Mari Tomasi Papers

Mari Tomasi was born in Montpelier, Vermont on January 30, 1907. She attended the local school and then went on to Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts and then Trinity College in Burlington. Her early goal in life was to study medicine, but she later decided upon teaching. Despite these goals, writing was her main interest, and she left Trinity to write for newspapers and magazines. She published her first novel, Deep Grow the Roots, in 1940, and the following year she received a Breadloaf Writer's Conference Fellowship. During these years, she was city editor for the Montpelier Evening Argus and was a member of the Vermont Writers Project.

Tomasi's next novel, Like Lesser Gods, was published in 1949. It concerns the granite workers of Barre, Vermont, and the many dangers and health hazards suffered by the Italians in Barre. The granite quarries were one of Tomasi's main interests, for much of her writing was concerned with the flow of Italians to New England and especially Vermont.

In addition to the two novels, Tomasi wrote short stories, newspaper and magazine articles and edited the Vermont State Welfare magazine. She also served, for a short time, as city representative to the Vermont General Assembly. She was very active in the Poetry Society of Vermont, and she submitted several poems to P.S.O.V. contests. After a brief illness, Mari Tomasi died on November10, 1965 in Burlington, Vermont.