Carmen Iannelli
Named: Carmen Iannelli, Engine Company 9, and Camden Fire Department.
CARMEN IANNELLI was a second-generation Camden firefighter. He died in the line of duty in the aftermath of a fire in the 1300 block of Pine Street. His father, Frank Iannelli, and older brother, Captain Leonard Iannelli, also died on active duty.
Carmen Iannelli was born in Camden on November 7, 1924 to Frank and Rose Iannelli, both of whom were born in Italy. In 1924 the family lived at 310 Berkley Street in South Camden. Frank Iannelli was then working as a laborer. By April of 1930 he had joined the Camden Fire Department. Frank Iannelli, died on active duty as a member of Engine Company 9 on April 5, 1942.
Carmen Iannelli served with the United States Army during World War II. He joined the Camden Fire Department around 1953. Carmen Iannelli was still living at 310 Berkley Street as late as October of 1959. By this time his brother, Captain Leonard Iannelli, was also a member of the Camden Fire Department.
Tragedy again struck when his brother, Captain Leonard Iannelli, died while fighting a fire at Broadway and Chestnut Street on January 14th, 1964.
Assigned to Engine Company 9 in East Camden, by the mid 1960s Carmen Iannelli lived with his wife Jean and son Carmen Jr. at 3061 Stevens Street, near Woodrow Wilson High School.
Like his father and older brother, Carmen Iannelli died in the line of duty as a Camden fire fighter. On June 5, 1975, during the aftermath of a fire, Engine Company 9 was cleaning hose at the scene when Iannelli collapsed. He was dead on arrival at Cooper Medical Center at 2:50 a.m.
Carmen Iannelli was a member of Local 788, International Association of Fire Fighters, and of St. Joseph’s Pro-Cathedral on Federal Street and 29th Street in East Camden. He was survived by his mother, wife, son, and a brother, Frank L. Iannelli.
3 Hosemen Made Fire Captains
Camden Courier-Post —
Three hosemen were promoted to the rank of fire department captain today by Public Safety Commissioner E. George Aaron.
Aaron also announced the appointment of six new firemen and two new policemen.
Thomas E. McParland, 1617 Euclid Avenue, of No. 6 Engine Co.; Leonard F. Garbrecht, 5 Court G, Canterbury Apartments, of No. 10 Engine Co.; and Louis J. Martelli, 569 Line Street, of No. 8 Engine Co. are the three promoted.
The new firemen are Henry J. Keating, 3316 Lemuel Avenue, transferred from the Police Department; Thomas J. McCabe, 385 Garden Avenue; Orville Goldsboro, 293 Liberty Street; Carmen Ianelli, 310 Berkley Street; Michael A. Panelli, 6th Street and the Boulevard; and Harrison MacNeir, 35th Street and the Boulevard.
The new policemen are Michael A. R. Gimino, 925 North 22nd Street, and Vincent J. Wall, 12 Court H, Canterbury Apartments.
Carmen Iannelli — World War II Service
Named: Airmail letter from Pvt. Carmen Iannelli, APO 149, New York, June 1944, and addressed to Miss Annabelle Layton, 416 No. 6th Street, Camden, New Jersey.
Fireman Dies After City Blaze
Camden Courier-Post —
A Camden fireman collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack early today after returning from the scene of a two-alarm fire that severely damaged a city warehouse.
A brother of the fireman died under similar circumstances at a fire scene in 1964.
Carmen Iannelli, 50, of 3061 Stevens Street, Camden, collapsed at No. 9 Engine Company headquarters at 27th and Federal Streets and was dead on arrival at Cooper Medical Center, Camden, at 2:50 a.m.
A 22-year veteran of the Camden Fire Department, Iannelli had been on the scene of a fire at the Pompas waste paper warehouse at 1300 Pine Street.
According to Battalion Fire Chief Robert Dukes, the fire broke out at 7:45 p.m. and burned out of control until shortly before 10 p.m. There were no injuries at the scene, Dukes said, and the fire is believed to have been accidental.
A hospital spokesman said Iannelli died of an apparent heart attack.
His brother Leonard Iannelli Sr. collapsed at the scene of a fire at Broadway and Chestnut Street, January 14, 1964. He was 41 years old at the time.
Memorial Cards
Memorial cards for Carmen Iannelli — Camden Fire Department
The Grim Shadow of Death Stalks Firemen’s Family
Camden Courier-Post —
FRANK IANNELLI came to this country in 1904 from the sleepy little mountain village of San Bartolomeo, Italy. He settled first in Boston with friends and went straight to work as a helper at construction sites, only to leave for France a few years later when the United States entered World War I.
He came back to Camden after the war and in 1921 he had himself a very good year, the kind of year that marks a turning point in a man’s life.
First he landed a job as a hoseman with the Camden Fire Department, a job that would keep him working during the Depression. Then he met Rosina Carlone, who, as fate would have it, was also a native of San Bartolomeo. They were introduced by a mutual friend, the visit arranged under the approving eye of the girl’s father.
The visit went very well. So well, in fact, that six months later Frank Iannelli and Rosina Carlone were married. They moved into a rowhouse at 3rd and Berkeley streets in Camden, and in short order two sons, Leonard and Carmen, were born. Years later, in 1937, a third son, Frankie, arrived.
Like most Italian-American families, the Iannellis were very close. Rose would often take the boys down to the firehouse to see their father. Then, on an April night in 1942, tragedy struck. After fighting a fire, Frank Iannelli returned to No. 9 Engine Company on 27th and Federal Streets and climbed the stairs to the second floor, where he collapsed and died of a heart attack. He was 51 years old.
TRAGEDY spares no family. Sooner or later all of us will have to pick up a telephone in the middle of the night. The death of Frank Iannelli hit Rose and the boys hard, but the family closed ranks around the widowed mother and managed to go on.
It was not until a bitterly cold night in January 1964, a night on which the temperature dropped to one degree above zero, that the Iannelli family began to think that fate had singled them out for more than the usual share of grief.
On that night, Leonard, 41 years old and by then a captain in the department, toppled over in the ice and snow at a two-alarm fire in a men’s clothing store at Broadway and Chestnut Street after inhaling smoke. He was rushed to Cooper Hospital, where he died.
THE IRONY of Leonard’s death left the family shattered and bewildered. The pain was keener because neither Leonard nor his father had a history of heart trouble. They had been strong vibrant men, full of life. “He was only sick one day in his life,” Leonard’s widow said later. “And that was the day he died.”
If there was a consolation for the Iannellis, it was only the thought that certainly now no greater tragedy could befall them. The worst had happened; only better days could lie ahead.
Carmen was now the head of the family and the only Iannelli left in the Camden Fire Department since Frankie, unlike his father and brothers, had not been caught up by the mystique of the fireman’s life and had gone into private business.
Carmen was a quiet, sensitive man who preferred to spend his idle hours around the firehouse working crossword puzzles and solving riddles rather than taking part in the practical jokes and locker room horseplay that are the traditional recreation of firemen. He was known among his co-workers as a man who liked to figure things out.
To his wife, Jean, and the rest of the family, he did not appear to brood about what had happened to his father and brother, nor did he seem to worry about falling victim to a similar fate. But there was a telling incident, an incident that would not be remembered until after his death.
One day, climbing the firehouse stairs with Vince Orme, who is now the city fire marshal, Carmen pointed to the second floor landing and said: “That’s where it happened. That’s where my father died. That’s where I’m going to die too.”
He was wrong. He was not destined to die on the landing where his father died. He was destined to die about 50 feet away, out on the sidewalk, unravelling five-inch hose after a fire in the storage yard of a wastepaper warehouse on Pine Street.
He was destined to die last Thursday, not only at the same firehouse in which his father died, but at just about the same time of day — two o’clock in the morning — and at just about the same age — 50.
THREE MEN, a father and two sons, all firemen, all killed on the job by heart attacks. The irony is almost too awful for the mind to fully grasp and comprehend. In the 100-year history of the Camden Fire Department, nothing like this has ever happened before.
With Carmen’s death, the grief of the surviving members of the Iannelli family can no longer be measured. It can only be sensed.
It can be heard in the nervous, high-pitched voice of Frankie Iannelli, who is now 38 and who stated very matter-of-factly the other day, sitting in a car outside the RCA buildings in Camden, that he is afraid to go near a firehouse.
And it can be seen in the eyes of the widows. Terribly sad eyes, like those of children who, having been punished unfairly, cringe in expectation of still more punishment. In the eyes of Jean Iannelli, Carmen’s widow, there is also a muted pride — a fierce pride in a husband who served his city faithfully for 22 years and who died, as he always said he would, in the line of duty.
Portrait
Carmen Iannelli — Camden Fire Department