Sacramento County
Biographies
GOTTARDO
BARSETTI
GOTTARDO BARSETTI - Prominent among the Italian-Swiss-Americans who made good in Sacramento County may well be mentioned Gottardo Barsetti, who operates a fine dairy ranch about five and one-half miles east of Galt. He was born in Canton Ticino, Switzerland, at picturesque Irolo, on October 3, 1883, the son of Joseph and Sophie Barsetti, his father being a hard-working teamster, who passed away in 1896. Four years later Mrs. Barsetti, who had been a very devoted wife, came out to California to live with her son, the subject of this interesting story. She was the mother of eight children, and among these Gottardo was the third born. Lena and Leo were the eldest, Teresa was the fourth in the order of birth, and then came Millie and Mary, the latter now deceased, and Dan and Elizabeth the youngest.
Gottardo attended the Swiss schools, and he remained at home with his folks until 1903, when he came out to the United States. He did not stop long in the East, but proceeded almost directly to Healdsburg, in Sonoma County, where he worked in a diary and on fruit ranches for six years, and then spent three years in San Bruno, San Mateo County, when he came to Galt. He purchased forty-five acres one and one-half miles east of Herald, and there he had a dairy ranch; but in time he leased his ranch to others, and instead took charge of a ranch of 400 acres on Dry Creek belonging to Mrs. Donovan, of Galt. This he now manages, on shares, as a dairy ranch, maintaining a dairy herd of sixty head of cattle.
The marriage of Gottardo Barsetti and Miss Mary Tonella occurred at San Francisco on August 26, 1912, when our subject chose for his life-companion a playmate from the same town in Switzerland, who had come out to California alone in 1909. She is the daughter of Achile and Emily Tonella, the former being a farmer. Three children have blessed their union: Emily, Henry, and Lillian. Mr. Barsetti is a member of the Red Men at South San Francisco. He is a Republican; but in local political affairs, he is a good booster for Galt, and the man and the measure most likely to benefit the town where he lives and labors are sure to get his vote.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With
Biographical Sketches, Page 929. Historic
Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.
© 2007 Jeanne Taylor.