Jerome (Jerry) Allan Pessagno was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on 7 April 1933. He was an only child, quite doted on by his entire family, especially his mother. Apparent at an early age were the extraordinary intelligence and academic excellence that made him a special child and would make him a remarkable adult. He especially shone as a public speaker, a unique gift that he would display throughout his life. Indeed, he was a brilliant public speaker, mesmerizing many an audience, youth or adult, throughout his career.
Jerry was schooled in Baltimore, attending Mount St. Joseph's, a school run by the Xaverian Brothers. Quite a fateful encounter, for he so admired the Xaverian ideal that, before he had reached the end of his teen years, he determined he would join the Order. When he entered the Brothers, he chose the name Meric. He loved this name so much, and so many people in his life knew him solely as “Meric,” that, after he eventually left the Brothers, he adopted it, and so it stayed with him throughout his life.
He joined the Brothers and matriculated at Catholic University where he obtained a B.A. and an M.A. in the Classics and Philosophy. He then taught at Xaverian high schools: first, at Good Counsel in Maryland and later at Xaverian High School in Brooklyn.
His main concentration in all those years was speech and debate; under his tutelage, his boys won many a debate, including national championships. In 1967, the Brothers gave him permission to pursue his doctorate, and so he was accepted at Yale University, where he studied in the Near Eastern Languages and Literature Department. Among his studies were courses in Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic.
Jerry was in the Brothers for 16 years. He left the Order in 1969, following a distinct change in political climate in all the religious Orders, but especially the Xaverian Order, which experienced immense turmoil in the late 1960s. He obtained his doctorate from Yale in 1973.
In February 1970 Jerry met his wife, Betty. They were married that November and moved to Westport, Connecticut. (Jerry's students at New Canaan were always so disappointed to learn that he met Betty AFTER he had already left the Order. How much more interesting a story, they thought, if she had lured him from his religious vocation!) In September of that year, Jerry began teaching Latin and Greek at New Canaan High School, a position he would retain until 1995, the year he suffered a massive heart attack and underwent a triple bypass. Throughout his years of teaching, he was an immensely popular, indeed charismatic, figure at New Canaan, as he had been in the Xaverian schools. In 1996, through the lovely offices of his dear friends and former students, he began teaching at St. John's University as an adjunct professor of philosophy. In 1997, he returned to Xaverian High School where he taught for the next year and a half, until his health declined and he could no longer make the trek to Brooklyn. His return to Xaverian gave him perhaps his only real happiness in the years after his illness began.
Throughout his years in Connecticut, Jerry’s expertise in the Middle East was widely sought after, and he gave many a speech on the topic. When asked so often in his life why he chose a relatively modest career when certainly the law (and all the prestige and worldly reward it offers) was his most natural fit, he would always state that he wanted a life devoted entirely to teaching.
Jerry died on December 31, 2000, a most inappropriate time for him to leave us, for celebrating the New Year was a special joy for him in life. Jerry left two children: Eric Allan, now 28, a Columbia graduate (B.A.) and a Yale graduate (M.A.), who is now married and working for a hedge fund in New York City, and Claudia Emilia, 23, a Fordham University graduate about to enter graduate school at Fordham in the International Studies Department.
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