James Groppi - Early Years, Education, Ordination As Priest

Early Years, Education, Ordination As Priest

James Groppi was born in the Bay View neighborhood on the south side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Italian immigrant parents. Giocondo and Giorgina Groppi had twelve children, of which James was the eleventh. In this working class community, Giocondo joined others from Italy in Milwaukee's grocery business, opening "Groppi's" store in Bay View, where James and his siblings worked. Typical of boys in heavily Catholic south side Milwaukee, James attended a parochial grade school (Immaculate Conception), but went on to the public high school in Bay View, where he was captain of the basketball team in his senior year. A year after graduation, James Groppi enrolled at Mount Calvary Seminary (1950–1952) in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. According to Frank Aukofer, "It was during his seminary years that Father Groppi began developing an empathy with the black poor. He worked summers at a youth center in Milwaukee's inner core. It was there that he saw the social suffering and ostracism that Negroes lived with every day" (p. 90). Groppi was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood in June 1959 after studying at St. Francis Seminary (1952–1959).