San
Joaquin County
Biographies
LEWIS VILLIBORGHI
A naturally gifted Italian
dairy-rancher who has made a success of his enterprises in California and is
now one of San Joaquin County’s most progressive citizens, is Lewis
Villiborghi, who was born in Novara, Piedmont, Italy, on July 10, 1872, the son
of Sylvester and Mary (Parcivalia) Villiborghi.
His father was a stone-mason and farmer, and also worked in log camps in
Piedmont; and as the veteran of two wars, in 1848 and 1858; he was among the
most interesting characters in the community where he lived. Mr. and Mrs. Villiborghi had thirteen
children, and Lewis was the fifth born in the family.
Lewis Villiborghi attended school
long enough to learn to read, write and calculate; although, as early as his
seventh year, he made his own way in the world, working for some years for
wages in the Alps in the summer, and attending school in the winter. His father died in Italy at the age of
sixty-nine; and his mother, who was well thought of by all who knew her, passed
away at the age of forty years.
In 1894 our subject came to San
Francisco and from there inland to Sonoma, where he stayed for four years,
chopping wood and doing general farm work there and at Forestville and
Greenville. Then he came to Stockton and
took a job with a threshing crew in the summertime and the following winter
worked on the river boat plying between Stockton and San Francisco. He then went to Jackson, Amador County, and
leased a ranch of 100 acres between Jackson and Ione, devoting twenty acres to
a vegetable garden which he cultivated and operated for two and one-half
years. He next went to Alpine County and
worked for a season, helping to construct the Alpine Dam; and on his return to
San Francisco he worked for two years as a cook in a restaurant.
He was married in the Bay City, on
July 3, 1904, to Miss Rosa Steiner, a native of Canton Schwyz, Switzerland, and
the daughter of John and Anna Maria (Steiner) Steiner. The former, a farmer, died when she was five
years old, and her mother passed away the year before. This worthy couple had fifteen children, and
could not afford higher educational advantages for them than those of the
grammar school. When Miss Steiner was
twenty-four years old, she came to the United States, and at Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, worked as a nurse for nine months. This added to her experience and enabled her
to come to San Francisco, where she rendered excellent service in the hospital
until she was married.
After their marriage Mr. Villiborghi
went to Ione, California, and worked for wages as a farm hand for one and
one-half years; and he then bought a ten-acre ranch in Jackson Valley, where he
raised vegetables and also had a dairy.
He sold out, and then rented a ranch on shares, and there for about five
and one-half years conducted a good-sized dairy. He then moved, with his stock, some sixty-three
head, to Galt, and operated the Harvey ranch for two years. Coming next to his present location, he took
240 acres of the McCaulay ranch, about five miles to
the northwest of Woodbridge, where he has from twenty-five to thirty cows
milking all the time. On this ranch are
twenty-five acres of alfalfa and forty acres of grapes, one-half Tokay and one-half
Zinfandel; while the balance of the ranch is devoted to pasture.
Mr.
and Mrs. Villiborghi have a family of four attractive children: Rosa attending Galt Union high school, class
of 1923, and Marie, Virginia and Sylvester; and they take great delight in the
pleasures of their domestic circle. Mr.
Villiborghi is a Republican.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1100-1103. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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