His financial advisers told him he was crazy. Joe, they said, a company losing five grand a month in a swell town like Lowell hardly looks like the vehicle for building the next great American industrial fortune. But Joe dismissed their caution, for reasons that to this day remain hazy even to him. Possibly his other options were not all that palatable. Possibly his advisers were not all immigrant Sicilians. Whatever the possibilities, the reality was that the (now) four macaroni makers shook hands and became partners. Joe had an apartment built on the back of the plant -- his home, as it happened, for the next three and a half years. His wife got a note saying, "Dear Lena, Here is my new address. Visiting hours are once a month; come Friday, leave Sunday. Love, Joe." In one month, the new general manager posted a $900 profit.
The first thing I did was change the product. Immediately. We switched the [drying] racks back to 66 sticks from 44. That helped. Also, I cleaned up the place, because people don't feel good unless the place looks good and, besides, I was living there. What else? Oh, I said we had to use only number one semolina -- no bag of this, bag of that -- because I wanted to make the best product in the world, not the cheapest. There really wasn't much magic to it. I knew we couldn't sit around and wait for problems to fix themselves, because guys like La Rosa were coming in from New York and taking our whole market away. When I got to Lowell, La Rosa was selling 30,000 cases a week in New England. Prince was selling maybe 500 cases. The reason I knew about La Rosa, I traded macaroni with the tollbooth collectors in exchange for the information.
(JP)
The company's turnaround came none too soon. La Rosa's presence in Prince's backyard was symptomatic of a changing industry that was fast losing whatever respect it had once had for turf rights or politesse. The business had matured in the era stretching from the Crash of 1929 to the end of World War II: first more Americans (including Americans of other-than-Italian origin) discovered pasta's versatility; then the armed forces discovered its portability. Moreover, the growing market stimulated the innate competitiveness of the immigrant entrepreneurs, many of whom held sharp opinions on such matters as, say, the relative worth of Sicilians versus Genoans. Most of these manufacturers knew each other personally, and most of them took threats to their market share the same way. "It was the Hatfields against the McCoys," remembers the offspring of one feuding family. "These guys all had big egos, and they all absolutely hated one another. They didn't come in trying to 'create a market presence.' They came in trying to destroy yours."
The instinct to wipe one another out took its toll. In 1904, the National Macaroni Association's membership totaled 475; by 1948, the number was down to 250, with a few well-known names -- La Rosa, Ronzoni, Mueller, Prince -- demonstrating enough market muscle to qualify as truly regional companies. Even on an expanded scale, however, the feelings stayed personal. One day early in his tenure at Prince, standing in Martignett's, a North End groceria he would later glorify with his "Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day" television commercial, Joe Pellegrino met Angelo La Rosa, his most visible nemesis. Pellegrino was in Martignetti's to beg for orders, La Rosa to collect a fat check. While the two men were politely deferential, sarcasm flowed thicker than bolognese sauce. Finally, La Rosa said, Don't worry, Mr. Pellegrino. You're a nice young fellow, we leave you the crumbs. Joe walked outside and, looking up at the sky, said, Lord, help me exterminate this man from this spot. Six or seven years later, at a dinner in his honor, Pellegrino sent a bottle of champagne over to La Rosa from his seat at the head table. What's this for? asked La Rosa. You destroyed me in Boston.
That's right, and you inspired me, said Joe Pellegrino. Enjoy the champagne.
III PRINCE SPAGHETTI DAY
I didn't see much of my father growing up; he was always on the road. But I can understand that. I really believe his true love -- much as he adored my mother, me, my aunts, whoever -- was [this company]. It didn't matter if the business was wildly profitable or successful -- it was fun to him, and he approached it with the energy of 10 men. If I had to list his other strengths, I'd say they were an absolute confidence in everything he did, plus the ability to surround himself with loyal people who'd do whatever he told them to. If you asked me his greatest weaknesses, I'd say . . . the same damned three.
(Joseph Pellegrino II)
The family settled into a rambling brick house in the Shawsheen district of Andover, Mass., 15 miles from the factory. There were Joe and Lena, Lena's mother, the four unwed Realmuto sisters (all worked for Prince), and, born in 1939, an only child, young Joseph. Dominated by women, the household observed Old World tradition in deferring to its main provider and patriarch, but the son was born an American and soon showed more interest in the rituals and values of the New World. He ran with an assortment of neighborhood rat packs and dutifully attended parochial school. At 13, he applied successfully to Phillips Academy, the renowned preparatory school up the hill in Andover. Phillips was such a radical departure from the immigrant Catholic norm that a school nun took the boy aside and warned him that by going there he would risk living in eternal sin. He went anyway. "I didn't even know what a 'preppy' was, much less how one behaved," he noted many years later, "but I already had a sense of wanting to play in a wider world."
In Lowell, the father quickly widened his power base, buying out La Marca and Seminara and recruiting a management team molded by the stamp of his forceful personality. And although he lacked much appetite for the financial side of the business, Joe dealt straightforwardly with his bankers, especially Union National president Homer Bourgeois, whom he perceptively placed on his board of directors. Under Pellegrino's command, Prince truly took off, seeing sales grow from $5 million to $10 million between 1940 and 1950.
