[2] Due to rheumatic fever as a child, he had a weak heart and was refused admission by the British, Canadian and American armies.
He was in Petrograd at the time of the Russian Revolution; present at the storming of the Winter Palace; saw the fall of Kerensky and was nearly burnt to death by Bolsheviks who set fire to the car in which he was out on rescue work with others on his mission.
His health had suffered from the hardships in Romania and after recuperating in Maine, he was able to resume studies at Harvard taking his PhD in Romance Languages in 1922.
[2] In 1922, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Italian at Bryn Mawr College and after five years accepted, in 1927, an Associate Professorship in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures in the University of Chicago.
For many years he was Chairman of the Romance Section of the Modern Languages Association and established a Sede of the Dante Alighieri Society of Chicago.
In 1933, he was award the Cavaliere della Corona d'Italia by King Victor Emmanuel in recognition of his services to Italian Studies in America.
Shortly after his arrival, he was elected to the Italian Committee of the Modern Languages Association and was one of its most active members until the outbreak of War.
His arduous work of lecturing to the forces, entailing long and difficult journeys often in the black out led to strains on his health and he died suddenly aged only 54.