ANTHONY J. MENDILLO, M. D.

     When Dr. Anthony J. Mendillo was but ten years of age there awoke in him the desire to become a physician. He started out to provide for his own support when a youth of but eleven years and from that time forward has been dependent upon his own resources. It was in this way that he earned the money that made possible the fulfillment of his boyhood dreams and with the passing years he has steadily advanced in his profession, winning a very creditable position among the leading physicians of New Haven. He belongs to that substantial class of citizens that Italy has furnished to this city, his birth having occurred in Cerreto-Sannita, in the province of Benevento, January 22, 1886. His father, John Mendillo, a native of Italy, came to America in 1887, making his way direct to New Haven, when he engaged in the shoe business. He married Margaret Dimeola, also a native of Italy, and with her husband and family she came to the new world. She was the mother of thirteen children, six of whom are yet living.
     Dr. Mendillo was the third in order of birth and is the oldest of the living children. He was only a year old when brought by his parents to the United States and his education was acquired in the public schools of New Haven, but when he was only eleven years of age he started out to earn his own living. He was first employed in manufacturing plants until the age of fourteen years and during that period he carefully saved his earnings until his industry and economy had brought him sufficient capital to engage in business on his own account. He then opened a barber shop, having previously learned the trade. When sixteen years of age he sold his shop and became a student in the Hopkins grammar school. After a year he passed his examinations which enabled him to enter the Yale Medical School and thus he took the first step toward the fulfillment of his boyhood's ambition. He was graduated from Yale in 1907 with the M. D. degree when twenty-one years of age, being the youngest member of his class. Following his graduation he spent three months in Italy in post graduate work and upon his return to this country became an interne in the New Haven Hospital, where he continued for three months. During the succeeding twenty months he was in the Bridgeport General Hospital, gaining that broad and valu-able experience which is secured in no other way as quickly and as surely as in hospital practice. He then returned to New Haven and opened an office at No. 613 Chapel street, where he remained for eighteen months, when he removed to his present location at No. 26 Elm street. Throughout the intervening years he has continued actively and successfully in practice, making a specialty of general surgery, for which work he is particularly well qualified. His knowledge of anatomy and the component parts of the human body is comprehensive and his ability is manifest in the many important surgical operations which he has performed. He is the secretary of the York Square Hospital, a private hospital of New Haven. He served with the Connecticut National Guard when at Bridgeport as a member of the Hospital Corps for a year. He belongs to the New Haven, the New Haven County and the Connecticut State Medical Societies and the American Medical Association and thus keeps in touch with the advanced thought of the profession.
     On the 16th of October, 1911, Dr. Mendillo was married in St. Michael's church in New Haven by the Rev. Arusti Allusi to Miss Mary Agnes Murdie, a native of Louisville, New York, and a daughter of William and Mary A. (Finnegan) Murdie, the latter a representative of one of the pioneer families of St. Lawrence county, New York. To the Doctor and his wife have been born two children: June Mary, who was born in New Haven, June 3, 1913; and Elizabeth, who was born February 12, 1915.
     The parents are members of St. Mary's Roman Catholic church. Dr. Mendillo belongs to the Union League Club of New Haven and he is a member of Alpha Kappa and Sigma Psi. He has a large circle of friends in this city and his sterling qualities of manhood and of citizenship ensure their warm regard. He certainly deserves much credit for what he has accomplished. Starting out in the business world when but a young lad, he never lost sight of his early ambition to become a physician and bent every effort toward that end, so directing his purposes and his activities that the result was certain, and today he occupies an enviable position among the successful physicians and surgeons of New Haven.