Emmanuel Baptist Church

As one of the great grand children of Ermelindo Volpe, one of the founders of Emmanuel Baptist. Church, I will attempt to share some memories of my family and my beloved church.
My great grandfather, Ermelindo Volpe, was born in the city of Benevento, Province of Beneverto, Italy on the 31* of August 1876. His father's name was Giovanni and his mother was Anna. Ermelindo arrived from Italy, a yourg man in his early twenties with one of his brothers Eiviro Volpe in 1899 who was also a founder of the church.

Both men came as Catholic boys and before too long they met up with Giacomo Pratt who was also born a Catholic. Mr. Pratt had started a group of evangelical men who preached wherever they could find a place to gather in the neighborhood, a store front or the parlor of someone's home. They drew many people…

Soon the services were held in a large vacant building on Marietta Street… The group became a mission of the First Baptist Church of America on North Main Street in Providence. The building was entirely empty.

Gradually they fumished it with regular chairs for grown-ups and smaller chairs for the children’s Sunday school. We even had hymnbooks and a pulpit, from which Rev. Frank Cali, the fist pastor that I remember, preached. His wife helped with missionary work.

Our Sunday School consisted of one corner for a certain age and another corner for older children. The teachers at the time were the lannone boys, Edward and Willam, who were in their earty twerties. They taught us about the Bible. The lannone family also became members. We also had a choir. Mr. Pratt's oldest daughter, Beatrice, sang in the choir and she later married Edward lannone.