Italian language course: Mirabelli has 100 years of memories

By Bethan L. Jones/ Staff Writer
Thursday, June 22, 2006

A lot has changed in 100 years.

Places are different, generations have passed and Josephine Mirabelli has seen it all.

Mirabelli, a Lexington resident since 1924, and celebrated her 100th birthday on April 29.

Born Giuseppina Amaru in the North End of Boston to Italian immigrants, both of Mirabelli's parents were Sicilian and her father owned a trade goods store on Prince Street. The second oldest of nine children, Mirabelli spent her youth in Boston, Malden, a small time back in Italy and then to Lexington where her father bought what is now 1963 Massachusetts Ave. in 1924.



The Amaru girls were sent to school at Notre Dame Academy and Mirabelli later graduated from Boston University. She never took a job however, choosing to get married in 1928 to Eugene Mirabelli, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Mirabellis had two sons, Richard and Gene, and Josephine stayed at home raising her boys and volunteering for the community.

"I never made any money," she joked.

Starting in the 1930s and through the Second World War, Mirabelli was a volunteer with the American Red Cross and was an air raid warden. She also worked to collect clothes for earthquake victims and spent many hours volunteering in the Lexington store La Tienda, which was a cooperative venture with a group of Mexican immigrants.

"We would work," said Mirabelli of the store. "It was a lot of fun."

Handy with her needle, Mirabelli is one of the founding members of the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society. In her home hang beautiful embroidered drapes of fruits, birds and trees. All the rugs on her floors are ones she made by hand, along with the tapestry on her wall.

In addition to needlework, Mirabelli is also skilled in silver, leather and wood work; decoupage; and hooking. In recent years, Mirabelli has also taken up painting with watercolors.

Mirabelli sang with the Lexington Choral Society and would give lessons in Italian out of her home. She said part of the appeal of the lessons was helping to maintain her own Italian language skills; growing up Italian was always spoken in the home.

"If you know something, you don't keep it to yourself," she said.

As a member of the choral society, Mirabelli had an opportunity to realize her love of choral music and opera. Growing up, her mother would tell all the children the stories portrayed in the operas and then have them listen to them on Saturdays when they were on the radio.

In honor of all her work and dedication to Lexington, she received the Minuteman Cane Award in 1995.

Mirabelli said Lexington is very different from the little town she moved to when she was 18.

"It was a lot smaller," she said, recalling visiting shopkeepers on Massachusetts Avenue and catching up on all the news. "Today when you go down [town] you don't know anybody ... the town has changed."

Today, Mirabelli has five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Still living in the house she and her husband bought in 1928 when they married, Mirabelli said she was expecting several visitors in honor of her big day.

"We have room for everybody," she said. "We have a lot of fun when we get together."

And no one should doubt Mirabelli's tenacity to go and fully enjoy the extent of her celebrations.

"I'm full of pep," she said laughing.