The young Assuntarella studied piano at the Conservatoire in Naples where she met her composition teacher, Maestro Antonio Savasta. Although much older, he fell in love with her beauty and married her. In 1927, after the wedding they moved to Palermo where Savasta ran the local conservatoire.
They only lived there for ten years as Aunty Assuntarella missed her beloved Naples, and didn't like living in Palermo. Antonio Savasta was a famous composer of his time .Although today his works have been forgotten, some of them, Galatea, Vera and la Fonte, were performed in the biggest opera houses of the time and radio-broadcasted on the radio when television had not yet been invented. The famous Maestro Davalos asked us for a copy of Savasta's works and we handed this request on to the present director of the conservatoire of Palermo which received in donation Savasta's papers, his piano and the furniture of his studio when the Maestro passed away in 1959. I remember visiting uncle Tonio when I was a child. He had become blind and used to walk with a stick, he loved children and many years ago, when Neapolitan children used to have presents by Befana instead of Father Xmas, one Twelfth Night Aunty Assuntarella dressed up as Befana and we children belieded we saw her...flying.