About The Author
Mary B. Relotto
Mary B. Relotto (pictured here, with her birth mother) is an author, entrepreneur, educator, and community advocate whose life and work have been shaped by resilience, adaptation, and an unwavering search for truth. Born in northern Italy, Mary B. was placed in a Catholic institution shortly after birth and adopted by an Italian American family in Ohio at two and a half years old.
For more than thirty years, she has returned to Italy searching for answers about her origins, ultimately reuniting with her biological family, reclaiming her Italian citizenship, and uncovering a much larger story about the system that sent thousands of Italian children to America for adoption. Her journey was featured on 60 Minutes in “The Vatican’s Orphans,” on Italian television, and in Maria Laurino’s The Price of Children.
Beyond writing, Mary B. has built a career in entrepreneurship, nonprofit leadership, education, and community advocacy. In her memoir, For One Piece of Bread, she brings those worlds together, using her own story to examine adoption, identity, family, loss, belonging, and the power of adaptation— while continuing to expose the Catholic Church’s role in international adoption, one story at a time.
For more than thirty years, she has returned to Italy searching for answers about her origins, ultimately reuniting with her biological family, reclaiming her Italian citizenship, and uncovering a much larger story about the system that sent thousands of Italian children to America for adoption. Her journey was featured on 60 Minutes in “The Vatican’s Orphans,” on Italian television, and in Maria Laurino’s The Price of Children.
Beyond writing, Mary B. has built a career in entrepreneurship, nonprofit leadership, education, and community advocacy. In her memoir, For One Piece of Bread, she brings those worlds together, using her own story to examine adoption, identity, family, loss, belonging, and the power of adaptation— while continuing to expose the Catholic Church’s role in international adoption, one story at a time.
