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Our People of the Century
Dane and Perry Barse: 
Entrepreneurial Brothers Helped Many Immigrants   

When Dane Barse first set foot in America he was only 11. His parents, Francesco and Anna, were storekeepers in Roccomorice, Italy, and the young boy had come to America with this father.

Barse stayed behind when his father returned to Italy two years later. He worked in clothing factories in Canada, New York, and Philadelphia.

In 1923, he moved to Vineland and started the Model Coat Co. Barse’s brother, Perry, came from Italy that same year.

Together, each in their own way, they built Model Coat, formed with other Top-O-Mart clothes, and were part owners of Consolidated Pants Co. in Hammonton and the Jersey Coat Co. in Egg Harbor.

Dane Barse was only 58 when he died in 1960, but his humanitarianism efforts are remembered still.

Through donation and fund-raising, he supported the Boys Town he helped establish in 1945 near Rome.

Italian immigrants to Cumberland County came to know his generosity and hospitality –food, clothes, a place to stay – often personally delivered.

Barse served on the six-member Joint Consolidation Committee and on the school board before and after the 1952 consolidation of Vineland and Landis Township.

His fund-raising campaigns for Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden were all legion. Pope Pius XII bestowed the knighthood of St. Gregory on him in 1947.

Although his ways were quieter, Perry Barse’s record mirrors his brother’s.

National Director of the American Committee for Italian Immigration until his death in 1978, he organized relief efforts for victims of floods and earthquakes in Italy. He was too knighted and honored by the Pope.

Many Barse descendents live in the area and continue the tradition of giving established by the brothers more than half a century ago.

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