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Longtime readers of Tube City Almanac know that I used to get a lot of requests for information about the Berarducci Brothers Manufacturing Co., a firm once located in the city's East End that produced a variety of kitchen gadgets --- pizzelle irons, strainers, squeezers, etc.

In fact, I got so many requests that I eventually set up a separate webpage just to answer the most common questions.

Not only don't I know anything about Berarducci Brothers Manufacturing, I had never seen a Berarducci Brothers product until last week. Prowling the aisles of a small antique shop in Willoughby, Ohio, just east of Cleveland, I spotted a never-used, new-in-the-box ravioli press, which is now part of the Tube City Online collection (which bears a striking resemblance to a bunch of junk stacked up in the garage).

I haven't made any ravioli with it, and it's not for sale, and I definitely do not plan to start supplying parts for broken Berarducci Brothers products, so please, don't ask! And that includes the lady whose wires came "un-crumpped."

. . .

St. Peter's Question: Speaking of getting my wires uncrumpped, I received a wire --- actually, an email --- from Alert Reader J.S. this week:

I saw the sad, sobering video of St. Peter's demolition on Tube City Almanac. In the accompanying text you wrote, "St. Peter's was founded by German immigrants, who erected the first Roman Catholic church in McKeesport in 1846 at the corner of Seventh and Market streets."

Four generations of my Irish family worshipped there, and I always thought the parish was established by the Irish. My recollection is that St. Peter's spawned St. Pius V, originally on Fifth Avenue, then to Versailles Avenue. I went to St. Pius V through grade school. Are my recollections that far off?

Well, I'm not sure. My source for the information was the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh's archives, which says, "St. Peter was founded in 1846. The origin of the parish can be traced to the arrival of German Catholic immigrants to McKeesport. At first they had to travel to St. Philomena parish in Pittsburgh to attend services.

"Beginning in 1844, the Redemptorist Fathers began visiting McKeesport once a month to celebrate Mass," the website reports. "In 1846, the local Catholics bought a plot of land for a church. Work began on the church and the completed building was dedicated on April 5, 1847."

But according to the history published in A McKeesport Commemorative (1976): "Two cattle dealers donated the land on which the first Roman Catholic Church in McKeesport, St. Peter, now stands on Market Street. That was in 1846 when a small brick structure was built and dedicated ... it became the center from which eleven other Catholic churches ... developed."

The same entry notes that the "first of the Catholic churches to be founded with a strong ethnic background and a language other than English was St. Mary German on Olive Avenue. It was organized by the Rev. Adam Tonner in August of 1887." (Emphasis added by me.)

That strongly implies that St. Peter's wasn't a German church at all. In fact, A McKeesport Commemorative notes that the first pastor of St. Peter's was a Rev. Nicholas Haeres, who was followed by a Rev. James Nolan and a Msgr. Congal A. McDermott --- those are Scots and Irish names if I've ever heard them.

And 1846 would have been somewhat for many German Catholic settlers to have arrived in McKeesport. A Concise Historical Atlas of Pennsylvania (1989) notes that the earliest German settlers in Pennsylvania were predominantly Mennonites, Baptists, Lutherans and Reformed. Allegheny County itself was largely settled by English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish and Scots-Irish.

Many German immigrants didn't arrive in Pennsylvania until after the industrial era began in the 1840s.

All of this is a long way of saying that I suspect you're correct, and that St. Peter's was founded by Irish, Scottish and Scots-Irish immigrants, but that the Diocese of Pittsburgh's official records say "German."

By the way, an entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia --- and A McKeesport Commemorative --- both note that among the early missionaries to hold Masses in McKeesport was the Rev. John Neumann, who was canonized and made a saint by Pope Paul VI in 1977.

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