A princess came to town last Wednesday. She was dressed in sensible black heels, thick pantyhose and a silken neck scarf. Eighty-eight-year-old Elettra Marconi Giovanelli, her hair a soft nest of fading blonde curls, was visiting West Marin to bear witness to her father’s electric legacy.
The princess is not the daughter of a king. She is royalty by marriage, having wed Prince Carlo Giovannelli in 1966. But her father, the legendary Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi, looms large in history as the inventor of the radio.
Mr. Marconi founded his telecommunications company in 1897, the same year he sent out the world’s first open-sea wireless message.
In 1912, Mr. Marconi’s company acquired a number of radio stations in America, among them station KPH, in San Francisco. In order to create a signal powerful enough to cross the Pacific, a receiving station was built in Marshall and a transmitting station in Bolinas.
After World War I, the government sought tighter control over radio communication and in 1920 formed the Radio Corporation of America, which bought out Marconi’s holdings. Maritime service continued in Marshall until 1939.