A Bell for Bisaccia

Bisaccia stands high amid the crags and chestnut trees of the Southern Apennines, 60 miles to the east of Naples. It is a small town of some 7,000 souls, and the land is poor and arid. So it has become the custom for many Bisaccesi to move elsewhere to earn their living: to Naples and to Rome, to Mexico and Brazil, and to the United States, where some 200 emigrants made their new homes in Richmond, Ind.

One of these was a cobbler named Luigi Salzarulo. He arrived in Richmond in 1907, became known as Louis instead of Luigi, and got a job as section laborer for the Pennsylvania Railroad. His subsequent career was such that one Italian journalist referred to him as "one of the most esteemed and respected citizens of the United States . . . [He] started life as a navvy, and ended up with the splendor of gold of a stationmaster's braid."

Not a stationmaster but a freight foreman, Louis retired in 1949 at the age of 65, full of pride in his five sons, all of whom went to college, and two married daughters; proud, too, to be a city councilman, and proud of the new world that had brought him so many good things.

But Louis and his wife Maria did not forget Bisaccia, and they did not forget that the bell of Bisaccia would not ring: long before, it had split during an earthquake, and no one had bothered to fix it.

After World War I, another Bisaccia emigrant to the U.S., Giuseppe Sullo, had built a new church tower for the town at a cost of $12,000, expecting that this would encourage Bisaccia to recast the bell. (It didn't.) After World War II, Louis decided to recast the bell in honor of his son Major Raymond Salzarulo, who was killed at Midway. Louis sent $500 to Don Guerrizzo, the parish priest.

Last week, Bisaccesi hung their brightest bedquilts like flags on the window sills, and went down to hear the Archbishop of Conza bless the bright, new-shining bell. On hand, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief of many colors, sat Louis Salzarulo of Richmond Ind. "Isn't it wonderful of old Luigi," said one villager, "to have the money to have the bell mended!"

At the ceremony, Arduino Donatiello, the mayor, made a fine oration. "A son of Bisaccia has not forgotten us," he said, ". . . nor will we forget his son." Then Louis presented a bronze plaque from the city council of Richmond that summed up the years he had been away. It read: "To the people of Bisaccia, Italy, in recognition of the high esteem in which we hold your native son . . . Louis Salzarulo."

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