Davide Acquarone

David Acquarone was born on 31 Mar 1862 in Savona.

There is some indication that he grew up in and entered the ministry of the Waldensian Church. In 1891, he was sent by the Evangelization Committee of the Chiesa Evangelica Italiana to work as an evangelist with the pastor Damiano Borgia in Milan. In the Chiesa Libera's Il Piccolo Messaggero (in which his activities are described along with Francesco Valentini and Alberto Zamperini as the 'master evangelists' of the Church), he expressed his enthusiasm for being in such a great city full of 'so many meetings and encouraging messages':

Although there are frequent departures to heaven, and some sleep soundly, there is no decrease, instead we are consoled by a continuous increase. (Piccolo Messaggero XVII.5 (June 1892), p.79)

Almost every week he saw concerned unbelievers respond to his preaching. He was sent in 1893 by the Committee to work among Waldensian migrants. He arrived in New York on 30 July. He was originally assigned to migrant work in Memphis TN (Spini 1971), but by 1895 he was ministering for Alessandro Gavazzi's Chiesa Evangelica Italiana among Italian migrants in Bangor, PA.

On 8 December 1897, he married Irma Maria Luigia Peruzzi (27 Jul 1877– 18 Mar 1958, Connecticut), the daughter of Rev. Angelo Peruzzi [q.v.], who preceded Acquarone as missioner for the First Italian Presbyterian Church in Hazleton, PA. Their children included Paul (31 May 1900, Buffalo-1982, Akron, OH); Albert, Isabella; Louise E., and Elvira (m. Slater).

From 1905 to 1910 he was ministering for the Methodist Episcopal Church's Italian missions in Rochester, NY (where he lived on Peckham St).

In the 1916 guide for Italian migrants to the USA, he is listed as missioner in the Italian Methodist Episcopal Mission in Utica NY, and as responsible for New Castle and Mahoningtown, PA.

He died on 14 Jul 1933 in Providence, Rhode Island. Irma went to live with their daughter Isabella in Hartford CT, where she died on 18 Mar 1958.

Sources:

Palandrani, Claudio, Francesco Valentini, Una vita attraverso i fermenti sociali, associativi e politici della “Ginevra apuana”.

Spini, Giorgio, L'Evangelo e il berretto frigio: Storia, della chiesa cristiana libera in Italia 1870-1904, (Torino: Claudiana, 1971).