Jim Richard Angelo
Vicksburg
Jim Richard Angelo was born on October 6, 1943, in Vicksburg. His father was born in 1910 in Beaumont, Texas, to Lebanese immigrants who entered America either through New Orleans or through Galveston. His mother was born in El Munsif, Lebanon, in 1906, and immigrated with her parents, Abe Farris and Zelpha Farris, through the port at Ellis Island. The Farrises had family who had preceded them to America and who were living in Meridian, Mississippi. They followed them there, later moving to Vicksburg.
Jim Angelo grew up in Vicksburg and lived there until he graduated from high school and left for college. He and his family had lived in a house behind the grocery store that his mother and father ran on Cherry Street. Angelo eventually returned to Mississippi, and he and his wife, Susie, live in Brandon today.
Growing up, Angelo, like most of the Lebanese community in Vicksburg, attended St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church, where his parents were married. “I grew up in this church, grew up in Vicksburg,” he said, “and St. George is the only church I’ve ever had membership in my entire life. I was baptized [here], and I’ve always maintained membership here. This is it for me. It’s a small community, so you know the people here are by and large very dedicated. Good people and wonderful people in this church, I promise you. People care about each other.”
Jim and Susie participate in organizing and preparing the Lebanese Dinner at St. George, an annual event that began in 1959. Today the church serves around 3,500 Lebanese meals in one day.
This interview took place in St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Vicksburg on Saturday, February 3, 2018.
AUDIO (Click to listen):
“[My mother] could speak Arabic. She would speak Arabic more with her mom and dad and with my grandparents, and then she would speak a little around [brother] Robert and me a little bit, so we’d just pick up a little here and there, but I never learned really to speak the language.”
“Their life was easier here than it was in the Middle East. You know, I asked my mother once if she ever wanted to go back to Lebanon, to go back to El Munsif, and just visit. And a very much “no”—no interest in going back. She had no interest in ever going back to visit Lebanon again. Just like, ‘Nope, don’t care to do it.’”
—Jim Richard Angelo