Italian Folk Figure. She was an ordinary, unpretentious woman who lived her entire life at her native Sant'Arcangelo di Cava de' Tirreni where she owned a green grocery. Her idea of undertaking vigorously the burial of neglected corpses across the Second World War battlefields of Cava raised at first the eyebrows of many, but eventually became deeply appreciated for her efforts, with figures such as Popes Pius XII and John XXIII, tenor Beniamino Gigli and president Giovanni Gronchi showing her their esteem. Everything started after the Allied invasion of Italy when the fast advance of the Anglo-Americans towards Naples left many German bodies lying unburied on open ground. Noticing a group of children playing football with the skull of a German soldier, a deeply religious woman as she was, Lucia took on the job herself, feeling it was very duty to see that these fallen soldiers, in spite of being enemies in the eyes of her fellow countryman, receive a dignified interment. In the years that followed she collected the remains of over seven hundred soldiers, mostly Germans, but also those of some Italian and Allied troops. Replying "Song' tutt' figl 'e mamma" (They're all sons of a mother) to those who tried to stop her from leading such a task, with some saying that it was a waste of time and money and others referring to the big risks she was undertaking because of some unexploded ordnance she might step on in the fields, thanks to her, many mothers, especially in Germany, were at last able to have the remains of their respective son located, identified and repatriated. Placing them in separate boxes of zinc, the remains were at first all transported to the church of Santa Maria della Pietà at Borgo Scacciaventi, eventually declared unfit for further use following the 1980 earthquake of Irpinia. Decorated with the grand cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by president Theodor Heuss and with the Commenda al Merito della Repubblica Italiana by president Giovanni Gronchi, she was named honorary citizen of Salerno, where she received a gold medal 'al merito civile alla memoria' from Sandro Pertini, president of Italy, in July 1980 when ninety two years of age. Upon her death, her body was laid out in state for two days. A square in Sant'Arcangelo has been since named after her while a prize for courageous women also carries her name: 'Premio Mamma Lucia alle donne coraggio'. Still highly revered at Cava, many are those would would like to see her cause for beatification initiated.