Jean (John) ETIENNE Perrou

Jean Perrou was born on 20 April 1887, into a Protestant family in Marseilles, Cher, France. 'Perrou' is a name not unknown among Waldensian families, and indeed in 1893 a certain Stefano Perrou and his wife Maddalena migrated to the USA on the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II, out of Genova (arrival date 20 November.) (Ellis Island Passenger search). The family originated in Prali, the commune from which Filippo Grilli, the Waldensian / Presbyterian pastor in Chicago, had hailed.

In September 1907, Perrou, who was in contact with members of the Chicago Italian church founded by Luigi Francescon in 1904 out of Grilli's First Italian Presbyterian Church, was made aware of 'the baptism in the Holy Spirit' which had been encountered by this community at the North Avenue Mission, run by William Durham.  On 14 September, Perrou attended a meeting at which Francescon was speaking of these events. Francescon later wrote that he asked Perrou whether he knew the Good News of the Gospel, and he replied that he had been born an evangelical. Francescon then asked him whether he had the inner witness of being saved, and Perrou replied in the negative.  "I then exhorted him to ask forgiveness of the Lord with all his heart, and then to seek the promise of the Holy Spirit. He obeyed, kneeling down, and at that moment dear Lord washed him in His blood, and also 'sealed' him [with His Spirit].'  (Francescon, Fedele Testimonianza)

On 24 December, 1907, Pietro Ottolini and Perrou left for Holley, New York where Giuseppe Beretta had already been evangelizing. According to Ottolini, Perrou was a highly effective teacher and preacher, "his messages ... so stirring and convicting that people fell on their faces confessing their sins and within a short period of three weeks forty-three persons had received the Gift of the Holy Ghost speaking in other tongues..." . (Maruso 1968)

It was in Holley that Perrou met and married Maria Maddalena "Margaret" Germeo (1893, Ripabottoni), the daughter of Pietro Angelo Germeo (1865–1937), farmer, and Angelina Piedemonte (1869–1945). Pietro had arrived in New York in 1886, found work, and then returned to Campobasso to marry in 1890. They reemigrated with their entire family (including Pietro's mother), living outside New York where Pietro was a farmer. 

He returned to Holley a number of times. In 1912, the Pentecostal Testimony reported that 'the power of God fell in a wonderful way, many were baptized in the Spirit, and the mission, which was in poor condition owing to the want of capable leadership, was built up and now is in a prosperous condition. From there Brother Perrou left for Brooklyn, N. Y., where he opened up a new work. He had only been there six days when he wrote, and seven had received the baptism in the Spirit". (PH 1912, p. 16) 

In 1914, after Rosina Balzano Francescon had brought the news of the Holy Spirit to the Moles family from Chicago, Giuseppe Beretta arrived in Los Angeles to work among Italian migrants. Perrou followed his work and in 1916 gathered the Italians who had been touched by the Azusa St Revival and by Berretta and Balzano's work, forming the Assemblea Cristiana Italiana (Italian Christian Assembly) in Los Angeles.  While Mario Bongiorno (q.v.) would remember that it was a "Mr Van Allen" who spoke to his brother on a train to California, so sparking the chain of events which would see the evangelization of and church planting in and around Erie, PA (q.v.), other members of the Bongiorno family remember that it was Perrou himself who guided both Joseph Bongiorno and later his brother Mario into an active pentecostal faith, and for many members of the family, into Christian ministry. That meeting "affected a large group of people who founded churches in Erie, Pennsylvania and various cities in the midwest and northeastern United States, forming what was called "The Italian Christian Church of North America." (Bongiorno Stephens, 2020)   It would be from this Assembly that significant work would be launched both within California (in San Jose, for example), but also in Erie New York, through the Bongiorno family networks.

He died 8 November 1918 during the Spanish Influenza pandemic in Los Angeles, California. It is possible that he contracted the pulmonary tuberculosis from which Joseph Bongiorno had also died in 1917 (Perrou was the informant on his death certificate listed as “J. Perrou, 145 So. Prichard St.”.) Jean Perrou was buried in Evergreen Cemetery Los Angeles. Margaret survived him, living in Los Angeles until her death on 6 May 1977.

Children:

• Emmanuel John Perrou (1911–1993); 

• Magdalene Perrou (1914–2014) 

• Louise Henrietta Perrou (1915–1977); 

• Kezia Jemima "Kay" (1917–1999)

  • Lincoln High School, Lincoln Heights, CA

  • 1930 - christened in the Methodist Episcopal Church 

  • worked in classified advertising for the Los Angeles Times until 1946

  • 1946: married Joseph Herbert Eastland; 

    • c. Cheryl Ann Eastland m. 1. Gerald David Foster; m 2. Robert de Leon Bender - 

    •     d. Tara Louise FOSTER

• John (1919–2012)

• plus two others.

Sources

Bongiorno Stephens, Charlene, Personal Correspondence, 13 July 2020.

Francescon, Luigi, Fedele Testimonianza, transl. M. Hutchinson

Maruso, Frank A., History of the Christian Churches of North America, 1968, tss in DeGregorio Collection, Fuller Theological Seminary.

Pentecostal Testimony, 2.3 (1912).