It is impressive how this man bent over backwards for serving the public well.
Mário Melo.
 

Rodolfo Aureliano da Silva was born in the city of Recife on 2 November 1903, and was the fifth child of Philadelpho and Emília Aureliano da Silva. From an early age, he was awakened to the social problems of Recife, especially the poverty and the fate of abandoned minors.

 

His academic education of a Bachelors in Judicial and Social Sciences and his working together with communities of the Pernambuco countryside at the beginning of his professional career, as district prosecutor and judge, gave him the admiration and acknowledgement as much from the population as some authorities.

 

However, the ideas and practices of Rodolfo Aureliano in the area of the health of the Recife population and in helping abandoned minors and youths brought opposition from the Estácio Coimbra government. For this reason, the judge moved to Rio Grande do Sul, and there he worked at the newspaper O Estado do Rio Grande.

 

He returned to Pernambuco during the administration of Carlos de Lima Cavalcanti (1930/1935). He held the position of regional sheriff in the municipalities of Glória de Goitá, Moreno, São Lourenço da Mata and Vitória de Santo Antão. In the latter, he set up the ‘Escola de Comércio’ (Business School).

 

Sometime later, he settled in Recife when he was appointed director of the Casa de Detenção (Detention House). He returned to the countryside, this time to the municipality of Bom Conselho, where he was judge and created Padre Manoel Machado School and literary/recreation guilds.

 

In 1932, he was appointed director of the ‘Instituto Profissional 5 de julho’ (5 July Professional Institute), located at 435 17 de Agosto Ave, Parnamirim. This organ was in charge of the housing of abandoned minors and delinquents in Recife. Previously, they had been taken to the Detention House and would stay for an unproductive time. At the Institute, besides being given medical and dental assistance, they busied themselves with various trainings that would prepare them to undertake paid activities.

 

In June 1934, the Carlos de Lima Cavalcanti government created the ‘Juizado de Menores’ (Youth Court). Rodolfo Aureliano was its first judge, remaining in the position up until the administration of Agamenon Magalhães, in 1951. For his countless decisions and actions in favour of minors, as well as his initiative and competency in administrating expenses for inmates with insufficient budgets to keep them, he was appointed as an ideal public manager. In the same period, the municipal government approved his proposal to regulate the newspaper seller profession (gazeteiro). In order to give continuity to the needs of the small workers, the ‘Casa do Pequeno Jornaleiro’ (House of the Small Newspaper Seller) was created soon after.

 

Rodolfo Aureliano did not only hold public positions. He was concerned with education, which he knew had an unarguable influence on the reduction of delinquency and marginality rates. That is why he set up various shelters, professional and agricultural organisations, the Youth Division, Social Service of the Youth Court, the Job Agency, a Mendicancy Section and the Pernambuco School of Social Service, together with René Ribeiro and university professors, which operated on the premises of the Youth Court. This school was part of the Social Institute of Rio de Janeiro, and later incorporated into the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE).

 

In May 1936, Rodolfo Aureliano married Dulce Bandeira Motta, who began signing Dulce Aureliano da Silva, and with her had three children: Zuleide, Christina and Tito. Rodolfo became a widower in 1942. His second marriage was with Flora Deolinda Mendes de Holanda, on 30 November 1946, with whom he had six children: Augusto, Maria das Graças, Francisco de Assis, Rodolfo, Joana Teresa and Maria da Conceição.

 

In 1948, he joined with a group of friends and former students of Padre Félix College, located on Soledade St in the Boa Vista neighbourhood, to purchase the educational institution, which was going through financial difficulties and was on the verge of closing its doors. He therefore assured the continuation of the so-called primary, secondary and scientific courses and Primary School Teachers and Accounting Graduation Courses.

 

He left the Youth Court in 1951, and two years later became the supreme judge at the Tribunal of Justice of the State of Pernambuco, appointed by Governor Etelvino Lins. He was also the president of the Pernambuco Association of State Servants, the Union of Scouts and the Administrative Council of the Pernambuco Social Service School. In 1962, he was elected president of the Pernambuco Tribunal of Justice and the Regional Electoral Tribunal.
Rodolfo Aureliano passed away at the age of 61, on 7 November 1964.

 

Numerous are the honours paid to the public prosecutor, judge and supreme judge Rodolfo Aureliano:

• 1964 – inauguration of a Children’s Park and a School in the neighbourhood of Várzea with his name; The ‘Colégio Estadual de Jaboatão’ (Jaboatão State School) changed its name to ‘Rodolfo Aureliano’;

 

 

 

Recife, 30 September 2010.

Translated by Peter Leamy, February 2012.

sources consulted

ONTINENTE DOCUMENTO: Rodolfo Aureliano, o benfeitor. Recife: CEPE, ano 2, n. 21, maio 2004.

RODOLFO Aureliano. Disponível em: . Acesso em: 23 set. 2010.
 

 

how to quote this text

Source: BARBOSA, Virgínia. Rodolfo Aureliano. Pesquisa Escolar Online, Joaquim Nabuco Foudation, Recife. Available at:  <http://basilio.fundaj.gov.br/pesquisaescolar>. Accessed: day month year. Exemple: 6 Aug. 2009