Alpha Butcher cherishes the photograph of the young, smiling, Italian woman in a Jeep with three American soldiers. In the background looms Rome’s Coliseum. On the back are handwritten notes about how one of the young men is her future husband Carlyle and the date – 1944. The end of World War II.

“The Germans marched out in perfect lines. No one knew what was going on,” she said. “The Americans were right behind.”

Butcher gets goose-bumps remembering that day. She was in her early 20s.

“That was the happiest, most gloriest day of my whole life, bar none,” the 86-year-old High Point Village resident recalled.

“The Italians surrendered to the Americans happily.”

Mark Butcher remembers the stories almost as vividly as his mother. Growing up, those were the bedtime stories his mother told as she tucked her children in for the night.

“Those were some of my favorite stories,” the Enumclaw resident said. “The occupation and invasion, the time when she was in Rome during the war.”

Alpha calls herself a go-getter. Mark said that’s a good description of his mother.

“She’s a survivor from the very start,” he said.

“She’s just so intelligent, naturally,” High Point Village Executive Director Laura Curnan said. “She’s just a pleasure to be around. She’s so charming.”

Alpha’s older sister came to the United States before the war. Alpha’s family was working its way toward the U.S. when they were trapped in Italy.

“Half the population of Rome had a family member in America,” she said. “Nothing was going to keep me from my sister.”

She was smart, athletic, funny and fearless.

“I was outspoken, but with intelligence,” she said. “I had what my dad had. I wanted to know. I wanted to dig all the time.”

She was a top student, so when Axis leaders Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler came to her school, she was asked to introduce the class. She shook both their hands.

“Mussolini was a speaker,” she said. “He had people eating out of his hand.

“When you would look at Hitler’s face you would get cold. You get the chills,” she said.

It would not be long before Hitler’s army was ousted and the American soldiers arrived in Rome.

“I didn’t know what fear was, good or bad,” she said. “I was down to the last piece of bread. I knew something had to be done.”

She ventured into the near-empty streets and found herself serving as a tour guide for American soldiers.

“I was the only one they could find that knew English,” she said. “They enjoyed my spirit.”

She earned $50, which gave her wealth and prestige.

“That girl, she knows the Americans. She speaks English,” she said was the talk, and then laughed. “I probably knew four words.”

It didn’t matter. The war was done and she was heading to America with her family and Carlyle. Carlyle took Alpha home to be near his parents, who owned a family store, gas station and tavern in the Selleck-Kangley area.

Her son said she’s returned to Italy through the years. Alpha said she is proud to call the United States home. “Now I am American through and through,” she said. She likes America’s melting pot of nationalities. “There is something about the United States that unites people.”