DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one drivin' you to it. Galveston, Texas. A city that knows the water better than most — knows its beauty, knows its mercy, and knows full well what it can take from you.
Carmelo Bertolino was born right there on September 4, 1887. His parents, Salvatore and Rosalia Trapani Bertolino, had come over from Palermo, Italy in the early 1880s, and Galveston is where they planted roots. But the water made itself known early.
When Carmelo was just three years old, his father Salvatore drowned in Galveston Bay. Three years old. That's the kind of thing that marks a family — and a life — in ways you can't quite calculate.
Rosalia raised the family, and Carmelo grew into a man who worked with his hands. He fished. He baked over at Graugnard's Bakery.
He married Mabel Cousins in 1911, and together they built what the marker calls a large family. By any measure, he was living a full life on that island. Now, here's where the story starts to turn into something else entirely.
Carmelo Bertolino was an athletic man — and that's not just a polite word for it. He swam in the Gulf of Mexico every single day until he was past seventy years of age. Past seventy.
Most people that age are thinking about their knees. Carmelo was thinking about the tide. And it wasn't just exercise.
Somewhere in that man, something had been decided. Maybe it was losing his father to Galveston Bay when he was barely old enough to remember him. Maybe it was the brother he lost — also to accidental drowning in Galveston waters.
Or the son. Yes — a son, too, taken the same way. Three people he loved, all claimed by the same waters he swam in every morning.
You'd think a man might come to fear the Gulf after that. Carmelo Bertolino apparently came to something closer to a reckoning. He became a volunteer lifesaver.
No title, no salary — just a man who showed up. And during his lifetime, he is credited with saving more than five hundred people from drowning. Five hundred.
In waters that had taken his father, his brother, his son. Now, Carmelo was actually in Italy during the disastrous 1900 storm — the one that reshaped Galveston forever. He missed that one.
But in 1915, when the next great hurricane came roaring in, Carmelo was there. And he saved many lives. His efforts did not go unnoticed.
Official citations came from the Texas Legislature and from President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself. That's not a small thing — a fisherman and baker from Galveston, recognized by the President of the United States for pulling strangers out of the sea.
Carmelo Bertolino died on March 8, 1960. Shortly after his death, a monument was erected in his honor. And the Galveston City Council named 10th Street at its intersection with the seawall "Bertolino's View." Bertolino's View.
Look out from that corner sometime. You're seeing the same Gulf he swam in every day past the age of seventy. The same water that took three people he loved.
The same water he refused to let take five hundred more. That's not a man who feared the sea. That's a man who answered it.
What the marker says
(September 4, 1887 - March 8, 1960) Born in Galveston in 1887, Carmelo Bertolino was the son of Salvatore Bertolino (d. 1891) and Rosalia Trapani Bertolino (d. 1942), who immigrated to Texas from Palermo, Italy in the early 1880s. Salvatore Bertolino drowned in Galveston Bay when Carmelo was three years old. Carmelo married Mabel Cousins (1894-1937) in 1911 and became the head of a large family. He worked as a fisherman and as a baker at Graugnard's Bakery. He was an athletic man who swam in the Gulf every day until he was past 70 years of age. A volunteer lifesaver, he is credited with saving more than 500 people from drowning during his lifetime. The tragedy of that type of death had touched his own family; in addition to his father, he lost a brother and a son to accidental drownings in Galveston waters. Carmelo Bertolino was in Italy during the disastrous 1900 storm, but during the 1915 hurricane he was able to save many lives. His heroic efforts later were noted in official citations from the Texas Legislature and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A monument in his honor was erected shortly after his death, and the Galveston City Council named 10th Street at its intersection with the seawall "Bertolino's View." Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995