Table Of Content

The Slav Community of Watsonville, California As reported in old newspapers (1920–1929) Volume 1 Edited by Thomas Ninkovich Reunion Research, Watsonville, California There is no copyright on the written content of this book. However, some images must be acknowledged if copied. See Appendix E for this information. Printed in Canada. First printing, September 2017 Volume 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ninkovich, Thomas, editor. Title: The Slav community of Watsonville, California : as reported in old newspapers (1920-1929) / edited by Thomas Ninkovich. Other titles: Slav community of Watsonville, California (2017) Description: Watsonville, California : Reunion Research, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017026253 | ISBN 9780961047085 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Slavic Americans–California–Watsonville–Genealogy. | Slavic Americans–California–Watsonville–Biography. | Slavic Americans–California–Watsonville–History–19th century–Sources. | Slavic Americans–California–Watsonville–History–20th century–Sources. | Immigrants–California–Watsonville–History–19th century–Sources. | Immigrants–California–Watsonville–History–20th century–Sources. | Watsonville (Calif.)–Genealogy. | Watsonville (Calif.)–Biography. | Watsonville (Calif.)–History. | American newspapers–California–Watsonville–Abstracts. Classification: LCC F869.W28 S52 2017 | DDC 929.309794/71–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026253 This book is dedicated to the memory of William F. Locke-Paddon (1942-2014) …a remarkable man who knew very well the value of this type of research. It was Mr. Locke-Paddon who encouraged the editor of this book to apply for funding through the Borina Foundation, and it was this funding that resulted in the completion of this project. More information on Mr. Locke-Paddon can be found in “History of This Book” on p. 1249. Acknowledgements— Without the help of the Borina Foundation this book could not have been published. This Foundation was created at the direction of June Borina Schnacke in her Will, following her death in 2000. The Directors of the Foundation were William F. Locke-Paddon and Sheila M. Burke. My special thanks to them both. Thanks also to Niko Kapetanić and Dr. Nenad Vekarić, the foremost genealogists of Croatia, who inspired me through their own research. They also helped with identifying surnames, birth villages and parents’ names. And thanks to Stanley D. Stevens, Librarian Emeritus of UCSC, for helping with the index; to Regan Huerta, Richard Hernandez and Louis Arbanas of the Pajaro Valley Historical Assn. for help with choosing, identifying and scanning photos; to the microfilm researchers: Sheila Prader and Dinah Thompson; again, to Sheila Prader for transcribing; to Fr. Carl Faría, director of the Monterey Diocese archive; to Nina Matulich of Watsonville for help with identifying the surnames of Brač, their villages and clan names; to Richard Hernandez for help with fruit labels and identification of photos; to Patricia Gospodnetich Solano, Fran Saveria Dobler, Mae Stolich, Helen Marinovich Ukestad and her siblings, and Nita Jano Vidak, all of Watsonville, for help with local names and identification of people in photos; to Susan Renison of the Watsonville Public Library for help with obtaining material from other libraries; to Pat Carey for help in gaining permission to view local funeral home records; to Crissy Grul, former principal of Moreland Notre Dame Academy, for allowing access to MNDA graduate photos. And to the hundreds of people who offered information and identified photographs via email, telephone and regular mail. Photo credits can be found at the end of Appendix E. Contents Volume 1 Chapter 1 : 1920 1 Chapter 2 : 1921 85 Chapter 3 : 1922 167 Chapter 4 : 1923 255 Chapter 5 : 1924 377 Chapter 6 : 1925 499 Chapter 7 : 1926 615 Volume 2 Chapter 8 : 1927 725 Chapter 9 : 1928 865 Chapte10 : 1929 1065 Appendix A: About This Book 1247 Appendix B: Maps 1251 Appendix C: Surnames, Villages of Origin 1255 Appendix D: Biographical List of Early Pioneers 1259 Appendix E: List of Figures 1283 Appendix F: Names and Language 1287 Bibliography and Sources 1288 Extra Photos 1289 Index 1355 Preface— This Preface is the same as appeared in the prequel to this book (The Slav Community of Watsonville, California, 1881-1920), with some modifications to bring it up-to-date. The Slav community of Watsonville has quite an interesting story to tell—if only the story can be found. This book is an attempt to provide some of that information. It is a reference book and a guide, compiled for historians and genealogists who would often be at a loss to know where to find such information on their own. I first came to Watsonville in 2002 after having spent three years researching the history of my mother’s Croatian family, both here and in Croatia. In my retirement I was looking for a project that would involve a Slavic community. I didn’t want to write the history of a community; I just wanted to collect the information. I knew that someone would come along some day and use such information to write a proper history or genealogy, or perhaps produce a documentary film. It might be next week or a hundred years from now. It didn’t matter. I knew that if the material could be found, something good would come of it. I also knew from the experience of researching my mother’s family history that 90% of the effort (to produce a book, for example) goes into gathering the material. I also knew that many people with good intentions have given up on book or film projects once they have come to this realization. Having chosen Watsonville for my project, I started by collecting all the old photos I could find of the pioneer Slav families. I was very lucky early on to come across the photo collection of Mary Scurich Farris. Her grandfather, Luke Scurich, was one of the earliest Slav pioneers to Watsonville. She very graciously let me scan much of her collection, which amounted to nearly 500 photos. (Thank goodness that families years ago gave photos to each other like we exchange Christmas cards.) Mary named as many people in the photos as she could. But there were still many “unidentified” people. I then took these around to other older Croatians to see if they could name who were in the photos. Many could or they would send me to other people. About this time I also started a database of Watsonville Slavs using a genealogy program (which made it easier to keep track of relationships). Slowly I was starting to learn who these people were, and getting to know some of the current Slav families in Watsonville at the same time. The faces in the photos were starting to become old friends. My database eventually got up over 10,200 people (including many generations, some back to the old country, some of those into the 1700s). I then gathered other sources, such as census records, WWI draft records, naturalization records, voting records, cemetery records, Ellis Island records, marriage records, birth and death records on-line, etc. And then I learned of the newspaper microfilms. It didn’t take long to figure out that over 90% of the available history of the Slav community in Watsonville was in those newspapers. (Watsonville is very lucky, indeed, to have microfilms of local newspapers from 1868 to 2009, with very few issues missing.) These microfilms, however, had never been indexed, which meant that they had to be read line by line. And so I started in… It is truly tedious to read newspapers on microfilm machines. Often they are too dark or too light. Many are scratched. But after about two years I made it up to 1905. I could only do it for about 3 hours a day, every other day or so, without burning out. But I finally did burn out. At that point (to 1905) I had collected over 1200 excerpts from the microfilmed newspapers. It was a good, basic collection. It covered the very early years of the Slavs in Watsonville. But I simply could not continue with that type of research. At that point the Borina Foundation provided the funds to hire professional researchers and transcribers to continue to 1920, and to print the prequel to this book. Then, in 2012, the Borina Foundation provided the funding for this book, which continues the newspaper research to the end of 1929. Having once been in the publishing profession, I provided the editing, book design and indexing. And that’s how these books came to be. As I said, these are reference books. They contain very little narrative. However, they will provide very sturdy foundations for future historians and genealogists. And that is their main purpose. —Tom Ninkovich, editor Watsonville, California, 2017