Giovanni Battista (Johnny) Quattrin
Birth: 17 Jul 1900, Zoppola, Italy
Father: Giovanni Battista “Tita” Quattrin
Mother: Elisabetta De Paoli
Death: 24 Dec 1972, Crockett, California
Giovanni Battista Quattrin was born on July 17, 1900, in Zoppola, Italy. He was the fifth child and third son of Giovanni Battista Quattrin, a landowner and farmer, and Elisabetta De Paoli, a housewife and daughter of a prosperous building contractor from Pescincanna.
Zio Johnny, as he came to be known, had a typical upbringing in Zoppola. Like his siblings, he had a rudimentary education. In the 1940 US Census he approximated it as a 3rd grade formal education. By then, he could read and write in Friulan, Italian, and English, and had developed basic math skills. Mostly, he worked in the fields with his father and brothers, learning the wisdom of the agricultural cycle of life.
Johnny was known as a practical joker. AnnaMaria remembered that he loved to tease his grandfather Perbacco. Perbacco would come back from the outhouse saying, “Damned bees!” because his grandson would put a pin on a stick and jab him in the butt when he was in there.
Johnny was only 15 when Italy entered the First World War. He was too young to join the army and had to stay home and watch as boys he had known his whole life marched off and often did not return. In 1916, his big brother Andrea came home from America to fight. A year later, the Germans joined the Italian Front and made quick work of them, overrunning positions along the Isonzo River and seizing all of Friuli. They occupied Zoppola and even billeted soldiers in the Quattrin home. The soldiers were barely older than him, but they were hardened by their experiences at the Russian Front such that they must have seemed ancient by comparison. Johnnie would have had to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. A year later, the Germans and Austrians retreated, but it would be yet another year before his brother returned from an Albanian prison camp.
Father: Giovanni Battista “Tita” Quattrin
Mother: Elisabetta De Paoli
Death: 24 Dec 1972, Crockett, California
Giovanni Battista Quattrin was born on July 17, 1900, in Zoppola, Italy. He was the fifth child and third son of Giovanni Battista Quattrin, a landowner and farmer, and Elisabetta De Paoli, a housewife and daughter of a prosperous building contractor from Pescincanna.
Zio Johnny, as he came to be known, had a typical upbringing in Zoppola. Like his siblings, he had a rudimentary education. In the 1940 US Census he approximated it as a 3rd grade formal education. By then, he could read and write in Friulan, Italian, and English, and had developed basic math skills. Mostly, he worked in the fields with his father and brothers, learning the wisdom of the agricultural cycle of life.
Johnny was known as a practical joker. AnnaMaria remembered that he loved to tease his grandfather Perbacco. Perbacco would come back from the outhouse saying, “Damned bees!” because his grandson would put a pin on a stick and jab him in the butt when he was in there.
Johnny was only 15 when Italy entered the First World War. He was too young to join the army and had to stay home and watch as boys he had known his whole life marched off and often did not return. In 1916, his big brother Andrea came home from America to fight. A year later, the Germans joined the Italian Front and made quick work of them, overrunning positions along the Isonzo River and seizing all of Friuli. They occupied Zoppola and even billeted soldiers in the Quattrin home. The soldiers were barely older than him, but they were hardened by their experiences at the Russian Front such that they must have seemed ancient by comparison. Johnnie would have had to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. A year later, the Germans and Austrians retreated, but it would be yet another year before his brother returned from an Albanian prison camp.
On February 12, 1920, Johnnie joined the Italian Army. After six weeks of basic training, he was placed in the 57th Infantry. Times were quiet for the Italian Army during the 1920s and Johnnie does not seem to have left Friuli. On May 31, 1921, he was transferred to the 59th Infantry in Sacile, near Udine, where he served until March 13, 1922, when he was mustered out. He earned a declaration of good conduct. He joined the reserves on September 23, 1923, but clearly was not committed. Eight weeks later, on November 23, 1923, he boarded the SS America in Genoa—the same ship upon which his brother Andrea had sailed in 1913—and headed for the United States, never to return. He landed in New York on December 3rd where he passed through Ellis Island on his way to Kingsburg, California, to live and work with his brothers Andrea and Poldi. According to the ship’s manifest, he was 5’ 3”, 130 lbs., with chestnut hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion. He had $25 in his pockets to buy the train ticket to California.
Johnny worked as a farm laborer in Lemoore with his brothers and his cousin Tony Colussi. Unfortunately, the vineyard and fruit orchard did not take off and the brothers had to look elsewhere for employment. In 1926, Poldi married and moved to Nichols, in Contra Costa County, where he went to work for the General Chemical Company. Andrea went back to Zoppola to marry, but not before he and Johnnie tied bells to the springs of Poldi’s bed so they could be outside on the wedding night and laugh and cheer. The idea was Johnnie’s. Johnnie also moved to Contra Costa County, but he went to Crockett and found work at the C&H Sugar Refinery.
Johnny worked as a farm laborer in Lemoore with his brothers and his cousin Tony Colussi. Unfortunately, the vineyard and fruit orchard did not take off and the brothers had to look elsewhere for employment. In 1926, Poldi married and moved to Nichols, in Contra Costa County, where he went to work for the General Chemical Company. Andrea went back to Zoppola to marry, but not before he and Johnnie tied bells to the springs of Poldi’s bed so they could be outside on the wedding night and laugh and cheer. The idea was Johnnie’s. Johnnie also moved to Contra Costa County, but he went to Crockett and found work at the C&H Sugar Refinery.
Crockett is located at the southern headland of the Carquinez Straits on the Sacramento River, the gateway to California's Central Valley. Named after Joseph B. Crockett, a judge on the California Supreme Court, the town was on what had been the Mexican land grant Rancho El Pinole made to Ygnacio Martinez. The town started when Thomas Edwards Sr. bought 1,800 acres of land from Judge Crockett in 1866. Edwards built his home in 1867 and, when other settlers arrived, he started the town’s first general store. Crocketville post office was established in 1883, and the name was changed to Crockett later that year.
By the 1920s, the town had a large Italian population, including two brothers named Quattrin who were from Murlis, a suburb of Zoppola. Antonio and Luigi owned a grocery store and were 8th cousins to our Quattrins. They had come to California by way of Cruzado de Santa Fe, Argentina, where their brother Sante (Santos), a successful businessman within the liquor industry in San Francisco, was born.
Like Nichols and General Chemical, Crockett was a company town for C&H. In 1906, an agricultural cooperative of Hawaiian sugar cane growers bought an existing wheat factory that had never opened. They refitted the facility and built additional structures for their refining needs. The cane was grown in Hawaii and delivered by ship to Crockett, where the C&H (“California and Hawaii”) refinery turned it into a variety of finished products. C&H soon became a dominant force in Crockett. By the 1920s, the company employed about 95 percent of the town residents. C&H helped its employees obtain land and bank loans so that they could build houses. Company architects worked on designing the houses. The company funded many school and civic programs, and even held town-wide Christmas parties.
In the 1930 US Census, Johnny was listed as a machine operator at the sugar refinery living in the house owned by Marcello Giraldi and his family at 1334 6th Avenue. He was listed as head-of-household and was subletting a room to a 13-year-old boarder named Frances Gatti. Her parents were born in Italy and she was born in Arizona. Further research indicates that the Census got her age wrong. More likely, she was a 16-year-old student who graduated from the Carquinez School in 1930 and married a young opera singer named Raphael Gonzales a year later.
Two years later, he was living at 1548 Ceres Street. Neither house exists anymore, having been removed to make way for Interstate 80. On June 1, 1933, he graduated from Citizenship Class at John Swett High School and became naturalized. He was a voting Democrat. He was also a union member during the most famous labor battle in Contra Costa County history.
The Depression had been difficult all over the country, and C&H Sugar was no different. Sugar prices had fallen dramatically. The workers in Crockett fared somewhat better than average, but, by the mid-1930s, the company had to introduce pay cuts, reduce working hours, and shrink the work force. The workers had organized in response and the refinery was operating under a closed-shop AFL (American Federation of Labor) agreement. The warehouses, however, were under the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) and CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). The first struck in 1935 and the second in 1937. In March and April 1938, Crockett experienced another labor strike at the Refinery, climaxing in a riot between the AFL and CIO unionists. On March 11, the CIO Sugar Workers Union set up picket lines when their leaders were suspended under the terms of the closed shop contract. The warehousemen, who were in contract negotiations themselves, refused to cross the picket line. The refinery shut downand all union members’ paychecks stopped.
It is well described by William Mero in Sugar Wars and the Bloody Streets of Crockett
https://www.cocohistory.org/essays-sugarwars.html:
A week later on March 16th, over 600 Crockett women met in the Crockett Community Auditorium. They passed a resolution petitioning C & H to honor the American Federation of Labor's request to reopen the refinery. However, the CIO warehousemen's union refused to settle their wage dispute with C & H. The picket lines remained in place. C & H management decided it was safer to keep the refinery closed until the labor dispute was settled. The stage was set for serious conflict.
Patience exhausted, fighting between the two unions began on the evening of the 27th day of the strike. Chanting, “Let's go get 'em.” AFL union members marched down Winslow Avenue. Blood flowed as 400 members of the AFL charged the CIO picket line and severely beat many of the warehousemen and sugar workers blocking the refinery entrances. The CIO members retreated to the CIO International Longshoremen's Union Hall on Loring Avenue. Badly outnumbered, the CIO warehousemen armed themselves with clubs and fought back. Contra Costa deputy sheriffs and California Highway Patrol officers repeatedly charged the rioters and fired volley after volley of tear gas bombs. Loring Avenue filled with choking clouds of stinging fumes. Fighting raged for over 40 minutes. Using clubs and fists, dozens of men were beaten as the surge of battle flowed up and down the street slippery with blood. Some warehousemen, trying to escape in a car, crashed into the crowd, running over one AFL member and hitting another. Other men suffered stab wounds from rioters wielding ice picks.
As a result of the day's fighting, the AFL had driven the CIO strikers from the refinery. Now in control of the streets, the AFL demanded that C & H reopen the plant. Law enforcement officers sealed off Crockett in order to prevent both union factions from being reinforced. It was luck alone that no one was killed.
All roads into Crockett were sealed off by the California Highway Patrol and the Sheriff's Department in order to control the growing bloodshed. Cars and their occupants were searched for invaders and weapons. Railroad trains were also searched for intruding union toughs. Merchants along Loring Avenue barricaded their shops. Fortunately, the sudden violence shocked many into reconsidering their actions. Cooler heads began to prevail and a shaky surface calm gradually returned to the little Contra Costa community.
With the picket lines now under total AFL control, the refinery soon reopened. Now virtually powerless, the CIO warehousemen voted two weeks later by 152 to 115 to accept the contract and return to work. Lost paychecks, vanished company profits, local business losses, and personal hatreds were the bitter fruits of the nasty 41-day strike. During the war, outsiders and women replaced most of the old employees. The CIO and AFL later merged ending their long-standing rivalry. After World War II, the closed shop which caused the initial conflict in the C & H refinery was finally outlawed nationally. Even now after over 60 years, there still remain some who have not forgotten or forgiven the tragic circumstances surrounding the great sugar war of 1938.
What role Johnnie played or what his experiences were during the strike are unknown. By 1940, Johnny was unemployed and lodging with Frank and Elisa Botta at 623 - 3rd Avenue. He would live with them for at least the next 10 years. By 1942, he was working at the refinery again, now on the loading docks.
Like his father, Johnny loved to hang out with friends and play cards. Poker was his favorite, though, as a dock worker, he probably played Pedro as well. He was quite hard of hearing later in life and Lil (Poldi’s daughter) believes that the people he played with took advantage of him. He would end up staying with Poldi later in life, whenever he was broke and could not make rent. His grandnephew Geoff remembered one time when he was about eight, they were sitting in Geoff’s grandparents’ house watching television. Geoff got up to use the bathroom and, when he came back, Johnny had taken his seat. So, Geoff sat in Johnny’s seat. When he left the room again, Johnny took the other seat. Unsure what was going on, Geoff left the room a couple more times and came back to find Johnny had switched seats again. Even toward the end of his life, Johnny still loved to tease people with simple practical jokes.
By the 1920s, the town had a large Italian population, including two brothers named Quattrin who were from Murlis, a suburb of Zoppola. Antonio and Luigi owned a grocery store and were 8th cousins to our Quattrins. They had come to California by way of Cruzado de Santa Fe, Argentina, where their brother Sante (Santos), a successful businessman within the liquor industry in San Francisco, was born.
Like Nichols and General Chemical, Crockett was a company town for C&H. In 1906, an agricultural cooperative of Hawaiian sugar cane growers bought an existing wheat factory that had never opened. They refitted the facility and built additional structures for their refining needs. The cane was grown in Hawaii and delivered by ship to Crockett, where the C&H (“California and Hawaii”) refinery turned it into a variety of finished products. C&H soon became a dominant force in Crockett. By the 1920s, the company employed about 95 percent of the town residents. C&H helped its employees obtain land and bank loans so that they could build houses. Company architects worked on designing the houses. The company funded many school and civic programs, and even held town-wide Christmas parties.
In the 1930 US Census, Johnny was listed as a machine operator at the sugar refinery living in the house owned by Marcello Giraldi and his family at 1334 6th Avenue. He was listed as head-of-household and was subletting a room to a 13-year-old boarder named Frances Gatti. Her parents were born in Italy and she was born in Arizona. Further research indicates that the Census got her age wrong. More likely, she was a 16-year-old student who graduated from the Carquinez School in 1930 and married a young opera singer named Raphael Gonzales a year later.
Two years later, he was living at 1548 Ceres Street. Neither house exists anymore, having been removed to make way for Interstate 80. On June 1, 1933, he graduated from Citizenship Class at John Swett High School and became naturalized. He was a voting Democrat. He was also a union member during the most famous labor battle in Contra Costa County history.
The Depression had been difficult all over the country, and C&H Sugar was no different. Sugar prices had fallen dramatically. The workers in Crockett fared somewhat better than average, but, by the mid-1930s, the company had to introduce pay cuts, reduce working hours, and shrink the work force. The workers had organized in response and the refinery was operating under a closed-shop AFL (American Federation of Labor) agreement. The warehouses, however, were under the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) and CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). The first struck in 1935 and the second in 1937. In March and April 1938, Crockett experienced another labor strike at the Refinery, climaxing in a riot between the AFL and CIO unionists. On March 11, the CIO Sugar Workers Union set up picket lines when their leaders were suspended under the terms of the closed shop contract. The warehousemen, who were in contract negotiations themselves, refused to cross the picket line. The refinery shut downand all union members’ paychecks stopped.
It is well described by William Mero in Sugar Wars and the Bloody Streets of Crockett
https://www.cocohistory.org/essays-sugarwars.html:
A week later on March 16th, over 600 Crockett women met in the Crockett Community Auditorium. They passed a resolution petitioning C & H to honor the American Federation of Labor's request to reopen the refinery. However, the CIO warehousemen's union refused to settle their wage dispute with C & H. The picket lines remained in place. C & H management decided it was safer to keep the refinery closed until the labor dispute was settled. The stage was set for serious conflict.
Patience exhausted, fighting between the two unions began on the evening of the 27th day of the strike. Chanting, “Let's go get 'em.” AFL union members marched down Winslow Avenue. Blood flowed as 400 members of the AFL charged the CIO picket line and severely beat many of the warehousemen and sugar workers blocking the refinery entrances. The CIO members retreated to the CIO International Longshoremen's Union Hall on Loring Avenue. Badly outnumbered, the CIO warehousemen armed themselves with clubs and fought back. Contra Costa deputy sheriffs and California Highway Patrol officers repeatedly charged the rioters and fired volley after volley of tear gas bombs. Loring Avenue filled with choking clouds of stinging fumes. Fighting raged for over 40 minutes. Using clubs and fists, dozens of men were beaten as the surge of battle flowed up and down the street slippery with blood. Some warehousemen, trying to escape in a car, crashed into the crowd, running over one AFL member and hitting another. Other men suffered stab wounds from rioters wielding ice picks.
As a result of the day's fighting, the AFL had driven the CIO strikers from the refinery. Now in control of the streets, the AFL demanded that C & H reopen the plant. Law enforcement officers sealed off Crockett in order to prevent both union factions from being reinforced. It was luck alone that no one was killed.
All roads into Crockett were sealed off by the California Highway Patrol and the Sheriff's Department in order to control the growing bloodshed. Cars and their occupants were searched for invaders and weapons. Railroad trains were also searched for intruding union toughs. Merchants along Loring Avenue barricaded their shops. Fortunately, the sudden violence shocked many into reconsidering their actions. Cooler heads began to prevail and a shaky surface calm gradually returned to the little Contra Costa community.
With the picket lines now under total AFL control, the refinery soon reopened. Now virtually powerless, the CIO warehousemen voted two weeks later by 152 to 115 to accept the contract and return to work. Lost paychecks, vanished company profits, local business losses, and personal hatreds were the bitter fruits of the nasty 41-day strike. During the war, outsiders and women replaced most of the old employees. The CIO and AFL later merged ending their long-standing rivalry. After World War II, the closed shop which caused the initial conflict in the C & H refinery was finally outlawed nationally. Even now after over 60 years, there still remain some who have not forgotten or forgiven the tragic circumstances surrounding the great sugar war of 1938.
What role Johnnie played or what his experiences were during the strike are unknown. By 1940, Johnny was unemployed and lodging with Frank and Elisa Botta at 623 - 3rd Avenue. He would live with them for at least the next 10 years. By 1942, he was working at the refinery again, now on the loading docks.
Like his father, Johnny loved to hang out with friends and play cards. Poker was his favorite, though, as a dock worker, he probably played Pedro as well. He was quite hard of hearing later in life and Lil (Poldi’s daughter) believes that the people he played with took advantage of him. He would end up staying with Poldi later in life, whenever he was broke and could not make rent. His grandnephew Geoff remembered one time when he was about eight, they were sitting in Geoff’s grandparents’ house watching television. Geoff got up to use the bathroom and, when he came back, Johnny had taken his seat. So, Geoff sat in Johnny’s seat. When he left the room again, Johnny took the other seat. Unsure what was going on, Geoff left the room a couple more times and came back to find Johnny had switched seats again. Even toward the end of his life, Johnny still loved to tease people with simple practical jokes.
Zio Johnny died in a Concord hospital on Sunday, December 24, 1972. He was 72 years old. The rosary was held at Ouimet Brothers Concord Funeral Chapel, and, after a low mass at Our Lady Queen of the World Church in West Pittsburg, he was buried in Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Lafayette.
Poldi and Andrea’s son John (Battista) handled the estate. The estate was less than minimal. Zio Johnny not only owned nothing, they discovered that his Bank of America checking account was overdrawn. Battista loved to joke that Johnnie was the only person he knew who got out of life ahead.
Poldi and Andrea’s son John (Battista) handled the estate. The estate was less than minimal. Zio Johnny not only owned nothing, they discovered that his Bank of America checking account was overdrawn. Battista loved to joke that Johnnie was the only person he knew who got out of life ahead.
The 4Q Brothers: Johnnie, Poldi, Tony, and Andrea Quattrin