Anna's dressmaking business began a precipitous decline after 1932. Prior to that, her labor and materials expenses came close to offsetting the shop income. She also accrued sizable expenditures for "goods for resale," which resulted in large operating deficits. While she continued to purchase merchandise after 1932, a part of the shop's income in later years appears to have come from the sale of the extensive inventory, much of it purchased in the 1920s.

The inventory of Anna's estate, assembled after her death in 1947, valued the North Main Street leaseholds at $46,500 and Industrial Trust Company common stock at $1,140, yielding a total of $47,640 [$395,073]. Worthless assets included gold bonds of the defunct Philippine Railroad Company, 300 shares in the closed Columbus Exchange Trust Company, and $1,600 (the face value) in Kingdom of Italy gold bonds. There is no mention of the other real estate or any value placed on the business. This may indicate that there was no remaining value in the real estate after the mortgages were paid off. Anna also left $3,000 [$24,894] in life insurance, which was distributed among her sisters, Laura and Eugenia [fig. 74], and her brother Frank's children. After expenses, the remainder of the estate was placed in trust for the support of Laura. Laura's daughter Beatrice was the executrix and inherited the residual upon the death of her mother.(27)

In parlaying her dressmaking skill into a substantial business, and by virtue of her selective social contacts, Anna exemplified the qualities of middle-class immigrants in the United States. This group is representative of a very small portion of immigrant women. Their experiences have been less well studied than the lives of their working-class sisters in the early twentieth century. From the beginning, Anna's situation deviated from the common pattern. Her successful dressmaking business catered to the American-born upper and upper-middle classes. Few other immigrant businesses relied exclusively on nonimmigrant customers. Caterers, barbers, tailors, gardeners, contractors, and the like might eventually enjoy the patronage of the broader American community, but they usually began by serving their fellow immigrants. Her sister Eugenia's grocery store represents this more common form of entrepreneurship. Such businesses typically found their niche by serving the ethnic tastes of fellow immigrants. In 1909, the Providence Sunday Journal published a description of an Italian grocery in the Silver Lake enclave, comparing it to an old-fashioned country store.

There is an almost infinite variety of products not found anywhere else. The ceilings and walls present an interesting study for the student of domestic sciences. Long strings of silver-shelled garlic hang side by side with large, flat Italian hams, queer balls of meat minced with spices and pressed tightly into bags; bright peppers that look like trimmings for a christmas [sic] tree, festoons of dark sausage and bunches of things that have the appearance of earthen bottles of a wax in color [sic], the outside shell being of the consistency of granite, but really a fine brand of cheese. On the counters and shelves are great loaves of bread, vegetables, a variety of canned goods and packages of olive oil. In the center of the room is a pyramid of long boxes of macaroni.(28)

This account is very close to Primrose Tirocchi's description of her aunt Eugenia's store.