Cosimo Caruso 

Cosimo Caruso was born on 5 September 1890 at Rosarno, in the province of Reggio Calabria, southern Italy, the son of Antoninio Caruso (b. 1846) and Maria Rosa née Barcelona (b. 1846). He grew up in a large family rooted in the rural culture and traditional Roman Catholic religiosity typical of late nineteenth-century Calabria. His siblings included Salvatore (1880–1925), Annunziata “Nancy” (1886–1970, later the wife of Rocco Pitto), and Antonio (“Tony”).

Caruso’s early life was marked by instability and marginality. As a youth (it was later remembered) he became involved in local delinquent networks, and at about the age of fifteen clandestinely left Italy for Argentina, reportedly to avoid legal trouble. After several years abroad he was discovered by local authorities and compelled to return to Italy. He later served during the Italo-Turkish War (1911–12) in Libya. On his return he encountered the bleak economic conditions of post-war southern Italy, which contributed to his decision to emigrate.

By 1914 Caruso had migrated to the United States, settling in Detroit, Michigan, where he worked as a labourer in industrial foundries and later in the automobile industry for Ford Motor Company. For a period he lived and worked in Erie, Pennsylvania, a city with a substantial Italian immigrant population. During these years his life deteriorated further: he became associated with criminal elements within the immigrant underworld and habitually carried weapons, developing a reputation for violence. His first wife, Maria Gurzi (1896–1950), whom he had married earlier, suffered severely from ill health, including a serious spinal condition.

The decisive turning point in Caruso’s life came through his wife’s encounter with Italian Pentecostal believers in Erie, led by Umberto Gazzeri (1884–1924). Following her reported healing and conversion, Caruso himself attended a Pentecostal service, where he experienced a dramatic religious crisis and conversion. He renounced violence, destroyed his weapons, and underwent water baptism and baptism in the Holy Spirit, thereafter devoting himself with intensity to evangelism among Italian immigrants.

In 1928 Caruso returned to Detroit, where he became a central figure in the Italian Pentecostal movement. He conducted street preaching, house-to-house evangelism, and open-air meetings, which led to the formation of a stable congregation. This work culminated in the establishment of the Italian Christian Church of Detroit, later associated with the Christian Assembly movement. By the late 1930s and early 1940s he was ministering while employed at the River Rouge Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, and resided successively at 74 Elmwood Avenue (1930), 4349 Crane Avenue (1940), and 4071 Fairview Avenue (1950).

Under Caruso’s leadership, Italian Pentecostal communities were founded not only in Detroit but also in Ecorse (where a church building was erected in 1937, now--after merging with Boulevard Christian Church--called 'Faith Christian Assembly'), East Ecorse, Windsor, Ontario, and other centres of Italian migration in the American Midwest. His ministry combined charismatic preaching with organisational persistence and was sustained largely through lay support rather than institutional backing.

In 1948, together with his second wife Domenica “Mamie” Rugare (1895–1963), whom he had married following the deaths of their respective spouses, Caruso attempted to dedicate a new Pentecostal church in Rosarno, Calabria, funded by Italian-American donations (which exceeded two million lire). The inauguration was forcibly disrupted by Italian police and the local parish priest, an incident later cited in diplomatic correspondence as a violation of civil and treaty rights. This episode exemplified the persistent hostility faced by Pentecostal groups in Fascist and immediate post-war Italy.

Caruso continued his ministry in the United States until his death. In 1956, while engaged in an evangelistic mission in Florida, he died suddenly on 25 February at Tampa. At his death he was reportedly carrying a suitcase filled with religious tracts intended for distribution. He was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Caruso was survived by children from his first marriage, including Maria Rose, Fortunata Anna Carmela, Anthony, Esther E., Paul, and Catherine; two children had predeceased him. His second wife, Mamie, later died in Pennsylvania and was buried in Erie.

Cosimo Caruso is remembered as a pioneering figure in the Italian Pentecostal diaspora, whose life embodied a dramatic transformation from violence and marginality to disciplined religious leadership. His work contributed significantly to the establishment and consolidation of Italian Pentecostal communities in the United States and to the eventual growth of the Assemblee di Dio in Italia, particularly in Calabria, where a thriving Pentecostal presence continues at Rosarno.

Sources

Ancestry.com

Faith Christian Assembly, Our Story, https://faithdetroit.com/our-story

Gigliotti, Frank B. to John Hickerson, US Ambassador to Italy, 9 May 1950, in Rinaldi, Una Lunga Marcia verso la Liberta, pp. 177-79

Rosarno ADI, https://www.adi-rc.org/blog/?cosimo-caruso--1890-1956.