Italian roots: Lamplighters legacy lives on through scholarship

When the Lamplighters Civic and Social Club sold its building located at 1007 Rebecca St. in Wooster in 2021, more than a few tears were shed.

It was truly the end of an era for Wooster’s Italian-American Club when the organization officially disbanded in 2024.

Lamplighters was like a second home for Trish van Tol and her siblings, Don, Carol (Hines) and Janet (Fry), growing up as kids in the 1970s.

“Oh my goodness, they'd have so many weddings and wedding receptions at Lamplighters,” van Tol said. “We would have Christmas and Halloween parties back in the day. The New Year's Eve parties were always fun. The parents, kids and grandparents would all be there. They’d have bands and deejays, and we’d have sauerkraut and pork at midnight.”

Throughout the years Lamplighters was a social gathering place in Wooster’s south side known as “Little Italy,” located near Massaro Avenue and Palmer Street, also known as The Hill. Club members and guests would discuss the news of the day, enjoy dinners together, play cards or have drinks at the bar.

Fast forward to 2026 and van Tol along with her sister Hines, Lisa Campanell Komara and Linda Cutter-Fiscus are the last remaining Lamplighters committee members.

They felt compelled to keep the Lamplighters’ legacy alive by establishing a scholarship in 2023 through the Wayne County Community Foundation.

The Lamplighters Italian American Scholarship goes to one or more area high school seniors each year. Students who have shown academic promise and good character are encouraged to apply through the WCCF, with preference given to applicants of Italian heritage.

“The Lamplighters scholarship is honoring all the Italians in the Wayne County community,” Hines said, “everybody who put their blood, sweat and tears into Wayne County and worked hard.”

The Lamplighters’ club name was taken from the song “The Old Lamplighter,” which extolled the virtues of “making the city a little brighter.”

Italians started coming to Wooster in the late 1860s and began to live on the hill in the area of streets like Pittsburgh, Palmer, Bowman and Spink.

Joseph DiGiacomo, Andrew Massaro and Benjamin Zarlengo created the Society of Beneficence and Mutual Aid in 1910, according to Dominic Iannarelli’s book, “A Touch of Italy in Wooster.”

“The Italians already here taught new immigrants English,” Campanell Komara said. “They provided financial aid and helped prepare for citizenship exams. When they came over, they also wanted to promote and share their culture with everybody else in Wayne County.”

The bond to continue helping each other and promote their culture throughout the community was continued after World War II. When the soldiers from the “greatest generation” returned from winning the war, Lamplighters was started.

Some of the family names who helped found Lamplighters were Iannarelli, Coppola, Grande, Letizia, Gianotto, Massaro, Cicconetti, Coccia, Di Orio, Tomasetti, Gasbarre, Carafelli, Vitallo and many more.

“There were so many Italians who migrated to Wayne County, and they all felt the discrimination and worked to get their citizenship papers,” Hines said. “They started Lamplighters because they weren’t welcome in other clubs. That was their social time back in the day. In the community they helped each other become productive citizens.”

Hines and van Tol said their late father Raymond Frank Rose, who passed away in 2023, kept his father’s Lamplighters membership card in his wallet all his life.

“The memories, the heritage and the passion for the Lamplighters is incredible,” Hines said as she fought back tears. “My dad passed away at 99 and kept his dad’s card in his wallet until his death.

“(Emilio ‘Mike’ Rossi) couldn’t get a job when he first came to Wooster in the early 1900s, but after changing his last name to Rose, he was hired a week later,” Hines said of Ray’s dad and her grandfather.

Ray Rose and his wife, the late Florence (Moretti) Rose, were married for 64 years and were fixtures at Lamplighters. Ray was known for his delicious meatballs, being a card shark and homemade wine.

Unfortunately, as Wooster’s Italian community progressed through the generations, fewer and fewer people considered Lamplighters the centerpiece of their social life or considered it at all more than a couple of times a year.

Campanell Komara, a retired women’s basketball and golf coach at The College of Wooster, has been involved with Lamplighters since shortly after moving to the area in 1997. She’s sad to see it go but is working with other committee members to possibly establish a new Italian-American Club in Wooster.

“There's a bigger gap between (immigrants) coming over from Italy with each generation,” Campanell Komara said. “Today, there's so much more for people to do in organizations that people belong to, and it seems like people's lives are so busy.”

Lamplighters was struggling with fewer visitors and volunteers before COVID, and the pandemic provided some of the final nails in the club’s coffin.

“Nobody really came back after COVID,” van Tol said. “We tried doing takeout (food), but it just wasn’t sustainable. Many people’s social lives today involve running their kids around for travel sports or on their phones. It was a really sad situation to have to close the building.”

The Wayne County Metropolitan Housing Authority bought the building in 2021 but sold it to Gerhard and Bethany Weinhardt in April 2025.

The Lamplighters committee members used the proceeds of the sale to establish the scholarship fund.

“It does my heart good,” van Tol said. “I think our ancestors would be proud and thankful. We have got to give credit to all the people who helped build Lamplighters, do all the events and support it. There was a lot of nickel-and-dime gathering and volunteer work to build a club of that size back then. Lamplighters was the core of our parents’ social lives when we were growing up, but times change. It just isn’t that way anymore.”

Anyone interested in joining a new Wooster Italian Sons and Daughters of America Club is welcome to email Campanell Komara at Lcampanell13@gmail.com.