Orazio Giusti

Orazio Giusti, 85, died at his home in Cottonwood, Arizona October 6, 2006. He was born August 30, 1921 in Muggia, a province of Trieste, Italy, to Quirino and Vittoria Giusti. He attended school in Italy where his lifelong love for languages began at an early age. In secondary school, he studied Italian, Latin, French, and in high school, he studied Italian, Latin, Greek Literature and Philosophy. He received his Doctorate from the University of Padua, Italy, where he studied Political Science, Russian and English. He also took degrees at the Sorbonne, Paris, the University of Paris, and the Universities of Bordeaux and Toulouse. In 1950, he came to the United States and worked as a Simultaneous Interpreter for Spanish and Italian under contract with the U.S. Department of State, Division of Language Services. This post he held until 1959. He became a U.S. citizen in 1958. In 1960, be began a 23 career as a Professor at Northern Arizona University in the Department of Modern Languages, teaching French, Italian, Spanish and Russian. He also served as chairman of the Department of Modern Languages. For seven consecutive summers he served as Language Director for the Peace Corps Training Program at Montana State University, in Bozeman, Montana. After his retirement he perfected his knowledge of Brazilian Portuguese. He enjoyed traveling with his wife to Europe, North Africa, North, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Mexico. He is survived by his wife, Juanita Engle-Giusti; his two children, Michele Davila and Jackie Hershey and six grandchildren; by his wife's children, Kathleen Reed Groh, Richard McGaugh, Rebecca Mask and Gwen Groth, her son-in-law, and her eight grandchildren, and family in Italy, including a brother Giuseppe Giusti; a sister, Maria Valeria Conti, and their children. There were no services. An online guestbook is available at www.westcottfuneralhome.com