Multimedia artist and longtime Truro resident Marinna Matricardi died at home in her sleep on April 16, 2025. She was 89.
The second youngest of four siblings, Marinna was born in Riccione, Italy on June 26, 1935 to the late Silvio and Adele Matricardi. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father was an artist who worked for Alitalia making illustrations of airplanes. The Matricardi family had emigrated to the United States, where her older brother and sister were born, before Marinna’s birth. They returned to Italy during the Depression and emigrated again in 1951. They lived in Queens, N.Y. in an apartment building that Silvio owned and maintained.
Marinna attended Washington Irving High School, well known for its arts programs. She went on to attend Cooper Union in New York, where she met her first husband, Warren Infield, whom she married in 1960. After graduating, Marinna moved to Philadelphia with Warren and their two children, Daniela and Marc, where she earned a master of fine arts degree from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. She taught fine arts courses at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia (formerly known as the Philadelphia College of Art), the Cape Conservatory, and the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill.
Often seen accompanied by her dogs, Marinna loved long walks on the beach at Longnook, Ballston, and Corn Hill. She had a vibrant group of close friends and enjoyed creating art throughout her life, working in a variety of mediums including bronze, rope, ceramics, gold leaf, cardboard, and wood. With a keen attention to detail described by her family as meticulous, she was a skilled calligrapher and pen-and-ink artist as well. Marinna exhibited her work at Castle Hill in Truro and the Cape Conservatory in Barnstable. “Marinna could do just about anything — she was a very capable person,” said her longtime friend Tina Tarantal.
Marinna and Warren built a summer house on Fisherman’s Road, which became a year-round home for Marinna and her children in 1977 following the couple’s divorce.
Marinna worked at the Mid-Cape Home Centers in Wellfleet and Orleans. She also worked as a real estate broker at Pamet Realty Associates in Truro alongside her second husband, Alfred K. Souza. She served for many years on the Truro Zoning Board of Appeals, until 2014. She made many friends as part of a conversational Italian group in town.
It was over drinks at a local bar that Marinna met Al Souza, known as Okie, in the late ’70s. The pair dated for several decades before marrying in 2006. Marinna’s daughter, Daniela, remembers asking her mother why she decided to remarry after so long. “He just asked me so nicely,” Marinna replied.
“Strong is the first word to describe her,” wrote Okie’s stepson, Eric Morris, in a memorial post about Marinna. “Creative, engaging and inquisitive. Never mild in passions and frequently intense in her interests and approach [to] life, love and friendships.”
She was not one to shy away from lending a helping hand. She always stopped to give a ride if it was needed, as it made her think of her son, Marc, who had often hitchhiked. “I went to a graduation party and there was a kid there who I didn’t know,” said Daniela. “My mom picked me up, and he said, ‘Is that your mother? She’s a saint!’ ”
Daniela remembers her mother coming home with gifts of fresh strawberries or a homemade pie, given to her by people she had befriended. Her family often arrived at the end of the day to find someone Marinna had met or helped that day sharing a meal at the dinner table.
She is survived by her brothers, Victor Matricardi of Carlsbad, Calif. and Fred Matricardi of Phoenix, Ariz.; her children, Daniela Infield and husband Joseph Tuohy of South Salem, N.Y. and Marc Infield and wife Cristina Chan of Wellfleet; and her grandchildren, Alexander and Julian Infield of San Francisco and Liam Tuohy of South Salem, N.Y. She is also survived by her poodle, Pepper.
Marinna was predeceased by her husband, Alfred K. Souza, and her sister, Beatrice Reinhold.
Her burial will be at St. Peters Cemetery in Provincetown at 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 22 followed by a memorial celebration at the Pamet Harbor Yacht Club, 7 Yacht Club Road in Truro, from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m.
