Dear Readers,
More June Father's Day Italian Connections:
Walter A. Schivo, a San Francisco Produce Market legend, has left us. Walter began working, in 1930, for the wholesale produce company Jacobs, Malcolm and Burt. He became vice president of the company and continued working there until he was 95 years old. When asked the question: “Why do you keep working?” Schivo, who worked the one o'clock in the morning graveyard shift for over fifty years would reply “Because if I didn't, I'd die”.
Unfortunately, the oldest working produce salesman in the United States took a fall in September 2005. Complications from the fall left him unable to continue working and just as he had predicted, “if I didn't work, I'd die”, he did, at age 97.
Walter, a longtime L'Italo Americano subscriber was a very special, caring man with a sharp humorous wit who shared good times with many throughout the years.His body has been put to rest in the family crypt at the Italian Cemetery.
...
“Barbary Coast” (primarily the San Francisco area adjacent to North Beach) with action centered along Pacific, Broadway and Buttery Streets as well as Sansone, Front and Davis, below Telegraph Hill, had many Italian connections and the Schivo family was among them.
Recently departed, Walter Schivo wasn't always a produce salesman. During Prohibition he was a bootlegger. Not that he touched any of that stuff. Never drank much alcohol, never smoked. Is that the secret of his long life? "I don't know", Schivo once said. "I take enough pills. I don't know what they give me."
Whatever they are, they're working. And did until he was 97.
Agostino "Gus" Schivo, Walter's father, born in San Francisco in 1879, was part of the San Francisco's early Barbary Coast scene as he was the youngest child of Girolamo and Clara Schivo who had come to San Francisco shortly after gold was discovered in California.San Francisco, a.k.a. Yerba Buena in 1846 B.G.(before gold) was just a sleepy village with a population of some 400 inhabitants.
The poor kept the secret that gold had been discovered in early 1848 (130 miles east of San Francisco by John Marshall at John Sutter Lumber Mill on the American river) was announced by our 11th president James Knox Polk, to the U.S. Congress, later that year, sparking a worldwide epidemic of “gold fever” with “California, here I come” the dream destination.
By 1849, some seven hundred ships sailed around South America's Cape Horn, carrying men from Italy, Spain, France, and South America; others came from China, Russia, Japan, Alaska, and other places in the world where word of "instant" golden wealth had spread.
San Francisco, gateway to the golden field soon turned from a trading post to a seductive port of call, as in "follow the money" fashion, "wine, women and song" plus cross cultural cuisine became readily available at the saloon restaurant and boardinghouse area down by the docks, dubbed the "Barbary Coast", by savvy seamen and suddenly flush miner Forty-niners.
The Schivo history in California began when Walter's grandfather, Girolamo Schivo, born 1833, in a little town near Genova, married Clara Schiapasse, a young lady born in Lima, Peru, to immigrant parents from Genoa, Italy and set sail for San Francisco.
Clara was knowledgeable in folk medicine and child birth. She was a mid-wife to the General Vallejo family who gave the Schivo family Spanish land grants. They once owned China Town in San Francisco, as well as property throughout the state, especially in Petaluma and Santa Rosa, California.
Girolamo Schivo and Clara had 10 children. Their names were: William, Louisa, Amelia, Joseph, Steven, Antone, Frank, Pete, Floria and August, born 1879, who was the youngest. August later married Catherine Pasterino, Walter Schivo's parents. August "Gus" Schivo had many friends, among them were Abe Ruef and Amedeo P, Giannini.
Abe Ruef was a lawyer active in politics in early San Francisco. His influence was slight until 1901. He took advantage of labor disturbances and formed the Workingman's Party, which gave him control of San Francisco by electing Mayor Schmidtz and a new Board of Directors.
Abe Ruef was the largest land owner in the state and a very close friend of August Schivo.
August Schivo was over 6 feet tall and 250 pounds. He was very strong and could lift a 100 pound sack of potatoes in each hand over his head.
He fought the champion of Australia in an exhibition boxing match in 1900 and beat him.“Gus” was a lifelong friend of A. P. Giannini(1870-1949), founder of the Bank of Italy in 1904, (the bank later known worldwide as Bank of America) and his young brother George Giannini who thanks to financial assistance from his older brother Amedeo who continued working in the produce business, to help his widowed mother Virginia, was able to pursue his medical studies and had a successful practice treating the ills of the rich and famous.
When Walter Schivo's father “Gus” died in 1955, he was in Atherton, California, visiting his old friend George Giannini MD.
Amedeo continued working in the produce business, long after his mother Virginia remarried, to drayman Lorenzo Scatena and they all moved to San Francisco from Alviso, a hillside vil1age with fruit trees and vineyards along the foothills of Santa Clara Valley.From the time Amedeo (A. P. Giannini) was 12 years-old he worked at night, helping to unload fruits and vegetables and delivering them, by horse-drawn wagon to retail merchants. By age 17, Amedeo was traveling alone, into country-sides near San Francisco, soliciting contracts from valley farmers and by 1900, thanks to his efforts, his step father's business, Scatena, and Company, had become the largest wholesale produce company in the United States, west of Chicago.
Walter Schivo's father "Gus" owned a smaller produce company, the San Francisco Produce Company, in the early 1900's and together with one of his brothers, trucked produce out of the valley for many years, in the 18 produce trucks trailers they owned. One day Walter's father decided that, if he was going to be up in the wee morning hours trucking produce, he might as well have a nice place to hang out and relax between runs, so with another brother, he decided to open a night club.
In fact, Gus and his brother Frank opened two night clubs, north on Pacific Street, in San Francisco old Barbary Coast district, close to the produce markets; the Thalia and the Hippodrome.
The Thalia for many years was the largest "dime a dance hall" in the Pacific Coast. From 80 to 100 girls were employed there with double shifts of bartenders and 4 to 6 men on a shift. It was a place favored by the police and political powers of the day and Walter recalled his father telling him they often took in $6,000 on Monday night, when beer was a nickel.
When in 1919 prohibition (Volstead act) was passed, August Schivo closed the Hippodrome. He had 2000 gallons of pure alcohol that he had to put into sealed Government storage at the time.
When, in December 1933 prohibition was over, Gus, along with his brother Frank Schivo (senior) reopened the Hippodrome al 560 Pacific Street, all remodeled.
They had a rock stage, carved out of the side of Nob Hill. It was next to King Tut's which was owned by Spider Kelly. At that time when August went to get the 2000 gallons of pure alcohol in the sealed storage unit, it was found that someone had taped it, and there was not much left.The entrance to the Hippodrome was sculpted by Arthur Butnam, who was awarded a gold medal at the Panama Pacific Exposition for high work. The six basrelief panels in plaster depicted a group of satyrs happily pursuing nymphs, in accurate anatomical details.
These details aroused such a storm of supposed "shock", they were covered by bands of ribbon done of reddish plaster, which trailed upward over the shoulders of both nymphs and satyrs, and silenced the self appointed sanctimonious art critics.
The reopened Hippodrome had 60 employees. They had 27 barrels of beer in tap with two bars, one upstairs and one down. Beer was 5 cents a glass. They had a full orchestra; "Miss Honolulu" was the fan dancer and floor show.
St. Francis and the Mark Hopkins Hotel put pressure on the mayor's 'office, at that time, not to issue a dance permit to August Schivo, as he was taking all the business away from the hotel with his shows.
Many movie stars from Los Angeles came to San Francisco to socialize and see the shows at the Hippodrome. Parts of the movie "San Francisco" starring Clark Gable, were filmed inside the club as was the Earthquake scene, filmed in miniature.
Shortly before World War II Gus sold the place.
Walter Schivo leaves behind a son also named Walter who grew up in San Francisco and after graduating from Washington High, entered City College of San Francisco.He earned an AA degree in engineering and electronics, then transferred to the University of San Francisco, where he earned a degree in sociology. He served seven years in the Army and has a son, Darren, now 31.
Walter Schivo lives in Novato, CA and is an inventor, amateur radio operator, film and television actor (Class Action, Basic Instinct, Patch Adams, Homeward Bound, The Doors, True Crimes, Lost Cause, Around the Fire, Interview With a Vampire, When a Man Loves a Woman are among his movie credits and Nash Bridges, Unsolved Mysteries and Tales of the City among his televisioncredits).
A registered engineering contractor in the state of California, filmmaker, genealogist, eclectic collector and soon to be author of a photo filled Bay Area art and history book.
However, Schivo's first love is his amateur radio stations, KB6BKN and KD6GCG. He and his son operate both stations from Novato and from Schivo's chalet in the Gold Country hamlet of Michigan Bluff (Pop. 48).
Alll best wishes a “Cent'Anni” to Walter Schivo's son and grandson Darren…
...
Father Time:
Thought I'd let my doctor check me,
'Cause I didn't feel quite right.
All those aches and pains annoyed me,
And I couldn't sleep at night.He could find no real disorder,
But he wouldn't let it rest.
What with Medicare and Blue Cross,
We would do a couple of tests.I was fluoroscoped and cystoscoped,
My aging frame displayed,
Stripped, on an ice cold table,
While my gizzards were x-rayed.They have finally concluded,
Their results have filled a page.
What I have will someday kill me:
My affliction is OLD AGE!Wishing “Buona Salute e Cent’Anni” to all Fathers and Grandfathers among our Readers...
10631 Vinedale Street, Sun Valley, CA 91352 - Phone (818) 767-3413 - Fax: (818) 767-1410
