New Member – Fred Ciarocho – 2022

Our Brother Fred Ciarochi, M.D. was born and raised in Uniontown, in the coal country of western Pennsylvania.  After graduating from St John Roman Catholic high school, he attended St. Vincent College and then on to the University of Pittsburgh Medical School and service at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh.  After his first year at St. Vincent’s he met Sandi, a young lady who was attending Seaton Hill College.  Their first date was on her birthday.

Doctor Fred trained as an Internal Medicine Resident at what is now the UPMC Mercy hospital and did his post doctoral fellowship at Pitt (UPMC Presbyterian).  He volunteered for the US Navy and served as a Lieutenant Commander at the US Naval Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas.

In the 1950s the coal industry was mechanized and in the 1970s the Pittsburgh steel industry shut down.  Six percent of the local population relocated and the need for a specialist of internal medicine was greatly reduced.  The growing Ciarochi family so enjoyed their tour in Corpus Christi that when Dr. Fred learned that Methodist Hospital in Dallas was opening a second hospital and a diabetes unit they moved, setting up a new home in Duncanville, arriving on July 4, 1976.  His previous pastor knew that Fr. Robert Sykora was starting a new catholic church in Duncanville and on their first Sunday they set out to find it.  They had an address but there was no church building at 1111 Danieldale Road.  Instead, they discovered a group of people gathered under some trees east of what is now the church parking lot.  It was the first mass on the church property.

He and Sandi have three children.  All three are graduates of Duncanville High School and were active in Holy Spirit programs and activities.  They and their six teenage children all live in the north Texas area.

Brother Fred’s Knights career started at an early age.  While in high school he joined Colombian Squires Council 1275 in Union City, PA.  Membership in the adult Knights had to take a back seat to his career in medicine but he had the examples of his father and father in law who were both 4thd degree knights.  Retirement and a desire to contribute more to the parish and to the community led Brother Fred to join our council.