet tooth
satisfied for days.

SFOGLIATELLA

Americans call this flaky dessert the seashell pastry, because of its scalloped appearance. Its round, breadlike exterior suggests a French croissant, but taste-wise it doesn't resemble anything at all. It's almost as if the sfogliatella can't decide if it's a dessert or an appetizer; it's crusty and innocuous looking on the outside, but inside, it's a jumble of creamed cheese, cooked farina, fruit, cinammon, orange flavoring and vanilla.

Mike's and Modern Bakery are the best bets in this category, for all- around flakiness and flavor. Rocco's gained some ground in the sfogliatella department, while Motolla's scored high in flavor, but low in texture because of its rubbery, almost gummy consistency.

CHRISPELLE

This is a specialty of Modern Bakery alone. It is made of exactly this: fried dough, honey and mixed nuts. It's hard to imagine anything sweeter or richer. The dough is molded like a king's crown and is fluted to keep the honey concoction from dripping out. An economical choice, since at a cost of 55 to 70 cents (depending on the size), one is enough.

NEAPOLITAN

This long, thin pastry, layered with custard cream and flaky dough, and topped with a glaze, is identical to the French Napolean. The most memorable Neapolitans are those at Caffe Roma. The yellow cream filling is rich and thick, and the glazed topping has a classy artistic design. Even if you don't like sweets, this one is worth buying just to look at.

MONACKINA

Most peculiar looking. Its nearest American relative is the turnover, but that's not even close. Monackina is a hefty, triangular-shaped puff pastry bulging with a double-decker of chocolate and yellow cream custard. It looks almost like a giant grin, but the grin is inappropriate: None scored high points in my books. They were either flavorless on the inside, or doughy and hard on the inside, and all are so massive and awesome in appearance that eating them is more a challenge than a pleasure.

SUNDAE

Some call them butterflies, some call them upside-downs, some call them
cupcakes. The most fitting name is sundae, though, since that's what it looks like. But instead of ice cream, there's rum-flavored sponge cake and custard inside, and whipped cream (or a facsimile) on the top, with a coating of chocolate sprinkles and a cherry sitting on all of it. Basically, the sponge cake tastes just as it did in the parigina, and the cream tastes as it did in the monackina. The chief advantage to the sundae is that it's neat. The filling doesn't slop out both ends as it does with cannoli, it doesn't stick to your teeth as the rum baba does, or threaten to break your jaw the way the monackina does.

And it's easy to pronounce.