These churches were built by our people so that they could be free, and so that we could be free, too.

At St. Mary's we have a truly united Catholic community. We love our church and have no desire to see it needlessly destroyed by those without God's will--not to mention history--in mind. The Catholic families who established St. Mary's long, long ago were primarily hard working, Southern Italian farming families. They didn't have much money. But they scrimped and saved what they had to give us the beautiful church we have today.

One of our parishioners' ancestors even took a horse and carriage all the way down to Atlantic City to obtain bricks and construction materials for the church. Can you imagine how long a trip that was back in those days? (Photo below: donor's list)

My own family did not help establish St. Mary's Malaga. My family comes from Sacred Heart in Vineland and St. Mary's (Union Rd, see photo below), East Vineland. My family on both sides came from the same small farming village near Genoa in Northern Italy. Neither family knew each other until they came to Vineland, both by way of New York City. I grew up hearing all the stories of hardships they had encountered.

My ancestors were so poor they sold paper flowers on the streets of New York. My great grandmother was a janitor in a school established by Mother Cabrini (ora pro nobis!) and she considered it a great privilege just to mop the floors upon which the great saint had once walked. Mother Cabrini was, of course, sent to the United States specifically to help the poor Italians in their struggles to make better lives for themselves in the New World. 

In addition to the hardships of poverty, they were badly persecuted, primarily by the Irish Catholics. What I always found ironic about this, growing up, was that one group of Catholics, not terribly long in this country themselves, would turn around and treat so horribly another group of Catholics. But the human memory is short, it seems. In any case, my family could not worship in the Irish Catholic church because they were unwelcome there.

One of my great grandmothers came to Vineland as a child as a "Fresh Air Kid." The Fresh Air Fund, which still exists, takes city kids and gives them some summer fun in the country. My great grandmother vowed that when she grew up she would move to Vineland. And that's what she did. Both sides of the family moved to Vineland and had big farms on which they raised, among other things, chickens, which my grandfather hated. (He said they were very stupid animals and did not even like to eat them. On the right is my great grandfather, Angelo.)

Apparently, on my grandfather's side at least, way back during Prohibition they did some running of bootleg liquor back and forth from NYC until it got "too dangerous." My grandfather's family also had a printing business in Vineland, which was once located on West Avenue, and later in the Industrial Park, called DeMarchi Printing. Although my grandfather dropped out of school by about sixth grade (he hated school as well as chickens), he was quite the businessman and farmer/gardener. He took over the family printing business, grew it, and much later on sold it as it got too big for him.

My grandmother was the first to attend college in our family. She went to Glassboro, although I believe it was called the "Normal School" at that time. She taught in a one-room schoolhouse in East Vineland, and I believe later at the school on Main and Oak in Vineland (see photo left). My grandparents worked very hard, were not extravagant, were nothing if not generous, and mended their clothing until it was unmendable. The money they had went to their church, their community, their family, and to charity. I owe them everything.

It was recently commented in the St. Mary's parish bulletin that we should "always cherish--and not take for granted--the many freedoms that we enjoy in this country." How ironic that after all those years of hardship and struggle to worship in peace in their own churches, that our families should once again find themselves persecuted by those who are part of the same Catholic Faith. Our families worked so hard to give us not just our Faith, but our Faith made tangible. By their own blood and sweat, they gave us churches to worship in--that was their gift to us. We do not take our freedom to worship in those churches for granted. Our religious freedom, in a very literal sense, was bought and paid for by our ancestors. May we once again have the true freedom that is the promise of this country.


Above photos: My mother Doris in her First Holy Communion dress, my grandmother Laura on the farm (she's on the far right), and a relative farming shot.