Antonio Petris and Assunta Zilli
Clicca qui per la biografia di Antonio e Assunta in italiano.
Birth: 19 Apr 1888, Zoppola, Italy
Death: 28 Apr 1942, Kingsburg, CA
Father: Giacomo Antonio Petris (1846-1890)
Mother: Catterina Cassin (1849-1937)
Death: 28 Apr 1942, Kingsburg, CA
Father: Giacomo Antonio Petris (1846-1890)
Mother: Catterina Cassin (1849-1937)
Spouse: Assunta Zilli
Birth: 15 Dec 1897, Zoppola, Italy
Death: 11 May 1969, San Francisco, California
Father: Giulio Zilli (1870-1954)
Mother: Giacoma Bomben (1880-1936)
Marriage: 26 Dec 1920, Kingsburg, California
Birth: 15 Dec 1897, Zoppola, Italy
Death: 11 May 1969, San Francisco, California
Father: Giulio Zilli (1870-1954)
Mother: Giacoma Bomben (1880-1936)
Marriage: 26 Dec 1920, Kingsburg, California
Children: Clara Adeline (1921-1963)
Bruna Edda (1927-1996)
Antonio Petris was born on April 19, 1888, in Zoppola. He was the youngest of the nine children of Giacomo Antonio Petris and Cattarina Cassin. Giacomo Antonio was among the second generation of Petrises to be born in Zoppola, but the Cassin family could be traced back for centuries. When Antonio was only two years old, his father died at the age of 44, leaving his eldest brother Giobatta as the man of the house and Antonio’s father figure. Giacomo Antonio’s father had also died young, at the age of 35.
Life in Zoppola at the end of the 19th Century was hard. It was full of grueling, unending physical labor, economic hardship, and fear for the family’s survival. Work began before light and ended at dusk, often 12-16 hours with brief breaks for simple meals. Breakfast was a small meal of pottage or bread before work. The first tasks of the work day involved animal care—including feeding and watering the animals and mucking their stalls. The mid-morning was devoted to intense fieldwork—plowing, sowing, weeding, harvesting, and haymaking. Ploughing, fertilizing, and weeding occupied much of the time between planting and harvest. The ringing of the church bell for the Angelus noon prayer called the workers home for lunch, which was the main meal of the day. The family returned to the same work in the afternoon and worked until dinner. After dinner was a time for repair work and household projects like weaving, sewing, and making butter or cheese.
The town government was efficient and proactive, though. There was universal education of children from first through third grade. Antonio would have gone to school in the Town Hall from 1894 to 1897 and been taught by Angelo Maccorini of Blessaglia, who would have a 26-year career as a teacher in Zoppola. There were wells being dug everywhere so that was water was readily available for all. There were even street sweepers who came to empty midden heaps and to water the dirt roads to keep dust down as a communal health was a major concern.
The Petrises were not wealth, though they did own some land, as is known because Antonio’s grandfather had been on the Town Counsel, which only landholders could. But few people in town were actually wealthy and, as often happened, younger sons were sent abroad to find work and send money home to the family. Antonio was no exception. In early September of 1906, Antonio boarded a train in Pordenone for a 36-hour ride through Milan and Paris to Le Havre. There he boarded the steamship La Savoie bound for New York, where he arrived on September 25, 1906. He had $21 in his pocket and his destination Grand Works, British Columbia, where he did not have a permanent address. He was 18 years old.
Bruna Edda (1927-1996)
Antonio Petris was born on April 19, 1888, in Zoppola. He was the youngest of the nine children of Giacomo Antonio Petris and Cattarina Cassin. Giacomo Antonio was among the second generation of Petrises to be born in Zoppola, but the Cassin family could be traced back for centuries. When Antonio was only two years old, his father died at the age of 44, leaving his eldest brother Giobatta as the man of the house and Antonio’s father figure. Giacomo Antonio’s father had also died young, at the age of 35.
Life in Zoppola at the end of the 19th Century was hard. It was full of grueling, unending physical labor, economic hardship, and fear for the family’s survival. Work began before light and ended at dusk, often 12-16 hours with brief breaks for simple meals. Breakfast was a small meal of pottage or bread before work. The first tasks of the work day involved animal care—including feeding and watering the animals and mucking their stalls. The mid-morning was devoted to intense fieldwork—plowing, sowing, weeding, harvesting, and haymaking. Ploughing, fertilizing, and weeding occupied much of the time between planting and harvest. The ringing of the church bell for the Angelus noon prayer called the workers home for lunch, which was the main meal of the day. The family returned to the same work in the afternoon and worked until dinner. After dinner was a time for repair work and household projects like weaving, sewing, and making butter or cheese.
The town government was efficient and proactive, though. There was universal education of children from first through third grade. Antonio would have gone to school in the Town Hall from 1894 to 1897 and been taught by Angelo Maccorini of Blessaglia, who would have a 26-year career as a teacher in Zoppola. There were wells being dug everywhere so that was water was readily available for all. There were even street sweepers who came to empty midden heaps and to water the dirt roads to keep dust down as a communal health was a major concern.
The Petrises were not wealth, though they did own some land, as is known because Antonio’s grandfather had been on the Town Counsel, which only landholders could. But few people in town were actually wealthy and, as often happened, younger sons were sent abroad to find work and send money home to the family. Antonio was no exception. In early September of 1906, Antonio boarded a train in Pordenone for a 36-hour ride through Milan and Paris to Le Havre. There he boarded the steamship La Savoie bound for New York, where he arrived on September 25, 1906. He had $21 in his pocket and his destination Grand Works, British Columbia, where he did not have a permanent address. He was 18 years old.
It is currently not known where he lived or worked during his four years in Canada, but, on October 22, 1910, Antonio received an alien certificate to cross the border at Montreal.
He was described as “22 years old, at 5’ 10 ½: and 156 pounds, with brown hair and grey eyes.” (His WWI Draft Registration described him similarly, though his 1913 shipping record said he had chestnut-colored hair and a “natural complexion.”) His destination was New York City, presumably to catch a ship home to Italy where he took up military service.
According to his WWI Draft Registration, Antonio had done his military service as a corporal in the grenadiers. Historically, a grenadier (Italian: Granatiere) was an elite assault-specialist in the military, established in the mid-17th century. Originally recruited from the largest and strongest soldiers, they were tasked with throwing hand grenades during siege operations and leading vanguard assaults on fortifications. By the 18th century, the grenadier dedicated to throwing hand grenades had become a less necessary specialist, yet in battle, the grenadiers were the physically robust soldiers who led vanguard assaults, such as storming fortifications in the course of siege warfare. By the early 20th century, the specialized grenade-throwing role had faded, and Italian grenadiers evolved into prestigious "Guard" units noted for their rigorous training and ceremonial duties defending the Royal Palace in Rome.
Between 1911 and 1913, the primary Italian grenadier forces (the elite Granatieri di Sardegna) remained garrisoned in Rome to perform ceremonial and royal guard functions. While many other standard line and infantry regiments were deployed to North Africa during the Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912), the Rome-based Grenadier brigades primarily focused on large-scale tactical demonstrations, military drills, and local public duties. It is currently unknown exactly where Antonio served.
After serving his country, Antonio again contemplated his future. As the fifth son of a struggling family—though one son had already died and a second would die a year after Antonio left—he hopped a train to Genoa boarded the Europa. After a week or so, he arrived again in New York Harbor on April 23, 1913. According to the Europa’s passenger list, he was headed for Lemoore, California, to live with his nephew Geremia Petris and work for Italian Swiss Colony wineries.
In the 1880s, the company had decided to follow the Canadian and Argentinian coal mining companies’ marketing plans by sending pamphlets throughout Northern Italy to encourage immigration. They also contracted with the steamship lines for discount passage. Many families must have seen this as an opportunity to earn money abroad that could be wired back to the family.
By the early 1900s, Italian Swiss Colony owned over 5000 acres of farmland in California, much of it in Sonoma, though there were 1500 acres in the Central Valley at Madera, Kingsburg, and Lemoore. The company built the winery on Lemoore Avenue in 1902. Kingsburg, and Lemoore each had 1,000,000-gallon capacity plants, while Madera could handle 3,000,000 gallons.
By 1907, they were relying on more personal connections. In 1906, they had hired Antonio Colussi to manage the 650-acre vineyard and empowered him to hire workers. The next year, he sent back home for Angelo Querin to be his foreman, and Angelo brought members of the Lenarduzzi, Fabrio, Rigoli, Petris, Quattrin, and Bortolussi families to work for him. They all lived in a bunkhouse on the farm Tony rented from the company. While Geremia Petris, Andrea Quattrin, and others returned to Italy to fight in World War I, Antonio, having already served his time in the military, stayed in California, sworking and sending money home to the family.
In 1917, while Zoppola was being occupied by the Tedeshi, Antonio finally got his first chance to become a property owner when he partnered with Colussi and Silvio Borean to buy what was described in the 1920 US Census as a “hay ranch” in Township 9, Fresno County. It would become Seedless Hill Vineyard. It also listed Antonio as a lodger and Silvio as the owner, but a 1921 article in The Fresno Morning Republican (25 Apr 1921) stated:
In 1917 Colussi, Borean and A. Petris, three Italians, bought this 40-acre property for $17,000, with but $1,500 cash. The vineyard at that time was ill-kept and in a most depleted condition, looking as though some careless person hurled a bundle of rootings that stuck in the ground to live or die. Tall weeds, Bermuda grass, Johnson grass, and other foul growths abounded and the ground was uneven.
The three men saw a future, rolled up their sleeves and went to work, and converted the primitive swale to a paradise of beauty and profit.
Last year the boys refused a bona fide offer of $30,000 for their holdings. The entire forty is developed in Thompson Seedless, with only 35 acres in full bearing. In 1919, one hundred tons of raisins were taken from 35 acres; in 1920, 220 tons were sold green, at a profit of better than $22,000 gross, and this year a crop of 450 tons green is expected.
Seven thousand feet of cement pipe carry fresh water to feed the thirsty vines; there are 200 valves, one at every second row. There are two pumping plants on the ranch, one pulling 1000 gallons per minute and the other drawing 500 gallons per minute.
By 1921, the ranch was described as:
Perhaps the most beautiful panorama to be viewed any place in the San Joaquin Valley is the “Seedless Hill Vineyard,” owned by two American Italians, A. Colussi and S. F. Borean, and situated from a gently rising swale three miles southwest of Kingsburg. The beauty of this remarkable picture can be realized both from its artistic characteristic and for its intrinsic value; no seedless vineyard anywhere surpasses this, either from point of beauty or productiveness. The entire landscape carries more weight this season because of the depleted and frost-bitten vineyards and orchards adjoining.
The observer approaches the vineyard from the East and may view the entire picture from a point of vantage approaching the property. The first impression one gets when his eye surveys the well-kept and nurtured vines, is a lasting one, and carries art and commerce together; he realizes what scientific farming and husbandry mean; he concludes that anything worth doing at all is worth doing well, and this picture spells all of that.
The article was mainly about the fact that Colussi and Borean had saved the crop of vines from a recent severe frost by investing $700 in smudge pots.
When the harsh ravages of biting frost visited the Kingsburg district, Colussi and his faithful partner were on the job awaiting to cope with over 3000 smudge pots properly filled and located and when the danger point on the thermometer indicated 31, the boys begun their battle, and all through the six nights of peril they fought to save over $25,000 worth of property. Mr. Colussi says “the thermometer sank as low as 26 degrees. In a statement from Colussi he says, that the smudging cost approximately $700, including labor. ‘My neighbors were protected in a large degree from the efforts we made to save our crop.’”
In estimating the damage done south and west of Kingsburg, Colussi says, “Thompsons gone, 70 per cent, Muscats, 40 per cent, Malagas and table grapes, 50 to 60 per cent, Muirs, 70 per cent, other varieties, 50 per cent and Apricots, 50 per cent but the Seedless Hill Vineyard was all saved and the smudging was the best investment I ever made in my life.”
It was noticeable that Antonia Petris did not appear in this part of the story. Sometime during 1920, Antonio made two connected decisions. First, he wanted own his own farm. Second, he wanted to start a family.
According to his WWI Draft Registration, Antonio had done his military service as a corporal in the grenadiers. Historically, a grenadier (Italian: Granatiere) was an elite assault-specialist in the military, established in the mid-17th century. Originally recruited from the largest and strongest soldiers, they were tasked with throwing hand grenades during siege operations and leading vanguard assaults on fortifications. By the 18th century, the grenadier dedicated to throwing hand grenades had become a less necessary specialist, yet in battle, the grenadiers were the physically robust soldiers who led vanguard assaults, such as storming fortifications in the course of siege warfare. By the early 20th century, the specialized grenade-throwing role had faded, and Italian grenadiers evolved into prestigious "Guard" units noted for their rigorous training and ceremonial duties defending the Royal Palace in Rome.
Between 1911 and 1913, the primary Italian grenadier forces (the elite Granatieri di Sardegna) remained garrisoned in Rome to perform ceremonial and royal guard functions. While many other standard line and infantry regiments were deployed to North Africa during the Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912), the Rome-based Grenadier brigades primarily focused on large-scale tactical demonstrations, military drills, and local public duties. It is currently unknown exactly where Antonio served.
After serving his country, Antonio again contemplated his future. As the fifth son of a struggling family—though one son had already died and a second would die a year after Antonio left—he hopped a train to Genoa boarded the Europa. After a week or so, he arrived again in New York Harbor on April 23, 1913. According to the Europa’s passenger list, he was headed for Lemoore, California, to live with his nephew Geremia Petris and work for Italian Swiss Colony wineries.
In the 1880s, the company had decided to follow the Canadian and Argentinian coal mining companies’ marketing plans by sending pamphlets throughout Northern Italy to encourage immigration. They also contracted with the steamship lines for discount passage. Many families must have seen this as an opportunity to earn money abroad that could be wired back to the family.
By the early 1900s, Italian Swiss Colony owned over 5000 acres of farmland in California, much of it in Sonoma, though there were 1500 acres in the Central Valley at Madera, Kingsburg, and Lemoore. The company built the winery on Lemoore Avenue in 1902. Kingsburg, and Lemoore each had 1,000,000-gallon capacity plants, while Madera could handle 3,000,000 gallons.
By 1907, they were relying on more personal connections. In 1906, they had hired Antonio Colussi to manage the 650-acre vineyard and empowered him to hire workers. The next year, he sent back home for Angelo Querin to be his foreman, and Angelo brought members of the Lenarduzzi, Fabrio, Rigoli, Petris, Quattrin, and Bortolussi families to work for him. They all lived in a bunkhouse on the farm Tony rented from the company. While Geremia Petris, Andrea Quattrin, and others returned to Italy to fight in World War I, Antonio, having already served his time in the military, stayed in California, sworking and sending money home to the family.
In 1917, while Zoppola was being occupied by the Tedeshi, Antonio finally got his first chance to become a property owner when he partnered with Colussi and Silvio Borean to buy what was described in the 1920 US Census as a “hay ranch” in Township 9, Fresno County. It would become Seedless Hill Vineyard. It also listed Antonio as a lodger and Silvio as the owner, but a 1921 article in The Fresno Morning Republican (25 Apr 1921) stated:
In 1917 Colussi, Borean and A. Petris, three Italians, bought this 40-acre property for $17,000, with but $1,500 cash. The vineyard at that time was ill-kept and in a most depleted condition, looking as though some careless person hurled a bundle of rootings that stuck in the ground to live or die. Tall weeds, Bermuda grass, Johnson grass, and other foul growths abounded and the ground was uneven.
The three men saw a future, rolled up their sleeves and went to work, and converted the primitive swale to a paradise of beauty and profit.
Last year the boys refused a bona fide offer of $30,000 for their holdings. The entire forty is developed in Thompson Seedless, with only 35 acres in full bearing. In 1919, one hundred tons of raisins were taken from 35 acres; in 1920, 220 tons were sold green, at a profit of better than $22,000 gross, and this year a crop of 450 tons green is expected.
Seven thousand feet of cement pipe carry fresh water to feed the thirsty vines; there are 200 valves, one at every second row. There are two pumping plants on the ranch, one pulling 1000 gallons per minute and the other drawing 500 gallons per minute.
By 1921, the ranch was described as:
Perhaps the most beautiful panorama to be viewed any place in the San Joaquin Valley is the “Seedless Hill Vineyard,” owned by two American Italians, A. Colussi and S. F. Borean, and situated from a gently rising swale three miles southwest of Kingsburg. The beauty of this remarkable picture can be realized both from its artistic characteristic and for its intrinsic value; no seedless vineyard anywhere surpasses this, either from point of beauty or productiveness. The entire landscape carries more weight this season because of the depleted and frost-bitten vineyards and orchards adjoining.
The observer approaches the vineyard from the East and may view the entire picture from a point of vantage approaching the property. The first impression one gets when his eye surveys the well-kept and nurtured vines, is a lasting one, and carries art and commerce together; he realizes what scientific farming and husbandry mean; he concludes that anything worth doing at all is worth doing well, and this picture spells all of that.
The article was mainly about the fact that Colussi and Borean had saved the crop of vines from a recent severe frost by investing $700 in smudge pots.
When the harsh ravages of biting frost visited the Kingsburg district, Colussi and his faithful partner were on the job awaiting to cope with over 3000 smudge pots properly filled and located and when the danger point on the thermometer indicated 31, the boys begun their battle, and all through the six nights of peril they fought to save over $25,000 worth of property. Mr. Colussi says “the thermometer sank as low as 26 degrees. In a statement from Colussi he says, that the smudging cost approximately $700, including labor. ‘My neighbors were protected in a large degree from the efforts we made to save our crop.’”
In estimating the damage done south and west of Kingsburg, Colussi says, “Thompsons gone, 70 per cent, Muscats, 40 per cent, Malagas and table grapes, 50 to 60 per cent, Muirs, 70 per cent, other varieties, 50 per cent and Apricots, 50 per cent but the Seedless Hill Vineyard was all saved and the smudging was the best investment I ever made in my life.”
It was noticeable that Antonia Petris did not appear in this part of the story. Sometime during 1920, Antonio made two connected decisions. First, he wanted own his own farm. Second, he wanted to start a family.
With Tony Colussi serving as his trustee, Antonio bought a 50-acre ranch in Dinuba, Tulare County, roughly 11 miles east of Kingsburg. It had been part of the old Laguna de Tache Grant, a 48,801-acre Mexican land grant given to Manuel Castro in 1846 by Governor Pío Pico. The legal description of the ranch was Lots 1 and 2 and lots 4 and 5 of “a portion of the west half of Section 36, Township 16, Range 22.” The previous owner was Mardiros K. Hovsepian, an Armenian immigrant who had been in America for almost 30 years, was married, and had three children. Antonio had as his partners Domenico Taiariol (a nephew of his brother Giobatta’s wife Rosa), G. DeServi, and Luigi Moretto. In April of 1923, they all defaulted on their loans, and Tony Colussi had to sell the property at auction. This was a bit of a reshuffle as, according to real estate articles in The Visalia Times, the land went to A.E. Bellochi, who sold the land back to Antonio and his partners a month later.
The other part of Antonio’s plan was implemented via an arranged marriage to Assunta Zilli.
Assunta Zilli was born on December 15, 1897, in Zoppola. She was the eldest of the twelve children of Guilio Zilli and Giacoma Bomben. The Zilli and Bomben families are among the most ancient families in Zoppola. Assunta and Antonio were distant cousins through both the Pighin and Cassin families. Everyone in Zoppola was related to everyone else.
When Assunta was born, the town of Zoppola was, in many ways, just like the farming town it had been for more than 700 years. The population was about 4500 people, 90% of whom were farmers or farm laborers. The open-field farming system—wherein tenant-farmers lived in town and farmed strips of land owned by the Panciera family or the Church—had been in place since the Middle Ages. But, in the 19th century, farmers began to buy their own plots of land, including the Zilli family. Life was physically hard but enlivened by the tight-knit family community.
Family and social cohesion was reinforced by the evening gatherings referred to as the filò. The filò was an essential part of peasant life, combining work and conversation in a communal setting. The gathering usually occurred in the stable, which was often the warmest place in the house, saving on firewood by taking advantage of the animals' body heat. The women typically engaged in spinning wool, flax, or hemp, mending clothes, or other manual tasks, which is the literal origin of the word filò (derived from the verb filare, meaning "to spin"). Men often worked on repairing tools. It was a vital social event for the family community, a time for conversation, sharing news, and strengthening social bonds. Elders would pass down local folklore, stories, tales, and songs to the children and adults, serving as a library of sorts for the community and preserving their cultural heritage.
This preservation of cultural heritage extended to emigrants, and arranged marriages were part of the binding of the community. The last time Assunta had seen Antonio was in 1913, when she was 16 and he was 25. They may not have even noticed each other then. Antonio Colussi may have been the broker in the marriage deal. Assunta was his niece (Colussi was married to a Cassin) and Assunta’s brother Luigi, who had entered New York harbor on the Taormina bound for Kingsburg February 14, 1920, was working on one of Colussi’s ranches. Their father agreed to the marriage and Assunta left for California.
The other part of Antonio’s plan was implemented via an arranged marriage to Assunta Zilli.
Assunta Zilli was born on December 15, 1897, in Zoppola. She was the eldest of the twelve children of Guilio Zilli and Giacoma Bomben. The Zilli and Bomben families are among the most ancient families in Zoppola. Assunta and Antonio were distant cousins through both the Pighin and Cassin families. Everyone in Zoppola was related to everyone else.
When Assunta was born, the town of Zoppola was, in many ways, just like the farming town it had been for more than 700 years. The population was about 4500 people, 90% of whom were farmers or farm laborers. The open-field farming system—wherein tenant-farmers lived in town and farmed strips of land owned by the Panciera family or the Church—had been in place since the Middle Ages. But, in the 19th century, farmers began to buy their own plots of land, including the Zilli family. Life was physically hard but enlivened by the tight-knit family community.
Family and social cohesion was reinforced by the evening gatherings referred to as the filò. The filò was an essential part of peasant life, combining work and conversation in a communal setting. The gathering usually occurred in the stable, which was often the warmest place in the house, saving on firewood by taking advantage of the animals' body heat. The women typically engaged in spinning wool, flax, or hemp, mending clothes, or other manual tasks, which is the literal origin of the word filò (derived from the verb filare, meaning "to spin"). Men often worked on repairing tools. It was a vital social event for the family community, a time for conversation, sharing news, and strengthening social bonds. Elders would pass down local folklore, stories, tales, and songs to the children and adults, serving as a library of sorts for the community and preserving their cultural heritage.
This preservation of cultural heritage extended to emigrants, and arranged marriages were part of the binding of the community. The last time Assunta had seen Antonio was in 1913, when she was 16 and he was 25. They may not have even noticed each other then. Antonio Colussi may have been the broker in the marriage deal. Assunta was his niece (Colussi was married to a Cassin) and Assunta’s brother Luigi, who had entered New York harbor on the Taormina bound for Kingsburg February 14, 1920, was working on one of Colussi’s ranches. Their father agreed to the marriage and Assunta left for California.
Assunta started her journey in late November or early December of 1920. After a train ride to Genoa, she boarded the Ferdinando Palasciano for the seven-day journey to New York. She arrived on her 23rd birthday, December 15, 1920, with $25 in her pockets. The passenger manifest listed Assunta as 5’3, with brown hair and brown eyes, but she was actually 5’6” and had blue eyes. She would have arrived in Kingsburg by train in 5 or so days. They married less than a week later on December 26th. He was 32, and she was 23. She quickly became pregnant and Assunta had her first child, a daughter they named Clara Adeline on October 27, 1921. A second daughter followed on August 13, 1927, whom they named Bruna Edda.
By 1926 or so, Antonio had left the ranch on Dinuba and his partners behind and bought a 50-acre ranch from Louis Martini. His grandson Gregory said,
Mary and I found a loan payoff document from my grandparents to Martini for $14K on the Bethel Ave. ranch. Even for 50 acres, this was an enormous amount of money at that time.
By 1926 or so, Antonio had left the ranch on Dinuba and his partners behind and bought a 50-acre ranch from Louis Martini. His grandson Gregory said,
Mary and I found a loan payoff document from my grandparents to Martini for $14K on the Bethel Ave. ranch. Even for 50 acres, this was an enormous amount of money at that time.
This new ranch was one mile north of Kingsburg on the west side of the Golden State Highway and would serve as the family farm for the next 36 years. The 1930 US Census showed Antonio and Assunta as the owners, and the 1940 Census showed the value of the house as $1000. In 1930, the household included Antonio and Assunta, their daughters Clara and Bruna, Assunta’s brother Luigi, and Joe (Beppe) Finos who was listed as a boarder.
From trips in his youth with his father Battista, Dave Quattrin—who was also Bruna’s godson—remembered:
very vague memories of the old "ranch" as Dad called it...
taken out for an offramp of whatever freeway that was there…99?
sat on a bluff above the Kingsburg River...big—relative to a 5 yr old—, white (?) old farmhouse with vineyard all around it and down to the river...cooling breeze early evening....not as hot as the new one...go figure...trees around house, can’t remember what they were...
Pretty good for a memory from almost 70 years ago. Though to a five-year-old it must have looked like a river, the body of water was the irrigation canal. Christine remembered:
The Bethel Ave ranch was maybe 50 acres and sat at the top of a hill. We used to ride bikes and race to the bottom of the hill where there was an irrigation canal. I remember fondly (now) that Cousin Danny [Battista’s much younger brother] and Greg built a raft on the canal and convinced me (I think I was probably around 5 or 6) to test their contraption. I did and promptly went into the water with the raft collapsing under me. Instead of voicing their concern for my well-being, they yelled at me to run home, change my wet clothes and not tell anyone what had happened. I, of course did exactly that as I adored my cousin Danny and my big brother. Danny used to come down to the ranch every summer when he was young so your grandmother would have a break and to get him out of the city.
Farming was a difficult life at most times, but having a vineyard going into Prohibition seemed to be a losing proposition. The Volstead Act—enacted in 1919 and took effect in 1920—was the federal law that provided the enforcement apparatus for the 18th Amendment, officially establishing Prohibition in the United States. It banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors, strictly defining them as any beverage containing more than 0.5% alcohol by volume. Alcohol could still be legally produced and consumed in private homes but was limited to 200 gallons per year. Alcohol could still be produced and sold for use in specific medicinal, sacramental (religious), and industrial purposes. Much of Louis Martini’ success during this time was based on his contract with the Catholic Church for altar wine. One of the reasons Italian Swiss Colony sold off their vineyards in the Central Valley was because Prohibition. Other ranches, like Antonio’s, turned to raisin production in order to have a sellable item for their now overproduced crops.
Legend has it that California’s first raisin crop was grown by nature, not farmers. In 1873, a massive heat wave hit the valley before harvest, and most of the grapes dried on the vine before farmers could pick them. In 1876, English immigrant William Thompson began growing a seedless grape variety that was thin-skinned, seedless, sweet and tasty.
Instead of depressing the vineyard economy, California's Central Valley raisin industry experienced a massive boom during Prohibition. The boom was brought on by a two-pronged attack, one reactive and one proactive. First, because of a loophole in the Volstead Act, farmers could be sell their dried grapes across the country as "raisin cakes" or grape concentrate, which eager bootleggers and home winemakers could easily rehydrate and ferment into alcohol. To bypass legal restrictions, vineyards advertised their products with the specific instructions needed to “avoid” fermentation.
Second, a massive marketing campaign began by the mid-1920s to promote raisins as both a health food and the perfect snack for have in movie theaters. The Thompson Seedless grape emerged as the leading crop for a variety of products. California's dominant cooperative, the Sun-Maid Raisin Growers of California, spent heavily on print advertising in prominent national publications like the Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping. The famous "Raisin Train" toured 2,000 miles to Chicago to showcase California agriculture. When dietitians and nutritionists of the era began to promote raisins as a nutritional powerhouse, Sun-Maid capitalized on the trend by widely distributing recipe booklets for raisin bread and baked goods, making raisins a staple in American kitchens.
Antonio tried to diversify his crops by adding peach and apricot trees. With the coming of the economic crisis that would be known as the Great Depression, Antonio decided to take a chance…which backfired.
On October 30, 1931, federal agents and members of both the Kingsburg and Selma Sheriff’s departments raided the Ranch. According to an article in The Fresno Morning Republican (31 Oct 1931),
STILL HIDDEN IN HAY SEIZED WITH LIQUOR
Cleverly camouflaged, yet not too well hidden for federal and Fresno county sheriff's office deputies to uncover, a still on the Petris ranch near Kingsburg was seized yesterday afternoon.
Beneath several tons of hay inside a huge barn, officers uncovered a large room which contained the 30-gallon still, and seized 868 gallons of wine, 85 gallons of brandy and 624 gallons of mash.
Leading the raid were Deputy Sheriffs Jack Tarr and Wallace Moore of the sheriff's office, Chief of Police John Croft of Kingsburg and Constable Alvin King of Selma.
The still in the barn on the ranch, located about one mile north of Kingsburg on the west side of the Golden State highway, may be entered from three small holes in the hay.
Antonio Petris, 43, an Italian, was booked at the county jail last evening for violation of the Wright act and possession of a still.
From trips in his youth with his father Battista, Dave Quattrin—who was also Bruna’s godson—remembered:
very vague memories of the old "ranch" as Dad called it...
taken out for an offramp of whatever freeway that was there…99?
sat on a bluff above the Kingsburg River...big—relative to a 5 yr old—, white (?) old farmhouse with vineyard all around it and down to the river...cooling breeze early evening....not as hot as the new one...go figure...trees around house, can’t remember what they were...
Pretty good for a memory from almost 70 years ago. Though to a five-year-old it must have looked like a river, the body of water was the irrigation canal. Christine remembered:
The Bethel Ave ranch was maybe 50 acres and sat at the top of a hill. We used to ride bikes and race to the bottom of the hill where there was an irrigation canal. I remember fondly (now) that Cousin Danny [Battista’s much younger brother] and Greg built a raft on the canal and convinced me (I think I was probably around 5 or 6) to test their contraption. I did and promptly went into the water with the raft collapsing under me. Instead of voicing their concern for my well-being, they yelled at me to run home, change my wet clothes and not tell anyone what had happened. I, of course did exactly that as I adored my cousin Danny and my big brother. Danny used to come down to the ranch every summer when he was young so your grandmother would have a break and to get him out of the city.
Farming was a difficult life at most times, but having a vineyard going into Prohibition seemed to be a losing proposition. The Volstead Act—enacted in 1919 and took effect in 1920—was the federal law that provided the enforcement apparatus for the 18th Amendment, officially establishing Prohibition in the United States. It banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors, strictly defining them as any beverage containing more than 0.5% alcohol by volume. Alcohol could still be legally produced and consumed in private homes but was limited to 200 gallons per year. Alcohol could still be produced and sold for use in specific medicinal, sacramental (religious), and industrial purposes. Much of Louis Martini’ success during this time was based on his contract with the Catholic Church for altar wine. One of the reasons Italian Swiss Colony sold off their vineyards in the Central Valley was because Prohibition. Other ranches, like Antonio’s, turned to raisin production in order to have a sellable item for their now overproduced crops.
Legend has it that California’s first raisin crop was grown by nature, not farmers. In 1873, a massive heat wave hit the valley before harvest, and most of the grapes dried on the vine before farmers could pick them. In 1876, English immigrant William Thompson began growing a seedless grape variety that was thin-skinned, seedless, sweet and tasty.
Instead of depressing the vineyard economy, California's Central Valley raisin industry experienced a massive boom during Prohibition. The boom was brought on by a two-pronged attack, one reactive and one proactive. First, because of a loophole in the Volstead Act, farmers could be sell their dried grapes across the country as "raisin cakes" or grape concentrate, which eager bootleggers and home winemakers could easily rehydrate and ferment into alcohol. To bypass legal restrictions, vineyards advertised their products with the specific instructions needed to “avoid” fermentation.
Second, a massive marketing campaign began by the mid-1920s to promote raisins as both a health food and the perfect snack for have in movie theaters. The Thompson Seedless grape emerged as the leading crop for a variety of products. California's dominant cooperative, the Sun-Maid Raisin Growers of California, spent heavily on print advertising in prominent national publications like the Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping. The famous "Raisin Train" toured 2,000 miles to Chicago to showcase California agriculture. When dietitians and nutritionists of the era began to promote raisins as a nutritional powerhouse, Sun-Maid capitalized on the trend by widely distributing recipe booklets for raisin bread and baked goods, making raisins a staple in American kitchens.
Antonio tried to diversify his crops by adding peach and apricot trees. With the coming of the economic crisis that would be known as the Great Depression, Antonio decided to take a chance…which backfired.
On October 30, 1931, federal agents and members of both the Kingsburg and Selma Sheriff’s departments raided the Ranch. According to an article in The Fresno Morning Republican (31 Oct 1931),
STILL HIDDEN IN HAY SEIZED WITH LIQUOR
Cleverly camouflaged, yet not too well hidden for federal and Fresno county sheriff's office deputies to uncover, a still on the Petris ranch near Kingsburg was seized yesterday afternoon.
Beneath several tons of hay inside a huge barn, officers uncovered a large room which contained the 30-gallon still, and seized 868 gallons of wine, 85 gallons of brandy and 624 gallons of mash.
Leading the raid were Deputy Sheriffs Jack Tarr and Wallace Moore of the sheriff's office, Chief of Police John Croft of Kingsburg and Constable Alvin King of Selma.
The still in the barn on the ranch, located about one mile north of Kingsburg on the west side of the Golden State highway, may be entered from three small holes in the hay.
Antonio Petris, 43, an Italian, was booked at the county jail last evening for violation of the Wright act and possession of a still.
For those who do not know, mash is a mixture of grain, malt, sugar, and water. It is the fermented, porridge-like base used to distill moonshine.
Antonio was held on $7000 bail. As that price was ridiculously high at that time, he remained in the county jail for 85 days awaiting trial. In late June of 1932, Superior Court Judge T. R. Thompson convicted Antonio of possessing a still, fined him $2000, and gave him two years’ probation. Ironically, his probation ended just after the 18th Amendment was repealed, and the Ranch could return to producing grapes for alcohol.
During Antonio’s incarceration, Assunta kept the Ranch running with the help of her brother Luigi and fellow Zoppolani, 29-year-old Beppe Finos. The Finos and Petris families had been close in Zoppola and continued so in America. The Ranch continued to prosper during the 1930s, so much so that, when Antonio’s mother died in 1937, he was able to provide an impressive headstone for her, complete with her photo under glass.
In the 1930 and 1940 US Censuses, Antonio and Assunta were listed as “alien” because they had not applied for citizenship. They would never get around to doing so. At the outbreak of World War II in 1941, Italians who had not received citizenship yet were put on the Alien Enemies list. Alien enemies were required to register at their local post office, be fingerprinted, photographed, and had to carry identification cards. This included Tony and Assunta. Tony was Alien Enemy #A4276813, and Assunta was #A4276813. Tony’s niece Emilia received an exemption in 1943 because her husband was already a US citizen, and she had filed for citizenship before the start of the War.
With the massive enlistment of Americans in the armed forces after December 7, 1941, there arose a previously unexpected shortage in farmworkers in the Central Valley. During the Depression, there had been a ready source of migrant farm workers from the Dust Bowl states, especially Kansas and Oklahoma. This dried to a trickle during the War. Compounding things, the Japanese who were interned during the War made up a large contingency within the farming community. According to “Our Job Is to Get It Picked”: Volunteerism, Coercion, and the
California Farm Crisis of 1942 (Boom California, 25 March 2021):
On September 9, 1942, the members of the Merchants Association of Fresno, the largest city in California’s San Joaquin Valley, called an emergency session to respond to a burgeoning crisis. For much of the year, farmers and ranchers in the Valley—among the most productive agricultural regions in the United States—had struggled to secure sufficient hands to tend to their crops and herds. This labor shortage became particularly acute in early September, when checkups revealed that more than half of the region’s highly perishable raisin grape crop remained unpicked. In Fresno County alone, officials insisted on September 9, five thousand additional workers were needed to get the remaining grapes off their vines and on to drying trays over the next eight days. Otherwise, grape growers, and the Valley economy that the lucrative crop helped to fuel, would suffer a devastating blow. So, too, would American servicemen who were battling Axis Powers overseas. “These raisins,” Irvine S. Terrell, chairman of the Area Agricultural War Manpower Commission, told Merchants Association members, “must be made for the soldiers, sailors and marines on the fighting fronts, as requested by the government.” And if the raisins were not made immediately, Terrell warned, “you merchants are going to see the government step in and allocate labor.”
https://boomcalifornia.org/2021/03/25/our-job-is-to-get-it-picked-volunteerism-coercion-and-the-california-farm-labor-crisis-of-1942/
According to Victory Harvest Army (Kytle and Roberts, 27 Aug 2022), there were four potential sources of labor:
Valley growers’ initial solution was to try to tap into a labor source close to home: the 10,000 Japanese Americans being held in Fresno assembly centers after their forced removal from their homes. Farmers reasoned that while these internees awaited relocation to permanent internment camps, they could be compelled to pick crops under armed guard. Some Fresnans bristled at this notion, but not out of sympathy for the prisoners. “It burns me up,” fumed one Madera woman in a letter to The Fresno Bee, “to hear some selfish Japanese lover rave about turning them loose to help with the farm labor.” Military officials ultimately decided that this proposal was too dangerous. And by mid-July — when authorities began moving the Japanese internees out of the Valley — the solution became moot.
Valley leaders then pivoted to a second answer to the labor crisis: importing workers from Mexico. This idea elicited the same sort of xenophobic response as had the proposal to employ Japanese American internees. “Keep the Mexicans out of our U.S.A.,” Mrs. M.L.K. proclaimed in a letter to The Bee. She and other like-minded locals had little to fear, at least in the short run. The United States and Mexico did forge a bilateral agreement to permit Mexican laborers to work in the U.S. on short-term contracts. Yet only 500 braceros, as they came to be known, came to the Valley in 1942.
A third labor source — indigent and incarcerated individuals whom authorities tried to coerce into the fields via promises and threats — proved equally insufficient.
But the 1942 farm labor crisis was not all bad news. From August through December, thousands of students, housewives, and other volunteers rallied to save the Valley’s lucrative grape and cotton crops — a phalanx of pickers dubbed the “Victory Harvest Army.” Business owners permitted employees to leave work for the fields, and a New Deal agency coordinated their transportation. The Fresno Bee also helped, running stories that encouraged locals to fulfill their patriotic duty by picking crops.
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article264956829.html#storylink=cpy
It is unknown whether the Petrises solved their labor problem with braceros or not, but the California Farm Labor Crisis coincided with an even more personal Petris family crisis.
On Monday, September 28, 1942, Antonio was working in the fields and did not come back to the house for lunch. His daughter Bruna went to bring him in but found him unconscious on the ground. They rushed him to the hospital in Selma, where he died there ten hours later. The cause of death was listed as apoplexy brought on by hypertension. Various obituaries either cited stoke or a brain aneurism. He was 54 years old. (Years later, Bruna would claim that the shock of finding him was so severe that it caused her to not be able to bear a child.)
There was a viewing and rosary at the Ericson Chapel in Kingsburg on Wednesday and a Requiem Mass on Thursday, October1st, at St. Joseph’s Church in Selma, followed by burial in Kingsburg Cemetery. Many friends and relatives came down from San Francisco.
Antonio was held on $7000 bail. As that price was ridiculously high at that time, he remained in the county jail for 85 days awaiting trial. In late June of 1932, Superior Court Judge T. R. Thompson convicted Antonio of possessing a still, fined him $2000, and gave him two years’ probation. Ironically, his probation ended just after the 18th Amendment was repealed, and the Ranch could return to producing grapes for alcohol.
During Antonio’s incarceration, Assunta kept the Ranch running with the help of her brother Luigi and fellow Zoppolani, 29-year-old Beppe Finos. The Finos and Petris families had been close in Zoppola and continued so in America. The Ranch continued to prosper during the 1930s, so much so that, when Antonio’s mother died in 1937, he was able to provide an impressive headstone for her, complete with her photo under glass.
In the 1930 and 1940 US Censuses, Antonio and Assunta were listed as “alien” because they had not applied for citizenship. They would never get around to doing so. At the outbreak of World War II in 1941, Italians who had not received citizenship yet were put on the Alien Enemies list. Alien enemies were required to register at their local post office, be fingerprinted, photographed, and had to carry identification cards. This included Tony and Assunta. Tony was Alien Enemy #A4276813, and Assunta was #A4276813. Tony’s niece Emilia received an exemption in 1943 because her husband was already a US citizen, and she had filed for citizenship before the start of the War.
With the massive enlistment of Americans in the armed forces after December 7, 1941, there arose a previously unexpected shortage in farmworkers in the Central Valley. During the Depression, there had been a ready source of migrant farm workers from the Dust Bowl states, especially Kansas and Oklahoma. This dried to a trickle during the War. Compounding things, the Japanese who were interned during the War made up a large contingency within the farming community. According to “Our Job Is to Get It Picked”: Volunteerism, Coercion, and the
California Farm Crisis of 1942 (Boom California, 25 March 2021):
On September 9, 1942, the members of the Merchants Association of Fresno, the largest city in California’s San Joaquin Valley, called an emergency session to respond to a burgeoning crisis. For much of the year, farmers and ranchers in the Valley—among the most productive agricultural regions in the United States—had struggled to secure sufficient hands to tend to their crops and herds. This labor shortage became particularly acute in early September, when checkups revealed that more than half of the region’s highly perishable raisin grape crop remained unpicked. In Fresno County alone, officials insisted on September 9, five thousand additional workers were needed to get the remaining grapes off their vines and on to drying trays over the next eight days. Otherwise, grape growers, and the Valley economy that the lucrative crop helped to fuel, would suffer a devastating blow. So, too, would American servicemen who were battling Axis Powers overseas. “These raisins,” Irvine S. Terrell, chairman of the Area Agricultural War Manpower Commission, told Merchants Association members, “must be made for the soldiers, sailors and marines on the fighting fronts, as requested by the government.” And if the raisins were not made immediately, Terrell warned, “you merchants are going to see the government step in and allocate labor.”
https://boomcalifornia.org/2021/03/25/our-job-is-to-get-it-picked-volunteerism-coercion-and-the-california-farm-labor-crisis-of-1942/
According to Victory Harvest Army (Kytle and Roberts, 27 Aug 2022), there were four potential sources of labor:
Valley growers’ initial solution was to try to tap into a labor source close to home: the 10,000 Japanese Americans being held in Fresno assembly centers after their forced removal from their homes. Farmers reasoned that while these internees awaited relocation to permanent internment camps, they could be compelled to pick crops under armed guard. Some Fresnans bristled at this notion, but not out of sympathy for the prisoners. “It burns me up,” fumed one Madera woman in a letter to The Fresno Bee, “to hear some selfish Japanese lover rave about turning them loose to help with the farm labor.” Military officials ultimately decided that this proposal was too dangerous. And by mid-July — when authorities began moving the Japanese internees out of the Valley — the solution became moot.
Valley leaders then pivoted to a second answer to the labor crisis: importing workers from Mexico. This idea elicited the same sort of xenophobic response as had the proposal to employ Japanese American internees. “Keep the Mexicans out of our U.S.A.,” Mrs. M.L.K. proclaimed in a letter to The Bee. She and other like-minded locals had little to fear, at least in the short run. The United States and Mexico did forge a bilateral agreement to permit Mexican laborers to work in the U.S. on short-term contracts. Yet only 500 braceros, as they came to be known, came to the Valley in 1942.
A third labor source — indigent and incarcerated individuals whom authorities tried to coerce into the fields via promises and threats — proved equally insufficient.
But the 1942 farm labor crisis was not all bad news. From August through December, thousands of students, housewives, and other volunteers rallied to save the Valley’s lucrative grape and cotton crops — a phalanx of pickers dubbed the “Victory Harvest Army.” Business owners permitted employees to leave work for the fields, and a New Deal agency coordinated their transportation. The Fresno Bee also helped, running stories that encouraged locals to fulfill their patriotic duty by picking crops.
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article264956829.html#storylink=cpy
It is unknown whether the Petrises solved their labor problem with braceros or not, but the California Farm Labor Crisis coincided with an even more personal Petris family crisis.
On Monday, September 28, 1942, Antonio was working in the fields and did not come back to the house for lunch. His daughter Bruna went to bring him in but found him unconscious on the ground. They rushed him to the hospital in Selma, where he died there ten hours later. The cause of death was listed as apoplexy brought on by hypertension. Various obituaries either cited stoke or a brain aneurism. He was 54 years old. (Years later, Bruna would claim that the shock of finding him was so severe that it caused her to not be able to bear a child.)
There was a viewing and rosary at the Ericson Chapel in Kingsburg on Wednesday and a Requiem Mass on Thursday, October1st, at St. Joseph’s Church in Selma, followed by burial in Kingsburg Cemetery. Many friends and relatives came down from San Francisco.
In times of distress like that, Assunta could rely on her faith. Like most Italians of her generation, she was very religious and attend church weekly, whether at Holy Faminy Catholic Church in Kingsburg or St. Teresa of Avila in San Francisco. She made sure her grandchildren attended catechism and said their nightly prayers.
As to how the farm kept going without Antonio, Gregory wrote,
Several years ago, I re-connected with Rina Cole and her brother Sergio Zilla. It was Sergio who was able to fill in the blanks on how Nonna was able to keep the farm going. Beppe (Giuseppe) Finos managed the farm until my father [Elia Bortolussi] was able to do so on his own. My own parents had a much closer relationship with the Finos family than other Kingsburg Italians and now it made greater sense.
The farm did keep going. In fact, like many of America’s industries, the War rejuvenated agriculture after the hard 1920s and '30s. The number of farms under 10 acres soared as ground was put back into production. Businesses based on mid-sized farms like the Bethel Avenue Farm became even more profitable. Between 1940 and 1945, the value of farm property in the Central Valley increased by 45%.
Clara had graduated from Kingsburg High in the spring of 1940. That fall, she attended UC Berkeley, living in Colonial Hall and being involved in Utrimque, a prominent social organization for women. Translating from Latin to "on both sides" or "from both sides," it functioned as a close-knit social club and rushing organization for female students on campus. After graduating in 1944, Clara decided to not move back to the Ranch, but rather move to San Francisco and get a job as a clerk. To make things easier, Assunta bought the house at 739 Vermont street on Potrero Hill.
This Mediterranean Revival home was a three-bedroom, one-bath house about two blocks from both Emilia Quattrin and Luigi Zilli. Built in 1931, it served as a second family home that was relief from being on the farm. In the 1945 Polk/Crocker City Directory, Clara was listed as the occupant. The next year, Assunta was the occupant. and two years later it was Bruna, after her two-year stint at UC Berkeley.
As to how the farm kept going without Antonio, Gregory wrote,
Several years ago, I re-connected with Rina Cole and her brother Sergio Zilla. It was Sergio who was able to fill in the blanks on how Nonna was able to keep the farm going. Beppe (Giuseppe) Finos managed the farm until my father [Elia Bortolussi] was able to do so on his own. My own parents had a much closer relationship with the Finos family than other Kingsburg Italians and now it made greater sense.
The farm did keep going. In fact, like many of America’s industries, the War rejuvenated agriculture after the hard 1920s and '30s. The number of farms under 10 acres soared as ground was put back into production. Businesses based on mid-sized farms like the Bethel Avenue Farm became even more profitable. Between 1940 and 1945, the value of farm property in the Central Valley increased by 45%.
Clara had graduated from Kingsburg High in the spring of 1940. That fall, she attended UC Berkeley, living in Colonial Hall and being involved in Utrimque, a prominent social organization for women. Translating from Latin to "on both sides" or "from both sides," it functioned as a close-knit social club and rushing organization for female students on campus. After graduating in 1944, Clara decided to not move back to the Ranch, but rather move to San Francisco and get a job as a clerk. To make things easier, Assunta bought the house at 739 Vermont street on Potrero Hill.
This Mediterranean Revival home was a three-bedroom, one-bath house about two blocks from both Emilia Quattrin and Luigi Zilli. Built in 1931, it served as a second family home that was relief from being on the farm. In the 1945 Polk/Crocker City Directory, Clara was listed as the occupant. The next year, Assunta was the occupant. and two years later it was Bruna, after her two-year stint at UC Berkeley.
With the War finally over and the farm running well, Assunta decided it was time to go home to Zoppola to visit family and introduce her daughters. In early 1947, they took a train to New York and visited Assunta’s sister Adele Cassini. Then, on March 13, 1947, Assunta, Clara, and Bruna boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth in New York and set sail for a four-month visit to Zoppola.
Built by John Brown and Company at Clydebank, Scotland, as Hull 552, the RMS Queen Elizabeth was launched on 27 September 1938 and named in honor of Queen Elizabeth, the wife of King George VI. Her design was an improvement of that of RMS Queen Mary, resulting in a vessel 12 feet (3.7 m) longer and several thousand tons greater, making her the largest passenger liner ever built for a record 56 years. She entered service in March 1940 as a troopship in the Second World War, and did not make her first commercial voyage as an ocean liner until October 1946. She provided a weekly transatlantic service between Southampton in the United Kingdom and New York City in the United States, via Cherbourg in France.
In Zoppola, Clara and Bruna met Elia “Liute” Bortolussi and Italo De Rosa.
According to Christine,
My Mother and Aunt met my Father and Uncle while there and fell in love. As I understand the story, they returned to the states and corresponded with my Father and Uncle for some time, possibly a year, and then returned to Zoppola to get married. There was nothing "arranged" about these unions.
In June of 1948, Assunta, Clara, and Bruna returned via air, flying on the TransWorld Airlines (TWA) ship “Star of Geneva” for a huge double wedding that would be talked about for decades. “The two American sisters who returned home to marry the two Italian cousins.” (According to Alberto De Rosa in Toronto, Italo’s and Liute’s mothers were both Cassins and were first cousins.) The whole town was there.
My Mother and Aunt met my Father and Uncle while there and fell in love. As I understand the story, they returned to the states and corresponded with my Father and Uncle for some time, possibly a year, and then returned to Zoppola to get married. There was nothing "arranged" about these unions.
In June of 1948, Assunta, Clara, and Bruna returned via air, flying on the TransWorld Airlines (TWA) ship “Star of Geneva” for a huge double wedding that would be talked about for decades. “The two American sisters who returned home to marry the two Italian cousins.” (According to Alberto De Rosa in Toronto, Italo’s and Liute’s mothers were both Cassins and were first cousins.) The whole town was there.
On August 23rd, Assunta, Clara, and Bruna returned by air to San Francisco. The sisters would have to wait until February 5, 1949, to meet their husbands again, this time in New York.
Again, as Christine tells the story,
They had the double wedding in Zoppola which, as you can tell from the photos, was very well attended. My Father and Uncle then came to the states via New York and were given another reception in NY by my Grandmother's sister, Adele, who lived there. They all made their way back to CA to the Vermont Street home. My Father and Uncle went to work at the produce market which was at the Ferry Building downtown. After some time, my grandmother sat them all down and advised them that they now needed to decide who would go where as she needed help at the ranch in Kingsburg. My Father did not like living in the city so he and my Mother decided to go and work the farm. Italo and Bruna stayed in the city and both worked at Cramer Associates in San Francisco (along with Ilia [Moretto]).
Jeffrey had a slightly different take on the last part:
One thing that I was told was that Italo came to Kingsburg and farmed and Dad stay in SF to work on the produce docks. Both didn’t like that set up, and they swapped living arrangements. Dad came and farmed, and Italo went into the construction business at Cramer and Associates.
Bruna and Italo would become David Quattrin’s godparents, and Italo would build the grammar school where Kevin attended kindergarten.
On February 24, 1951, Assunta became a grandmother for the first time with the birth of Gregory Bortolussi. Greg was joined by Christine two years later and by Jeff in 1958.
Her grandchildren had great memories of Assunta. Christine recalled,
The most vivid memories of her were when she was in the kitchen preparing the traditional Italian foods. Her ravioli, lasagna, meat sauces, and risotto were of course the bomb. Biscotti, crostoli, brovada and musset, even baccala which she made both sweet with olive oil and raisins or savory with a tomato sauce and served with polenta. I couldn’t stand the baccala (dried and salted cod), but my father loved it, so she would make it especially for him. As a child, I think our favorite was the crostoli. She would make a big batch which she would put into a large (3x2 ft) bread box. I recall my brothers and I devouring these and could polish off this bread box in a day.
I picture her at the kitchen table, large bread board (probably 3x5 ft) making a well of flour and then cracking at least a dozen eggs into the center and mixing it up. Depending on what type of pasta she was making would determine the other ingredients.
The other vivid memory of her that I have is her sitting and watching TV with her knitting needles always going a mile a minute, and she would actually fall asleep with her hands continuing to knit. It was truly a sight!
Other favorite memories were of her chasing us around with a fly swatter when we were misbehaving.
Holidays were always very joyful and boisterous. The family would all gather either at the Vermont Street house or on the farm. Christine recalled that, when the gathered at Vermont Street, the downstairs would be made into a buca (a tavern or like a wine bar) where the wine, food and music flowed. Zio Italo might break out a ukulele and Zia Bruna would grab her accordion her accordion. Song and dance and frivolity was the order of the day. The women would prepare enough food for an army, and the events were attended by immediate and extended family. The more the merrier.
Again, as Christine tells the story,
They had the double wedding in Zoppola which, as you can tell from the photos, was very well attended. My Father and Uncle then came to the states via New York and were given another reception in NY by my Grandmother's sister, Adele, who lived there. They all made their way back to CA to the Vermont Street home. My Father and Uncle went to work at the produce market which was at the Ferry Building downtown. After some time, my grandmother sat them all down and advised them that they now needed to decide who would go where as she needed help at the ranch in Kingsburg. My Father did not like living in the city so he and my Mother decided to go and work the farm. Italo and Bruna stayed in the city and both worked at Cramer Associates in San Francisco (along with Ilia [Moretto]).
Jeffrey had a slightly different take on the last part:
One thing that I was told was that Italo came to Kingsburg and farmed and Dad stay in SF to work on the produce docks. Both didn’t like that set up, and they swapped living arrangements. Dad came and farmed, and Italo went into the construction business at Cramer and Associates.
Bruna and Italo would become David Quattrin’s godparents, and Italo would build the grammar school where Kevin attended kindergarten.
On February 24, 1951, Assunta became a grandmother for the first time with the birth of Gregory Bortolussi. Greg was joined by Christine two years later and by Jeff in 1958.
Her grandchildren had great memories of Assunta. Christine recalled,
The most vivid memories of her were when she was in the kitchen preparing the traditional Italian foods. Her ravioli, lasagna, meat sauces, and risotto were of course the bomb. Biscotti, crostoli, brovada and musset, even baccala which she made both sweet with olive oil and raisins or savory with a tomato sauce and served with polenta. I couldn’t stand the baccala (dried and salted cod), but my father loved it, so she would make it especially for him. As a child, I think our favorite was the crostoli. She would make a big batch which she would put into a large (3x2 ft) bread box. I recall my brothers and I devouring these and could polish off this bread box in a day.
I picture her at the kitchen table, large bread board (probably 3x5 ft) making a well of flour and then cracking at least a dozen eggs into the center and mixing it up. Depending on what type of pasta she was making would determine the other ingredients.
The other vivid memory of her that I have is her sitting and watching TV with her knitting needles always going a mile a minute, and she would actually fall asleep with her hands continuing to knit. It was truly a sight!
Other favorite memories were of her chasing us around with a fly swatter when we were misbehaving.
Holidays were always very joyful and boisterous. The family would all gather either at the Vermont Street house or on the farm. Christine recalled that, when the gathered at Vermont Street, the downstairs would be made into a buca (a tavern or like a wine bar) where the wine, food and music flowed. Zio Italo might break out a ukulele and Zia Bruna would grab her accordion her accordion. Song and dance and frivolity was the order of the day. The women would prepare enough food for an army, and the events were attended by immediate and extended family. The more the merrier.
The Golden State Highway, which ran near the Bethel Avenue Ranch, also ran through the middle of Fresno. As that city grew, the state decided it need to reroute the highway out of downtown Fresno and onto the present freeway alignment. Prior to 1957, the highway followed a surface-street corridor through downtown Fresno, running along Broadway, Divisadero Street, H Street, and Belmont Avenue, and was later routed via an at-grade expressway on Golden State Boulevard.
By 1960, a plan was laid to move the rest of the Golden State Highway further west—directly though the Bethel Farm! The Ranch was bought by the government under Eeminent domain, and the new Highway 99 ran right through where the house was, making ranching there untenable, even if they had kept it. The bypass was finished in 1963. The family used the proceeds of the sale to buy 40-acre ranch on Avenue 400. That Ranch remains in the family today.
By 1960, a plan was laid to move the rest of the Golden State Highway further west—directly though the Bethel Farm! The Ranch was bought by the government under Eeminent domain, and the new Highway 99 ran right through where the house was, making ranching there untenable, even if they had kept it. The bypass was finished in 1963. The family used the proceeds of the sale to buy 40-acre ranch on Avenue 400. That Ranch remains in the family today.
Dave had memories of the fourth Ranch as well:
"New" one was off Avenue 400...very different...big (again for a 7-year-old) house...incongruously right off the road with the peach orchards behind it...learned to drive the tractor that hauled the peach crates. Dad saying, "Don't drive into the drainage ditch." Shooting rabbits at sundown that would eat the vines with (?)—not Gregory—his younger brother [Jeffrey]...
"New" one was off Avenue 400...very different...big (again for a 7-year-old) house...incongruously right off the road with the peach orchards behind it...learned to drive the tractor that hauled the peach crates. Dad saying, "Don't drive into the drainage ditch." Shooting rabbits at sundown that would eat the vines with (?)—not Gregory—his younger brother [Jeffrey]...
In late 1961, Clara was diagnosed with stomach cancer. She suffered for two years and, in 1963, she was admitted to UCSF Hospital on Parnassis Street in the Haight District of San Francisco with anemia and cachexia. Cachexia is a complex wasting syndrome often seen with chronic illnesses like cancer, COPD, and heart failure. It causes severe, involuntary weight loss and profound muscle wasting that cannot be fully reversed by simply eating more. Just before midnight on November 28, 1963, Clara suffered a complete cardiovascular collapse, resulting in her death in less than three minutes. She was only forty-two and had died much too young—just like her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.
After Clara passed, everything changed, and holidays were much more somber. Her passing broke both Liute’s heart, and Assunta and the children were devastated. But her faith and the needs of Gregory, Christine, and Jeffrey buoyed Assunta up. She lived and breathed for her grandchildren even more so after Clara’s death, but she never really showed them that pain. She was always strong for them and Liute, too. Liute loved and worshipped her like his own mother and could not have done without her at that dark time in his life.
Between the city and the country, Assunta much preferred her life on the ranch. The Zoppolani community on Potrero Hill was soul-nourishing, but the rhythms of the growing season and the routine of farm life had been in her psyche her whole life. But that was put to the test when Liuti decided to remarry.
On December 16, 1967, Liute married Bruna Ferino Marku. Bruna was born and raised not far from Zoppola, outside of Udine. She was a widow of Mhill Marku, an Albanian school teacher who had died in 1965, and she had an adult daughter named Juliana. She spoke the Friulian dialect fluently, practiced the Catholic faith, and was meticulous in everything she did. According to Christine,
Bruna was thrilled that she would have my grandmother there, living with us, as she envisioned a mother/daughter relationship with her. Unfortunately, my grandmother became convinced that both Dad and Bruna would treat her badly and that she would have visions of my mother throughout the house if she stayed. Zio and Zia DeRosa convinced her to move back to the city. My father felt that she would always have a home with us and when she eventually left, he was heart-broken, as was Bruna.
Gregory added,
I concur with everything Chris built upon in her commentary. Our Nonna moved to the DeRosa home at 183 Lakeshore Drive across from Lake Merced, never to return to Kingsburg until she was interred next to her long-departed husband. She exhibited in those final years the same stoic and determined spirit that had ruled her entire life. I believe she would have lived much longer had she remained in what had been the nexus of a community for all her formative adult years, but she recognized that my father needed a lifelong partner to continue forward. In her own mind, Nonna felt her own continued presence would prove an impediment to the development of our family.
I visited her at S.F. General with Zia Bruna days before she passed away. I was months away from graduating from high school. She was alert and showed no signs of regrets or remorsefulness. It was just a sense of resignation what fate had brought upon her. Her deeply religious beliefs helped in her final transition. So many questions I wished I could have asked.
Assunta died in St Mary’s Hospital on Sunday, May 11, 1969. The cause of death was respiratory failure brought on by carcinomatosis. She was 72 years old. A rosary was held on Tuesday night at Valente, Marini, Perata, and Company and a mass at St. Stephen’s Church on Wednesday morning. Interment occurred on Thursday morning at Kingsburg Cemetery.
After Clara passed, everything changed, and holidays were much more somber. Her passing broke both Liute’s heart, and Assunta and the children were devastated. But her faith and the needs of Gregory, Christine, and Jeffrey buoyed Assunta up. She lived and breathed for her grandchildren even more so after Clara’s death, but she never really showed them that pain. She was always strong for them and Liute, too. Liute loved and worshipped her like his own mother and could not have done without her at that dark time in his life.
Between the city and the country, Assunta much preferred her life on the ranch. The Zoppolani community on Potrero Hill was soul-nourishing, but the rhythms of the growing season and the routine of farm life had been in her psyche her whole life. But that was put to the test when Liuti decided to remarry.
On December 16, 1967, Liute married Bruna Ferino Marku. Bruna was born and raised not far from Zoppola, outside of Udine. She was a widow of Mhill Marku, an Albanian school teacher who had died in 1965, and she had an adult daughter named Juliana. She spoke the Friulian dialect fluently, practiced the Catholic faith, and was meticulous in everything she did. According to Christine,
Bruna was thrilled that she would have my grandmother there, living with us, as she envisioned a mother/daughter relationship with her. Unfortunately, my grandmother became convinced that both Dad and Bruna would treat her badly and that she would have visions of my mother throughout the house if she stayed. Zio and Zia DeRosa convinced her to move back to the city. My father felt that she would always have a home with us and when she eventually left, he was heart-broken, as was Bruna.
Gregory added,
I concur with everything Chris built upon in her commentary. Our Nonna moved to the DeRosa home at 183 Lakeshore Drive across from Lake Merced, never to return to Kingsburg until she was interred next to her long-departed husband. She exhibited in those final years the same stoic and determined spirit that had ruled her entire life. I believe she would have lived much longer had she remained in what had been the nexus of a community for all her formative adult years, but she recognized that my father needed a lifelong partner to continue forward. In her own mind, Nonna felt her own continued presence would prove an impediment to the development of our family.
I visited her at S.F. General with Zia Bruna days before she passed away. I was months away from graduating from high school. She was alert and showed no signs of regrets or remorsefulness. It was just a sense of resignation what fate had brought upon her. Her deeply religious beliefs helped in her final transition. So many questions I wished I could have asked.
Assunta died in St Mary’s Hospital on Sunday, May 11, 1969. The cause of death was respiratory failure brought on by carcinomatosis. She was 72 years old. A rosary was held on Tuesday night at Valente, Marini, Perata, and Company and a mass at St. Stephen’s Church on Wednesday morning. Interment occurred on Thursday morning at Kingsburg Cemetery.
Antonio is something of an enigma to his descendants. According to Gregory,
Growing up as children, no one spoke to us of his name or memory aside from that his then teenage daughter Bruna (Zia) found his body in the field when he had not returned from work for lunch. I don't remember seeing any photographs with him included, don't recall any of the paesani mentioning him when we would visit and aside from the memorial marker at the Kingsburg cemetery it's as if he never existed. As a young adult I questioned my father, aunt (Bruna) and uncle (Italo) about this Nonno and they would always defer or change the subject. No grimace, no sense of familial trauma or abuse, no "it's too difficult to talk about"...just nothing. His death occurred well before my father and uncle entered the scene, but it's still strange there was virtually no mention of him from anyone.
It is a shame that we cannot know Antonio better, but the facts of his life indicate a man who was ambitious for himself and his family. He braved a move to the New World for a better life not once, but twice. He worked hard and took chances. He married a woman who was a force to reckoned with. Assunta was a strong, capable woman. She had all the skills to run a farm and raise a family, even when she had to do it on her own. She was a loving and wise mother and grandmother. They were cornerstones of future generations and are a couple well forth remembering.
Growing up as children, no one spoke to us of his name or memory aside from that his then teenage daughter Bruna (Zia) found his body in the field when he had not returned from work for lunch. I don't remember seeing any photographs with him included, don't recall any of the paesani mentioning him when we would visit and aside from the memorial marker at the Kingsburg cemetery it's as if he never existed. As a young adult I questioned my father, aunt (Bruna) and uncle (Italo) about this Nonno and they would always defer or change the subject. No grimace, no sense of familial trauma or abuse, no "it's too difficult to talk about"...just nothing. His death occurred well before my father and uncle entered the scene, but it's still strange there was virtually no mention of him from anyone.
It is a shame that we cannot know Antonio better, but the facts of his life indicate a man who was ambitious for himself and his family. He braved a move to the New World for a better life not once, but twice. He worked hard and took chances. He married a woman who was a force to reckoned with. Assunta was a strong, capable woman. She had all the skills to run a farm and raise a family, even when she had to do it on her own. She was a loving and wise mother and grandmother. They were cornerstones of future generations and are a couple well forth remembering.
