Giuseppe Merlino

Merlino was born in prov. Messina, Sicily on 13 September 1873, the second child (of seven) of Antonio Merlino (1834–1904) and Rosaria Grangiorno. (It is possible that they were from Lipari, but available public sources are not definite). Among his siblings, at least one (Domenico) also spent time in the USA.

On 22 April 1889, he arrived in Boston, MA. and would live there until October 1905. In 1897 he graduated from the American International College in Springfield, MA. This College had been founded in 1885 as the 'French Protestant College' by the Congregational pastor, John Morton Greene, who also founded Smith College, and Calvin E. Amaron to assist the tens of thousands of French Canadians who had come to New England to work in the emerging factories there, with a view to providing a good education, evangelizing this largely Catholic and working class migrant flow, and dealing with what some New Englanders considered to be a migrant invasion (“Manufacturing New England, Puritan and homogeneous no longer, speaks a French patois”, wrote one commentator). (Vermette 2019) It early took on the mission of providing educational mobility for migrants to the USA and their children. In 1901 Merlino was ordained in the Pilgrim Association of the Massachusetts Congregational Conference. This and other Conferences were struggling with the 'multitudes' Italians who had entered the region (some 50,000 in Connecticut alone by 1904), and the thin resources that the churches had to deal with the influx. As Rev. Joel S. Ives told the Meriden (Conn.) Women's Congregational Home Mission Union in 1904, they had only four regular churches dedicated to Italians, and two missions. The total Italian speaking staff of the state included Pasquale R. De Carlo (Hartford), Vincenzi Esperti (New Haven), Canio Cerreta (Bridgeport), Aristide Giampietro (Stamford), Pasquale Codella (Waterford), and Giuseppe Merlino (Windsor Locks). (Meriden Daily Journal, 26 May 1904: 2)

He married Margherita Leali, the daughter of Alfonso Leali, who would also move to the USA and live with the family. Three of their children were born in Connecticut: Adelaide (b. 1899, m. DiStefano, and lived in Kingston, MA); Camillo Pascal (b. 1900) and Ettore ('Eddy', b. 1901). Alba (b. 1905; m. Frederic Frigoletto, and lived in Fitchburg) was born in Massachusetts.

In October 1905, the Methodists opened an Italian mission in the Italian neighbourhood of Toronto, Canada, and within a few months took over a site on Edward Street which had been abandoned a few years previously by the Church of England. Merlino was placed in charge of the 45 regular members of the mission until 1908 when he was succeeded by Alfredo Taglialatela. In June 1907 he established a branch mission at the corner of Clinton Street and Mansfield Avenue. (This was later replaced by the Claremont Street mission.) Merlino had to continuously justify his work, and seek to manage both the Anglo patrons of the mission, and the people with whom he engaged. He thus aimed at both converting Italians 'from the ignorance and superstitions of Catholicism to the light and salvation of Protestantism', and 'engaging in the social and civic improvements of the foreigners, in order to make them into good Canadian citizens'. He campaigned against the financers, who wanted to save money by collocating the two 'foreigner' missions (to Italians and to Chinese) in the same premises. He sought to avoid being pushed into subsidiary accommodation for services. (Capurri 2003).

In Toronto they long lived at 63 Elm St, and it was there that, on 1 February 1908, their son Amleto Cesare was born in Toronto. As he does not appear in later accounts, one can assume that he died in infancy. While in Toronto, Merlino acted as a translator, and also taught Italian at Victoria College within the University of Toronto. (University of Toronto, 1910)

In 1909, Merlino travelled via Buffalo into the USA, heading for Plymouth, Massachusetts, where he took over the Italian mission from the genovese pastor Enrico Rivoire (1873-1917). In May 1910, by which time the family was living at 28 Main St., Kingston Town in Plymouth County, he resumed his membership of the Massachusetts Congregational Conference. It seems that, once again, he earned a lot of his living by teaching Italian language and culture, during the War at Simmons College (where he listed his address as Cambridge, Mass). He later taught romance languages in a number of other colleges and schools, including The Winsor School (Boston), Boston University, and Emerson College. The family settled in Newton, MA, where they long lived at 17 Belmont St. North, later moving into Boston where (in the 1930s and 1940s, with Armando Donaruma) he was the main preacher at the Italian language services in First Methodist Church, originally on Temple Street in Boston. At Merlino's death he was living at 3 Marsh Rd., Boston.

In 1916, he succeeded Rev. Gennaro Giordano (who was moving to pastor the Italian Presbyterian Mission in Auburn NY) as pastor of the Italian Congregation at Center Congregational Church, Torrington, and the Italian Mission at Winsted. Both Giuseppe and Margherita remained closely involved in Italian cultural life. In 1932, Merlino was, for instance, part of the organizing committee for "The Friendship of Two Nations" Sunday organized by the Associazione Cittadini Floridiani in Hartford. In 1937, Margherita was elected to the Committee of the Boston branch of the Waldensian Aid Society.

Merlino died after a long illness in Newton, Massachusetts on 6 January 1964. A commemorative service was held at Mayflower Congregational Church in Boston, and he was buried in the Newton Cemetery. (Boston Globe 8 Jan 1964: 21)

Among his children (Camillo) and grandchildren (Frederick Frigoletto Jr) there were a number who followed Merlino's academic passions. Camillo (1901–1985) took a doctorate at Harvard, worked on Mario Equicola, commenced his academic career teaching in California and the University of Michigan, before returning to a full professorship at Boston University, and was prominent in the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations. He was also the English translator of Giorgio Tourn's book You Are My Witnesses: The Waldensians across 800 Years. Fred Frigoletto graduated from Boston University School of Medicine in 1962 and completed his residency at Boston City Hospital and The Boston Lying In Hospital before practicing medicine at The Boston Hospital for Women, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. He served as president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) from 1996-97, and was prominent in it's committees and activities.

Sources:

Ancestry.com.

Capurri, Valentina, 'Italian Catholic Immigrants in Toronot at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century, a Case of Religious Citizenship', MA Thesis, York University, April 2003.

Newspapers.com

Rivoire, Enrico, Family Tree, in Ancestry.com, https://www.ancestry.com.au/family-tree/person/tree/101984815/person/230024055973/facts,

University of Toronto, Calendar 1909-1910 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1910)

Vermette, David, 'When an Influx of French-Canadian Immigrants Struck Fear Into Americans', Smithsonian Magazine 21 August 2019, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/french-canadian-immigrants-struck-fear-into-new-england-communities-180972951/

Zucchi, John, 'Church and Clergy, and the Religious Life of Toronto’s Italian Immigrants, 1900-1940', CCHA. Study Sessions 50 (1983): 533-48.