Mario S. De Pillis, Sr. passed away from cancer and complications incident to old age In
Amherst on November 18, 2021.

He was pre-deceased in 2013 by his first wife, Freda Rustemeyer. He is survived by his second
wife, Constance M. McGovern.

Mario was the second of three sons of Vincent Carmine De Pillis and Giacinta Angelucci De
Pillis. He was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 22, 1926, and baptized in
May of that year at the old English-Irish church of Saint Rita on Broad Street.

Just before the Crash of 1929 his father bought a house in West Philadelphia on the edge of
the city. Around 1937 his father was admitted to one of Pennsylvania’s tuberculosis
sanatoriums, where he died in 1940.

He attended St. Callistus Elementary School (long defunct along with its associated parish
church). From there he went to one of the tuition-free Catholic high schools, St. Thomas More
(closed in 1977).

During World War II he joined the Army Air Corps, training as an airplane and engine mechanic
for B-24 bombers and C-46 transport planes at Keesler Field, Mississippi, and Buffalo, New
York. In December 1945 the Air Corps sent him to serve in the occupation of Germany. He left
Boston on a Liberty Ship and arrived in Le Havre, France, traveling thence by box car to
Bavaria, where he began training as a counter-intelligence agent (partly because of his
knowledge of German). He was assigned to the 970th Counter-intelligence Corps covering the
Frankfurt area. There he received a direct appointment to warrant Officer JG.

Returning to the United States in 1948, he attended the College of the University of Chicago
(BA 1952, MA in history 1954). There he met Freda, whom he married on June 21, 1952. In
1955-56 he matriculated at Yale University, taking a second MA and a Ph. D. in American
history. His dissertation won the George Washington Egleston Prize.

Coming to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1958, when it was still strongly
agricultural, he rose slowly through the ranks, having put “service” before publication. He
served on the first Board of Trustees (1960) of the Hancock Shaker Village, which was saved
from becoming a race track. In 1965 he joined a group headed by the art historian David. C.
Huntington in preserving Olana, the architectural masterpiece of Frederic Edwin Church.

His major scholarly work concerned the extension of the story of Mormon communalism into
the 20th century. From 1994 to 1995 he served as the 30th President of the Mormon History
Association, only the second non-Mormon to do so. He was the founder of three scholarly
journals still leading their fields: the Journal of Social History (with Peter Stearns); the Journal of
Mormon History (assisting Jan Shipps and Leonard Arrington and others); and Communal
Societies. He was the founder and editor of Communal Societies, proud of specifying the
typeface and design and using the last linotype printer in Massachusetts.

An activist in town matters, Mario founded the West Downtown Association in 1997 to deal
with the loss of families from that area and unsupervised rentals. But he devoted most of his
energy to fighting the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church since 2002, working with
Ann W. Turner, Joan Smola, and others to found the Voice of the Faithful. This group was
instrumental in removing the Bishop of the diocese of Springfield.

In 1964, President John Lederle appointed him to a committee for the establishment of a
branch of the University of Massachusetts—now the thriving University of Massachusetts at
Boston. In the 1970s Mario and two other faculty members revised the constitution of the
Faculty Senate to give the faculty a greater voice in governance. Mario, also with Michael P.
Sullivan, was instrumental in the expansion of the UMass 5 College Credit Union from one
room in Draper Hall to the various off-campus locations of today. He assisted fellow History
Department members Howard H. Quint and Louis Greenbaum in establishing the first Honors
Program and for ten years he taught the first History Honors course. His most distinguished
student was Kenneth R. Feinberg. The Honors Program recently became a vast new
Commonwealth Honors College with its own building and almost four thousand students.

In 2017, he married Constance M. McGovern, an historian in her own right. They spent their
twilight years pursuing their mutual interests in historical research and writing. Returning to
Europe for the last time, they traveled to Rome to visit Mario’s only living cousin, Roberto
Campitelli. They traveled as well to the sites of Mario’s international lecture stints in Munich
and Constance, Germany, reuniting with old friends and colleagues. At home they welcomed
visitors, family and friends from afar.

He is survived by his wife Constance M. McGovern; his three sons: Vincent and his wife Kristin
Bedell of Seattle; Mario, Jr., and his wife Annie Walton of Amherst; and Alexander and his wife
Debra Ann Pinsof-De Pillis of Montpelier. He leaves five grandchildren: Lydia De Pillis of
Washington D.C., Sophie De Pillis and her husband Tom Winterbottom of Oakland, California,
Alexander and Rafael De Pillis of Amherst, Gabriel Nathaniel Pinsof De Pillis of Montpellier, and
one great grandson Frederick Fane De Pillis of Oakland. His brother Vincent J. De Pillis of
Philadelphia survives him as well.

Funeral arrangements will be handled by Douglass Funeral Service of Amherst. A memorial
service will be held at the funeral home on December 4, 2021, beginning at 11:00 a.m. A
reception will follow. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Hancock Shaker Village,
1843 West Housatonic Street, Pittsfield 01201 (hancockshakervillage.org) or Voice of the
Faithful, P.O. Box 423, Newton Upper Falls, MA 02464 (votf.org). The town of Amherst requires
masks for all indoor gatherings. The family assumes attendees will be vaccinated