Catherine Tripalin Murray has researched, compiled, and published four cookbooks that will ignite your emotions. The old Greenbush neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin lost its identity during the 1960s when an insensitive urban renewal project destroyed the entire 10-block triangular-shaped settlement. The Italians and Sicilians who settled there during the first quarter of the twentieth century and raised their families lost their humble castles and were forced to move elsewhere in neighborhoods where they had never before ventured.
Murray's father, Michael, and his parents, Salvatore and Caterina (DiMaio) Tripolino sailed from Palermo, Sicily in 1909 and spent two years in New York City. In 1911, they traveled to Madison to make a new home in the city's Greenbush settlement. When the enclave, affectionately referred to as the "Bush", lost its identity decades later, Murray sensed a longtime need to make a connection by preserving its memories through food. The innocent attempt to do so mushroomed with treasured family photographs and reflections from former residents.
In 1988, Murray's first book, a taste of memories from the old "Bush" was published. Two years later, a sequel, Volume II, as completed and published. In 1992, Murray completed her third book, a taste of memories from Columbus Park, Volume III, about the old Italian neighborhood in Kenosha, a city along the shores of Lake Michigan about 50 miles directly north of Chicago. Since then, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin has presented her with two Book Awards of Merit. In 1996, Murray's writing returned to her father's old neighborhood with the Grandmothers of Greenbush, this time to make a more pronounced connection with her grandmother, Caterina, who had died a week before the author was born in 1937. The book features women who became mothers during the first quarter of the century to become the future grandmothers of the Greenbush neighborhood. With her grandmother's picture on the cover, light is shed inside of the area's ethnic diversity that made Greenbush Madison's first melting pot.
During this time, Murray's involvement with Madison's Italian community also escalated. She was a member of the Women's Bersagliere, and served six years as president of the Italian American Women's Club. She received the Italian community's prestigious Columbian of the Year Award in 1988 for her dedication to preserve the Italian heritage and, in 1990, became editor of the Italian Workman's Club monthly newsletter, Italia, a position she continues to hold today. She spearheaded a fund raising project at Olbrich Botanical Gardens with Italian family-engraved bricks laid under a grapevine that had been removed from the neighborhood during the urban renewal project, and wrote a monthly column for an Italian newspaper in Michigan. Since 1993, Murray has been a food columnist for the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison's leading daily newspaper.
Catherine Tripalin Murray's work to preserve her heritage and its culture is an everyday affair. She has been recognized and acknowledged throughout the city, state, country, as well as internationally, and recently, Murray and others successfully launched CIAO! (Cultural Italian American Organization). a new club in Madison for Italian men and women, their spouses and adult offspring. Needless to say, she is extremely proud of her background and will continue to write to preserve Greenbush, a neighborhood that no longer exists.
