San
Joaquin County
Biographies
MARCO GIOVANETTI
An esteemed resident of the Wildwood
district of San Joaquin County, Marco Giovanetti has
resided in this district for the past eighteen years, making his home on his
choice estate thirteen miles southeast of Stockton. Like most successful men he began with small
capital, and his own industry and ability are the sources of what he has
gained. He was born in Canton Ticino,
Switzerland, November 4, 1863 a son of Joseph and Louisa Giovanetti. Joseph Giovanetti, a native of Switzerland,
came to California and settled near Stockton in 1870. At thirteen years of age, in 1877, Marco
Giovanetti accompanied his mother and brother, Sylvan, to Stockton and the
family home was established on the Linden Road where the father had purchased
nine acres. The father was a gardener
and for seven years raised vegetables for the Stockton markets and during this
time Marco, our subject, helped and learned thoroughly the gardening and
marketing business. In 1884 the mother
passed away survived by her husband and three sons and the vegetable business
was carried on until 1887, when the father and his youngest son, Joseph,
returned to Switzerland, where the father died in June, 1919. Joseph Giovanetti still resides in
Switzerland.
Marco Giovanetti received a good
education in the public schools of his native land and after coming to
California attended school but three months; however, he has improved his
leisure hours by reading and has also been a keen observer, so that he has
acquired a good practical education.
After his father’s return to Switzerland, he continued the market garden
business for twenty-two years, making a great success of it. His fruit and vegetable wagons covered the
entire city of Stockton and out on the French Camp Road for a distance of
twenty-eight miles.
The marriage of Mr. Giovanetti
occurred at Stockton June 9, 1886 and united him with Miss Josephine Leoni, a native of Stockton, born October 4, 1867 a
daughter of Antone and Pauline (Peri) Leoni, both natives of Canton Ticino, Switzerland. Antone Leoni came to California via Cape Horn in a small sailing
vessel in 1850 and after a short time settled at Stockton where he engaged in
the market garden business for twenty-eight years. Of their eight children Mrs. Giovanetti is
the second eldest. The mother passed
away on January 25, 1895 and the father on January 2, 1910. Mr. and Mrs. Giovanetti are the parents of
five children: Louise, Mrs. F. A. Balatti, has three children: Alvin, Leland and Bernice; Marco, Jr., served
in the U. S. Navy as second engineer for seven years and during the World War
he served on a destroyer in Atlantic waters, and at present he is in the employ
of the Western Electric Company in development work in Nevada; Amelia is a
registered nurse in the Stockton Hospital; Julia and Alfred are at home. In the spring of 1904 Mr. Giovanetti bought
the Ward ranch thirteen miles southeast of Stockton in the Wildwood school
district, consisting of 195 acres of choice wheat land and twenty-five acres of
sixteen-year-old vineyard, and it is now a very valuable property; he also
still retains the nine acres purchased by his father in 1870 on which the first
California home was established. Mr.
Giovanetti received his U. S. citizenship papers in Stockotn
in 1890 and since that time has voted the Republican ticket. For the past sixteen years he has served as
trustee of the Wildwood school district and for eight years was road
superintendent of the district; he is also a member of the San Joaquin County
Farm Bureau, and fraternally a member of the Red Men, of Stockton, of which he
was a charter member.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1343. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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