Joseph Pergolese

The first thing visitors notice when driving through the main entrance to Mount Moriah is the “mid-century modern” Pergolese mausoleum off to the right. It is one of three mausoleums visible from Kingsessing Avenue and one of only 14 in the entire cemetery.

Each one is as unique as the individual for whom the structure was built. In this case, there are various details missing about the life of Joseph Pergolese, which only adds to the intrigue about the building’s chief occupant.

This mausoleum is the best preserved, but not just because it’s the newest, erected in 1948. Thanks to its location next to the office, it has escaped the work of vandals, still retaining the original doors and this beautiful stained glass window in the rear wall.

The man for whom it was built lived only 45 years. His parents, Arcangelo and Lucia, immigrated from Italy in 1899 with their two-year-old son, Crescenzio Alfredo, aka Fred. Joe was born in 1902 in Philadelphia, followed by daughter Malina (“Millie”) and a third son, Frederico. 

They grew up on 6th Street near Washington Avenue. Their father was a laborer and was listed in the 1920 census working in a mill. Joe was 17 by then and he was a button maker, perhaps at the same mill. In 1925 he married someone that was apparently not a good match because they divorced and she married someone else by 1927. 

His 1930 census information is missing, but by 1932 he was back in his parents’ home. He found a woman who lived around the corner on Carpenter Street named Madeline Lamassa Greco. She had just divorced Tony Greco and was raising her four-year-old daughter, Rita. They were married that year and made their home at 641 Carpenter Street until Joe suffered a fatal heart attack in 1948.

If these photos are any indication, the three of them had a happy life together. What isn’t so clearly indicated is how Joe made a living in those years. The 1940 census lists him as a fruit salesman. He described himself as a “commission broker” on his 1942 draft card, and his death certificate simply says “broker.”

Adding to the mystery of the unknowns are these statements in his obituary, implying he had some connection to both local politics and some form of amateur athletics like wrestling:

While his nickname may have had more to do with sports than the bakery item sold on street corners, his older brother’s nickname was even more colorful. He was known as “Freddie Whitewash.” Although he was a chauffeur by trade, newspaper accounts connected him to illegal gambling. He was arrested in 1939 and again in 1960 for operating a numbers lottery. (He and his wife share a gravestone two rows away from his brother’s mausoleum.)

Madeline apparently had sufficient financial resources to pay for George’s attractive memorial building, which was solely occupied by her husband until she died in 1982. Most of the rest of Joe’s and Madeline’s family were buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon. 

(To read about the people for whom the other two nearby mausoleums are named, see Philip Lawall and George W. Milliken.)