From The Mercer County Italian Festival Site: Burg Memories: Maurice T. Perilli

From The Mercer County Italian Festival Site: Burg Memories:
Maurice T. Perilli


Growing Up Italian in Chambersburg - by: Maurice T. Perilli
Chairman, Roma Bank

To all who called Chambersburg home, I ask: “Remember (Santino)
Venanzi’s Grocery Store?” I was born upstairs! October 29, 1918.
The second of the five children who shared in the lives of
Armando Perilli and Agnes Vannozzi Perilli. Remember (Rose and
Alex) Trionfetti’s Restaurant? My little brother Gus would go to
the back door and - for 25 cents - Mrs. Trionfetti would send
him home with a kettle of soup that fed the whole family!
I have vivid memories of being an eight-year-old Italian
American headed into The Great Depression. I remember the day
our family purchased a property at 547 Chestnut Avenue. The first
floor housed my father’s printing business, “20th Century
Publishing Company.” The second and third stories became our
living quarters. (As times got tougher, we rented a home at 569
Chestnut Avenue for $35 a month.) Over the years, my brother
Bill worked for Coca Cola, my sister Louise enrolled at St.
Francis School of Nursing, my sister Florence held a state
government job and my youngest brother Gus did well in school
while helping with the household chores.
Other people and places to remember? Playing ball on Davis
Alley with used gloves and bats donated by Goo Goo Radice,
The Agabiti Club, Pete Tonti’s first “minute steak” sandwich
shop on Anderson Street...and, sadly, World War II, where Bill,
a Marine, was lost in the Pacific, and where I served in the
Coast Guard with former state senator Sido Ridolfi, who later
encouraged me to run for office.