On 31 October 1927, forty-three survivors of the Principessa Mafalda reached the Hospedaria dos Imigrantes do Brás, the immigrants’ hostel in São Paulo, in a special carriage coupled to the Central do Brasil night train.
They are on page 290 of Book 100 of the immigrant register, now held by the Museu da Imigração of the State of São Paulo. In the column for the steamer, the clerk wrote P. Mafalda — the name of a ship that had sunk six days earlier.
On that page are Rosa Forner, twenty-four, and her son Enrico, one year old. And her sister, Maria Luigia Forner, with her four children. They were registered under their maiden name, Forner, as was the custom in Italy — not under their husbands’ name, which was the name the family was searching for.