As Sardinia, the second largest island in the Mediterranean, readied for the 100th anniversary of D.H. Lawrence's landmark travel book, "Sea and Sardinia," I pulled over my car at the Monumental Cemetery in the northern city of Sassari. The cemetery abounded with notable Sardinians, including two presidents of Italy, artists, writers and revolutionaries, but I had come to pay homage to the American writer Ellen Rose Giles.