Joseph Scorza came to the United States in 1907 at age 17
to join his brothers Anton and Nick in Chicago. They
introduced him to Moody Church and encouraged him in learning
English so that he could enroll in Moody Bible Institute in
1908. In the summers of 1909 and 1910 he worked on a
track-laying crew for the railroads, I believe, at ten cents a
day. The next summer he joined Wallace Carpenter as the
singer in a preacher-singer evangelistic team, holding revivals
in a number of Midwest towns. Wallace was the
preacher. One of the towns was Sabetha, Kansas, where
Joseph fell in love with 15-year-old Helena Kopp and Wallace with
a girl named Norma. When they returned to school in
Chicago, both young men carried on a correspondence with the
girls in Kansas.
Joseph graduated in 1912, and with the approval of his
brothers, went back to Italy to make an attempt like theirs (see
the story in the first issue of Family Chronicles) to convert the
rest of the family and however many others he could in San Pietro
Magisano. This time neither the priest nor the head of the
Scorza family burned Bibles. The mission was a success for
Joseph.
Before he could schedule a return voyage to marry Helena,
who had accepted his proposal by mail, World War broke out.
Joseph was called to serve in the Italian army, but he was too
short for the requirements at that time. (Later, after he
had left for America again, the army lowered the acceptable
height for soldiers.)
Although German submarines were attempting to sink ships
from Allied countries, such as the U.S. and Italy, Joseph in 1917
took passage on an Italian ship sailing to New York. As
they had feared, a submarine came in their wake, so they ducked
into port at Oran, Algeria. When the coast was clear, they
completed the voyage without sighting any more enemy ships.
Helenas parents were somewhat skeptical about her
engagement to Joseph, who was so short and also olive-skinned,
but they agreed to let them marry in the local United Brethren
church. The date was set for November 21, 1918. In
addition to trips to Kansas during that year, he agreed to carry
on a ministry for a few months to Italian-Americans of the near
west side of Chicago under the auspices of Trinity Reformed
Church and its pastor, Jacob Heemstra. (Heemstra later
became president and Bible professor at Northwestern College,
Orange City, Iowa, and Josephs son Sylvio followed him as
Bible Prof in 1959 after his death.)
We have a wedding picture of Joseph and Helena, and we
assume that her sister Myrtle and some of her brothers were in
the wedding party, while Wallace Carpenter performed the
ceremony. They went to the Philadelphis Bible Institute for
lodging and Christian service while they applied for permission
to sail to Italy. June Scorza discovered the document in
which the application (in Helenas handwriting) was granted
for a non-citizen to leave the United States in a time of high
patriotism right after the armistice.
They sailed in January, 1919, from New York City and
during the voyage Joseph gave Helena a crash course in speaking
Italian. She was very nervous about meeting the family in
San Pietro. The couple had come, however, as Protestant
missionaries to Roman Catholic Italy, so Joseph applied to the
Methodists for a pastorate and ordination. They suggested
that he take a few courses in their seminary in Rome first.
After that they assigned him to their church in the Vomero at Naples.
It may have been during the enrollment at the seminary at Rome
that Helena miscarried a baby girl, but the second pregnancy went
well and on September 6, 1920, they had a healthy baby, whom they
named Vera Lillian Helene.
In 1923 the Methodist bishop assigned Joseph Scorza to an
immigrant Italian congregation in Zurich, Switzerland, a
German-speaking city, where a boy was added to the family on
March 21, 1923. They named him Sylvio Ivan Joseph.
Two years later, the bishop reassigned the Scorzas to the
Vomero church in Naples. They lived in a forth-floor
apartment across the hall from another Methodist family. A
third child, named Anna Maria Clara, was born April 21,
1926. The children loved to watch the funicular cars that
went up and down the mountain. Their parents also allowed
them to see the street performances of Punch and Judy
shows. Vera started school.
When Benito Mussolini signed a concordat with the Pope in
1929, Protestant churches became illegal. Some went
underground, but the Scorza family applied to return to the United
States. They sailed on the ship Roma, which arrived at Ellis
Island, New York, in May. The growing families of Anton and
Nick met their train in Chicago, and all the cousins got
acquainted.
Joseph joined the staff of a Presbyterian church in Springfield,
where Vera and Sylvio went to school. The Scorzas also
became owners of their first car, a 1929 Model A Ford. The
fourth child, no two successively born in the same country, was
born September 20, 1931, and received the name, Edna Hope
Pauline.
With the baby only two months old, the family moved to the
south end of Chicago, where Joseph took on the pastorate of the
Italian Reformed Church. It had been started as a mission
ten years before by the Dutch-Americans of First Reformed,
Roseland. The parsonage was attached to the church which
stood at the corner of 116th and State. Joseph preached
morning services in English and evening and midweek in
Italian. The radio was often tuned to WMBI, the Moody Bible
Institute station, except when the Chicago Cubs ballgames were
broadcast.
Nick Scorza rode the streetcars an hour and a half
each way to visit regularly, providing piano and violin lessons
to his nieces and nephew. Much less frequently the south
siders went in their car to see the two families on the north
side. Longer summer trips to Fairview and Sabetha, Kansas,
and to Ft. Wayne, Indiana, made contact with Helenas family
there.
Frank Scorza came from Italy in 1936 and made his home
with Joseph and Helena until he married Rosalie Tedesho.
The children all attended Scanlan School in the
neighborhood, and the three oldest graduated from Chicago Christian
High School in Englewood. So, most of their school friends
were Dutch-Americans. Vera and Ann married such, Vera to
Henry Terpstra (6 daughters) and Ann to Lou Brouwers (1 son and 4
daughters).
The accident in 1944 which paralyzed Sylvio led to Josephs
resignation from the church. Four of the family moved to Rosemead,
California, were they bought a house with many fruit trees in the
yard. Joseph supplied vacant pulpits, and oversaw the
building and management of a set of six rental
apartments. Domenic, son of Pietro Scorza, lived with them
and attended school a few years.
Edna married Dewey Hardcastle (1 son and 1
daughter). Sylvio returned to graduate school, marrying
Phyllis Van Setters (1 adopted daughter, 2 adopted sons).
Vera lost her first husband in a fire, and later married John
Lich. Ann and Edna divorced their husbands. Ann
remarried with Lee Plas, and Edna with Dwight Brooks. Ednas
marriage did not last.
Joseph died suddenly in 1962, after a day as an election
poll watcher. Helena died in 1975, having contracted Uterine
cancer. They had achieved much in their ministry and through
their family.