Memories of the Cabitto Family

Cabitto Family History
by David Cabitto

Cabitto

The origin most remote and distant of this most distinguished family is not well determined. But flowering since long centuries, here and there in Piedmont; one could hold that it is strictly from these regions. At any note the Cabitto crest, most beautiful and expressive, exists in the local archive. The ancestor were essentially, fervent followers of the maxims of Christiandom, devoted to the religion of the ecclesiastical emmerus and the martyrs, descended from the famous knights of the Star Order established in 1022, byKing Robert the devout, thou knights fought and shed their blood for the faith of the Christ. This attested to by the heraldic signs and symbols those being: the star marked by the above same named knighthood, the fish denotes vigilance and the calm sea, liberality. (Translated from a family crest owned by Adolfo Cabitto of Millissimo, Italy 1977)

Introduction

The Cabitto Family History by David P. Cabitto

A tribute to Frank Rielly, Eric Solsten and Sisto Flores, my coworkers at the Library of Congress, Washington DC, Bruna Cabitto, daughter in law to Adalciso Cabitto and my brother Richard Cabitto. Each person mentioned contributed to this this history and made it possible for me to collect data and to read the various languages. Frank Rielly initially translated my first letter of inquiry from English to Italian that was sent to several Cabitto families in Italy. Frank also translated the first few letters I received from Adalciso Cabitto into English. Bruna translated all the early letters I received from Adalciso into English before he sent them to me. Eros DeMaria later took over that role when Bruna moved away and wrote Adalciso’s letters and translated my letters to him. Most my letters in Italian were translated from my written letters in English by my good friend Eric Solsten. Eric did all of the Italian translations of the letters I received from Italy for over fifteen years. Sisto Flores did all the Spanish translation and writing to the Cabitto families in Argentina for me. My brother Richard spent a week in Italy with me translating all the conversations and helped me take notes on the history and the Cabitto families we met. My son, Aaron Cabitto, spent several days with me revisiting the Cabittos at Cabitti and Biestro in 1993 at the end of his church mission. By that time he spoke Italian fluently and did all the translation for me. I was able to clarify a number of questions about the family history and received more Cabitto photographs on that visit. Finally a special thanks to Adalciso Cabitto who spent several years working with the church in Biestro, at government offices in Pallare and talking to all his Cabitto cousins to find the exact details of the Cabitto’s in Italy.

Biestro, Italy

The Cabitto family came to the north west part of Italy in the 1400s and settled in the mountains in and near Biestro. A plaque (see previous page for color photo), in Adolfo Cabitto’s home proposes that the Cabitto’s may have been in the Piedmont area of Italy since the 1300s. Aaron Cabitto has a book written about that region which includes the Cabitto history. Excerpts follow with the photos and data I have collected. Both my brother Richard and my son Aaron and I have visited Biestro and Cabitti where the Cabittos families have lived for several centuries. We were there in 1980 and 1995.

Cabitti, Italy 1980

Adalciso Cabitto, Vittore and Eros De Maria provided all of the genealogy and research for the information I have collected in Italy. The color photographs shown here of Cabitti and Biestro were taken by Eros DeMaria and by myself on my visit in 1980. Many of the family photos shown here were given to me on my visit to Italy. In 1975 at the Library of Congress I found Cabitto addresses in an Italian phone book and through letters and visits to the persons I contacted I have become good friends. We wouldn’t have any data without their efforts.

Vittore and Evonne De Maria

Biestro, Italy

Many thanks goes to the Catholic Priest in Biestro’s San Margherita Church for doing the direct line history of the Cabitto family from the records in the church. It was interesting to meet and thank him for doing this for our family. The maps and some photos were given to me by Adalciso. Other maps shown here were obtained at the Library of Congress, Washington DC. Some of the photos are post cards sent to us and photos we took there on our two visits in 1980 and 1995.

Cabitti, Italy

Map sections of Northern Italy near Genoa. Savona, on the Mediterranean Sea, is not far from Biestro and Cabitti. This is the area where the Cabitto History starts. See the circled towns.

Map of Cabitti, Italy

Letter from Adalciso Cabitto, 18 Feb. 1976, to David Cabitto gives a beautiful description, in words, of what the region around Cabitti and Biestro are like: Quote,”Dear David I will tell you a little about the area where I live. Ligure resembles your California. Along the coast tangerines and oranges grow. In an hours drive by car you travel from sea level to a height of seven to ten thousand feet, where you can engage in winter sports. Looking at the enclosed map you can see that Ligure seems to be a great rainbow which is reflected in the sea with the crown of the bow being the mountains. The largest city is Genoa, from which at one time, ships of immigrants sailed for the Americas Other cities are Savona, La Spezia and Imperia. There are large mineral deposits in the interior of Ligure. Also this area is still rich in timber. In the autumn one finds mushrooms and can gather chestnuts. Carcare and Biestro are reached from Sovona by means of a curving road in less than a half hours drive. Biestro is 1,500 feet above sea level. “ end quote.

Cabitti, Italy 1980 Giuseppina Parodi (Cabitto)
Pete, Joe, and their grandmother.

Adalciso Cabitto’s parents Antonio E.G. Cabitto and Giuseppina Melogno

Cabitti (plural for Cabitto) The map (above)shows the actual village of Cabitti with just a few homes. The photos were taken by Eros De Maria. The home above I visited and spent several hours talking with a Cabitto family that still lives there, Carlo Cabitto. Luigi Cabitto, my grandfather, and his sons Joe and Pete were born there. The priest at the little church in Biestro did the actual written report for Adalciso. There are hundreds of Cabitto’s in that region of Italy today.

The cemetery in Biestro is full of Cabitto names and there are hundreds of cousins of the Cabitto family in a small town, Carcare, where Adalciso Cabitto lives. Additional information came from a book written about the region near Biestro, Italy and the Cabitto family.

History of Pallare, Pallare unaterra, la sua gente (comme di Pallare) by Carmelo Prestipino. This book was given to Aaron Cabitto in 1995, and he did the following translation and extracts from it.

The history in the book shows that Cabitto families were in Biestro as early as 1305, p.101, p.86. p. 91 says Biestro town leaders in Sept. 1576 were Mayor, Antonio Cabitto and counsel, Joannes Cabitto.

Lorenzino Cabitto, Catterina Cabitto and their three daughters, Maria, Margarita, and Giulia. p.101 lists the deaths of the Lorenzino Cabitto family 22 Agosto 1630 of the plague. This plague according to the history was called the "epidemia di peste di 1631". The bells at San Margherita Church, Biestro church rang for a whole year and the town of Cabitti was quarantined. The roads in and out of the town were blocked and no one could come in or out. This was the Cabitto family town and 33 persons died, 25 were women. According to the article this was ten percent of the local population, which would have been about 330 persons in or near Cabitti.

P.115 history shows an iron works tool factory, foundry listed near Biestro and that the following men had paid for implements to be made, an oven and a hammer. Agostino Germano, Battestino Cabitto, and Battista Cabitto.

Accurate information about the Cabittos in Italy begins with
Giuseppi Cabitto Born about 1790-1810 Biestro, Italy. He had four children. Domenica, Carlo, Gio Batta and Antonio. His wife was Maria Venturi.
Cabitti, Italy 1980

Woodbridge, Virginia Sept, 1980 A letter to Cabitto family members about David’s visit to Adalciso Cabitto that year. The following notes were written when my brother Richard and I visited Italy in July for eleven days. Italy 1980 We stayed with two families. It seemed like we were part of each family and we were treated royally. The mountains and country side near Cabitti, Biestro and Carcare are much like the area above Redding, Calif, in the mountains. The weather is very hot in July and August in Italy and the winters are filled with snow. Carcare where I stayed with Adalciso and his wife Ellena is about 25-30 miles form Genoa by car. Savona is a seaport on the Mediterranean Sea. What follows are what towns and persons we visited and the information about the Cabitto family they gave us.

Adalciso Cabitto with Evonne and Eros DeMaria at their apartment in Bragno in 1980. David Cabitto is sitting in the middle of the photo. Luigi Attila’s Cabitto’s home in Carcare 1980.
Carcare, Italy

Carcare and Bragno We stayed at Adalciso Cabitto’s apartment and traveled by car to several towns near by. I spent several days there with Adalciso and Ellena and met their daughter Anna and her children and husband. In a June 1975 letter to me Adalciso said,”I saw your grandfather Luigi Cabitto in Italy in 1948, but only a few times. It seems that after the death of his wife he wandered about the US, returning to Italy after World War II.” Carcare is filed with Cabitto cousins. Sometimes on our walks Luigi would say over and over Cugini, Cugini, Cugini, Cugini, Cugini, Cugini as we walked down the street. These were all Cabittos! Adalciso and Ellena made special meals for us and made homemade pizza and spaghetti one afternoon as I watched. My brother Richard stayed with Vittore and Evonne DeMaria and their son Eros in Bragno which is two miles from Carcare.

Adalciso and Ellena Cabitto and Adalciso’s parents, Antonio E.G. Cabitto and Giuseppina Melogno.

In the mountains near France. Vittore DeMaria, Richard Cabitto Eros DeMaria, Ellena Cabito and David Cabitto 2nd row Anna Cabitto, Evonne DeMaria and Adalciso Cabitto. 1980 David’s first visit to Italy.
Adalciso Cabitto at his apartment in Carcare, Italy

My search for the Cabitto’s in Italy began in April and May of 1975 at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, where I worked. In the Italian phone books, kept there for research, I found the names and addresses of about ten Cabitto’s in Italy. I sent out letters requesting help with the history of my family. None of the people I wrote to answered but one of them gave my letter to Adalciso Cabitto. His name was was Sergio Cabitto. Adalciso began corresponding with me and wanted to do the research for the Cabitto family . Many thanks to Sergio. Without that event I would have given my search.
Allesandro Cabitto is Adalciso’s brother.

Allesandro Cabitto 1971 Allesandro Cabitto and Maria Boddino 1963.

Luigi Cabitto b 1910, Giuseppina Castiglia b1909 and their daughter Silvana Cabitto b1937 in Carcare,1942. 2nd photo Attilio Luigi Cabitto and Giuseppina Castiglia in 1979.
Below Silvana and Isio Not, their daughter Barbara and Luigi Cabitto shoveling snow. San Margherita Church in back of photo.

Biestro, Italy 1979

Biestro, Italy 1979

Attila Luigi Cabitto Family , Silvana, Isio Not Family, and San Margherita Church, Biestro, 1980

Isio Not Family, Biestro, Italy 1980.

San Margarita Church at Biestro, drawing by David Cabitto

Biestro We visited Attila Luigi Cabitto about age 65 and his wife Giuseppina who is a cousin of my dad Nick Cabitto. Attila owns a house in Biestro and Carcare. We had dinner at Luigi’s house in Biestro and enjoyed talking about Luigi, Nick’s dad. We also met Luigi’s daughter and her husband on our visit. Attila gave the following information. Luigi’s wife Giuseppina Parodi had a sister, Giovanna Parodi. While looking at the pictures I brought of Luigi taken in Redding, Calif., he said one of the photos looked like Giovanna Parodi. Attila said Luigi was a gold miner in Alaska and sold fruit and vegetables and had an ice cream concession in Sacramento, Calif. This was after 1924 and before Luigi went back to Italy in 1948-49. I made a couple of simple drawings of the church at Biestro and of Cabitti on my visit there. I spent one whole day there walking and feeling the Cabitto atmosphere. Parish records at Biestro, Italy researched by the Priest, Pietro Arelprete Rocca, 20 March 1976, of Carcare, Italy.

Biestro, Italy

Cabitti, Italy
Cabitti, Italy 1980.

In memory of the other Cabittos in Biestro. I took several photos in the cemetery at Biestro with family names of Cabitto and or married to Cabittos or Cabitto’s married with different surnames. These photos are included here. Additionally I have one obituary and a photo that were mailed to me but I don't have any family information about her family. Her name was Alma Cabitto.

Biestro Cemetery, Italy

Gio Batta Ciria 1836-1905 Biestro, Cemetery

Biestro Cemetery
AIma Cabitto

STUDEhlTESSA Nata a Millesimo il 3-3-1930 Morta a Mondovi il 9-8-1947
AIma, l’ aspirazione ad un felice avvenire ti ha emancipata e spinta, per sopprimere una lieve indisposizione, all’intervenio chirurgico che ri fu fatale. In agguaio per ie crudele embolo sacrifico la tua bella esistenza ed il trionfo dei luoi studi. Alma la tua memoria vivra in noi perenne; il tuo coraggio, la tua grazia, inielligenza e bonta saranno nostro esempio, ma la tua immatura scomparsa mentre a le piu fioriva la vita segna tracce incancellabili sul cuore di chi t’ha conosciuta e lascia un crudo dolore al papa, mamma, fraiello, parenti e omici. Alma prega per i tuoi cari e per turti quelli che fi arnarono e sperano di rivederti un giorno fra gli eletti da Dio.

Cabitti, Italy 1980. David and his brother Richard visit and take a walking tour of the town.

Biestro Cemetery

Cabitti, Italy 1980

Gio Batta Cabitto 1854-1955 Biestro Cemetery

Osiglia and Aqua Fredda This is the town where Luigi met Giuseppina Parodi while he was working away from Biestro. Aqua Fredda is 8-10 miles from Carcare. Eros DeMaria spent some time in Aqua Fredda looking for the records of my grandmother Giuseppina Parodi Cabitto.

Lake near Osiglia, Italy

Church near Osiglia, Italy
Cabitti, Italy

Cabitti, Italy
by David Cabitto

Cabitti We met Carlo Cabitto about age 60-65, in front of his house and he and his wife and son invited us to stay and visit. This house could be where Pete and Joe Cabitto, my Uncles, were born. Carlo’s son took us through the house and told us it was over two hundred years old. This house belonged to Carlo’s father who was a brother to Luigi. The church records at Biestro don’t give the exact place of birth so I’m guessing that Joe and Pete Cabitto were born in this house in Cabitti. It is number 212 on the Cabitti map. We took a tour of the hamlet or village of Cabitti. A new home was being built by another Cabitto family on Cabitti Strada about one half mile from Cabitti. The hillsides near the village are covered with vegetable gardens, grapevines and cherry trees. Cabitti is built on the edge of a mountain canyon with beautiful views of the valley below and Biestro in the distance; Biestro is about a mile away.

Richard Cabitto Davd’s brother Richard spent a week in Italy translating all the conversations and helped me take notes on the history and the Cabitto families we met.
Cabitti, Italy 1980

Carlo Cabitto with his son and wife, 1980. Carlo Cabitto with his son and Adalciso Cabitto in the middle of the photo. 1980 This is one of the families still living in Cabitti.They let Richard and I explore their home. Their garden of vegetables and grapes was just to the side of the house and on the steep hillside. Ten to twelve foot poles held string bean vines and many types of vegetables grew underneath the poles. There was a root cellar with potatoes and beets under and at the back of the house. This room also included the wine barrels and bottles.
San Margherita Church by David Cabitto

The San Margherita Church Pageant or yearly procession for the Catholic Church in Biestro was beautiful and I attended the Sunday before we left for Virginia. While there I met the Priest who so graciously produced the direct line descendent chart of the Luigi Cabitto family line back to the 1600s. After the pageant I spent a couple of hours taking photos of the Cabitto graves in the San Margarita Church Cemetery behind the church. These were special moments I spent reflecting about the hundreds of Cabitto’s born, married and who lived their entire lives in and around this tiny town. Biestro includes the church, a small store and just a few homes.

San Margherita Church, Biestro by David Cabitto

Luigi Cabitto’s grave and photo.

Saliceto Luigi Cabitto died here 27 Aug. 1950 and is buried near this town. Richard and I placed flowers at the grave when we went to the cemetery. I took pictures of the grave which had a photo of Luigi on the headstone. While at Saliceto Adalciso took us to meet Luigi’s adopted sister’s daughter. Unfortunately I didn’t get her name. We talked for almost an hour with this lady who seemed to know more about Luigi than anyone else we met on the trip. Maria’s adoption story is sketchy at best. Her father died in a construction accident while building a house. Her mother died as a result of an infection from an injury she received while collecting chestnuts. Maria was adopted by Carlo Cabitto, Luigi’s father. She was age 4 and stayed with the Cabitto’s until she married at the age of eighteen. She married Giuseppi Gamba and they had six children. Luigi Cabitto stayed with Maria’s daughter before his death. At his death the daughter gave Adolfo Cabitto a valise with Luigi’s personal effects. That is all Luigi had at her home in Saliceto. Luigi had property at his death. This was left to Maria Galesio Luigi’s adopted sister. The two plots of land were later sold by Maria G. Also mentioned by the Maria’s daughter was a bank book with 55 million lire in savings in it. She does not know what happened to it but the adopted sister of Luigi received nothing but the land at Luigi’s death. See the attached letter and translation of Adolfo’s legal proof of the land sale and his indignity and denial of taking anything of Luigi’s estate. It seems he did the legal work for the land sale and had Luigi’s power of attorney to do this. (see that power of attorney) Adolfo has the original power of attorney for Luigi’s estate and it was signed by Nick, Joe and Pete Cabitto. Adolfo Cabitto had been given control of Luigi’s land and it was deeded to Maria Galesio.

Why did I David Cabitto ask these questions to Adolfo and Maria about Luigi Cabitto’s estate and land? Before my father Nick died he had discussed unhappiness at not receiving anything from his father and presumed some sort of family problem in Italy. I’m certain he assumed that when he signed the power of attorney for Adolfo Cabitto there would eventually be something given to him. But as shown in the following letters from Adolfo, Luigi’s estate went to his adopted sister. There can be no mistake that she received everything legally.

Adolfo Cabitto Family of Millisimo, Italy 1980.

Millisimo Adolfo Cabitto about age 83, nephew of Luigi Cabitto Adolfo was working in his garden when we arrived and he had a warm greeting when he found out who we were. At his home in the entry hall I noticed a plaque with information about the Cabitto Family and took photos of it . The photos appear in the beginning of this history with an English translation. In talking about Luigi Adolfo said Luigi did not say much about his life in America. But he added a few details about Luigi: Luigi lived in Alaska after his wife’s death for some time. Luigi also lived in Sacramento, Calif. and sold fruit and vegetables for a living. Luigi lived with Adolfo for five months before his death. Adalciso Cabitto told David that when Luigi returned to Italy in 1947 he was deaf and stayed with his nephew Adolfo Cabitto. They did not get along well because of arguments over the ownership of the land Luigi had owned in Italy before coming to the USA in 1907. Luigi had allowed Adolfo to have control of the property until his return in 1947. What was left of Luigi’s estate was given to his adopted sister Maria, who he stayed with until his death. See the legal documents and letter from Adolfo to David Cabitto for the details.

Cabitti, Italy
Luigi Cabitto’s power of attorney for his nephew Adolfo Cabitto of Italy 1950.

Rough translation of the above document. I, the undersigned, Luigi Cabitto declare that it was Carlo who received and took back from Signora Borro Margherita in Cabitto the general power of attorney (proxy or power) of (or from?) an release (issue ? granting ?)to my nephew, Cabitto Adolfo, of Giuseppi Cabitto residing in Millesimo, 14 January I947, in Sacramento (California) to the deeds office or notary. At _? of Sacramento. Monesiglio 30/5/1950. presented _(signed) Luigi Cabitto

Typed letter in Italian from Adolfo Cabitto to David Cabitto received Dec. 14, 1981. Rough translation in English below.

Cugino DAVID CABITTO Woodbridge, Virginia

Ti trasmetto la dichiarazione confermante restituzione, in data 30 Aprile I950, al Zio Cabitto Luigi della procura di DUE terreni.

Tale procura ci serviva per effettuare la vendita, di detti piccoli terreni, alla sua sorella di latte che e venuta in possesso e poi venduti Latto di vendita venne redatto dal Notaio di Monesiglio (Cuneo) ripeto il 30/5/I950.

La figlia della Gallesio abitante a Cengio non vi ha detto la verita, vi ha nascosto che ha ereditato la sua madre e bugiarda vi ha detto che lo Zio li aveva lasciato a me. Anche i cugini di Carcare erano convinti.

Di conseguenza la unisco copie comprovanti dopo trent’’anni ritrovata) e la spedisco per Yostra visione e convinzione di quanto Vi scrivo. In essa copia conoscerete bene la firma del mio Zlo,VosteoRonno,Cabitto Luigi. e Yi rendete conto della mia restituzione al Zio del predetto DUE pezzi di terreno. come da dichiaraione firmata dall'interesato.

See the handwritten note that was on this page and translation of it on the next page.

Cousin David Cabitto Woodbridge Virginia:

I send to you the declaration confirming the restitution on April 30, 1950 to my Uncle Luigi Cabitto of power of attorney over TWO plots of land. This power of attorney served to effect the sale of these two pieces of land to his foster sister who then came into possession of the plots and then sold them. The act of sale was noted (?) by the Notorary of Monesiglic, (Cuneo) on I repeat 30/ 5/ 950 (sic).

The daughter of Gallesio living at Cengio did not tell you the truth, and concealed from you that she inherited (the land) from her mother and the liar told you that the Uncle (Luigi) had left the property to me. The cousins of Carcare Adalciso Cabitto) were also convinced.

In consequence of this I gather together the documents proving this (recovered after 30 years) and send them to you to convince you of what I have written you. In this copy you will easily recognize the signature of my uncle, your grandfather, Luigi Cabitto. and you will see that I returned to him the said two plots of land, as is stated in the declaration of the interested party.

See the next page for the written conclusion of Adolfo’s letter above to David.

Rough translation of the document below. The cousins of Carcare didn't know and therefore informed you badly. Distinguished greetings to all of you with wishes that you are in good health.
Your cousin, Adolfo Cabitto of Millesimo, Italy. 12 Dec 1981

This was written on the bottom of the letter found on the previous page.

Pietro DeMaria in front of his house in Bragno in 1980.

The DeMaria family in 1980.

Bragno Vittore, Evonne and Eros DeMaria live there and Richard stayed with them on our visit. Vittore’s father Pietro was adopted into the Alesandro Cabitto family when his parents died. Antonio Giuseppe Erminio Cabitto adopted Pietro De Maria into the Cabitto family and Pietro was raised as a child with their other children. Pietro said he knew Luigi and Luigi‘s father Carlo and at one time worked for Carlo Cabitto. Adalciso and Vittore took us to visit Allesandro Cabitto. On our visit to his home we met some of his children and grandchildren. He brought out a box of photos including the photo of Carlo Cabitto included in this history. A week after we returned from this trip Adalciso wrote that Allesandro had died two days after we left Italy for the USA. Eros DeMaria has done a great deal of research on the Cabitto family for David. We had many visits with the De Marias at their apartment and with their family in Bragno. Our love and appreciation for their meals, driving us around the country to visit our family and to seeing Italy will never be forgotten. We learned many wonderful customs that Italian families enjoy. Many of the photos shown here from Osiglia, Bragno, Cabitti and Biestro were taken and sent to me by Eros De Maria.
Bragno, Italy

Pallare Town where many Cabitto records are located. Adalciso Cabitto spent time and money collecting data for the Cabitto family form the town government offices here. Adalciso said there was much to much information to collect there with his resources and time. More research should be done there.

From the right to left: Vittore DeMaria, Richard Cabitto, Alesandro’s son, David Cabitto, Adalciso Cabitto and Allesandro Cabitto, July 1980 This photo was taken a few days before Alesandro Cabitto died.

Eros and Evonne De Maria, Danielle and Adalciso Cabitto 1980. The family sending Richard and David back to the USA.

Painting of Cabitti by David Cabitto

Lassen Peak, a volcano near Redding, Calif
Map section of Northern Italy near Genoa. Cabitto family locations are circled in red.

Carlo Cabitto b 20 May 1850 Biestro, Italy

Carlo had eight children. Luigi, Giuseppi, Maria, Carlo, Adolfo, Antonio, Giacomo, and Pietro Parish record at Biestro, Savona, Italy. Two of their eight children immigrated to the USA.

The Luigi Cabitto Family 1918

Luigi, Giuseppina Cabitto and Pete, Joe and Nick, near Redding, California about 1918.

Luigi had three sons, Joe, Pete and Nick Cabitto. Personal knowledge of Nick Cabitto and Parish records at Biestro, Italy researched by Adalciso Cabitto of Carcare, Italy. At Luigi's confirmation at Biestro in 12 July 1880 his sponsor was Mayor of Biestro, Cabitto Giov. Battista.

Luigi was married at age 30 while living at Biestro to Giuseppina Parodi age 19. Luigi was a soldier in the Italian Army and was captured and held prisoner during the war in Ethiopia, (1895-96). He lived in France for a few years and came back to Italy and married Giuseppina Parodi in Biestro at age 30. Giuseppina was age 19 at the marriage. He immigrated to Redding, California in 1908-09.

Luigi’s wife Giuseppina Parodi and 2 children, Joe and Pete immigrated to the US the next year arriving in New York Harbor on the S.S Ducca di Genoa, July 25,1910. They traveled by train to California. Nick was born the next year in Redding or near there. His birth records were lost in courthouse fire but his age is listed on a school record in Redding, Calif. (see the school record)

Giuseppina died in 1924 in Redding. According to Nick Luigi was distressed at his wife's death and moved from Redding leaving the three boys on their own. Nick was eleven at that time. The boys never heard from their father until near his death.

Joe, Pete and Nick grew up very independent and unschooled. Very little is known about where Luigi went after his wife's death except that he lived in Sacramento, Calif. and had a small business there.

Note: See the Joe Cabitto news paper article and Redding Historical Article for the full account of Luigi Cabitto’s history and life in Redding, California, 1908 to 1930, later in this history.

Nick Cabitto handwritten notes 1977, about his parents history; see next two pages.
I was born in Redding, Cal. on the road to old Shasta about 4 miles west of Redding. The first thing I remember we lived in a two storie house northwest of Redding. Dad worked at the Keswick smelter which closed down in five or six years. From there he moved us three miles north on a mining claim. He did very little mining on the claim. He worked at an old diggings mine; it was a gold mine. Joe, Pete and myself went to Buckeye school. During the War of 1918 we lived at the same place. The gold mine shut down and dad went to work at Iron Mountain and the Hornet Mine.

Pete, Josephine and Nick Cabitto at their Quartz Hill home near Redding, Calif.

David Cabitto His dad Nick talked about two big events that happened to him as a boy growing up in Redding. First was the eruption of Mount Lassen in 1917 and not long after that Haley’s Comet appearance. Dad did not like to talk about his parents and didn’t know much about them. Later in Nick’s life when David started on the Cabitto history Nick gave me the information written in his own handwriting.

Nick Cabitto hand written notes 1977.

Nick Cabitto hand written notes 1977.

Pete, Giuseppina, and Nick Cabitto

Giuseppina Parodi b 19 Apr. 1884 Osiglia, Italy (might have been born in Aqua Fredda, Italy) Death record Vol. 6 p. 98 Shasta Co Courthouse, Redding, Ca. Josephine Cabitto Died May 12, 1924 from Septicamme, ulceration endocarditis. From letter to David Cabitto from Anne Cabitto, Dec 17, 1979. Her father was alive 27 Sept. 1903. His father was Giacomo Parodi. Parish records at Biestro, Italy researched by Adalciso Cabitto of Carcare, Italy. David and Aaron Cabitto were introduced to one her nieces while on a visit to Biestro and Cabitti in 1995. Eros De Maria researched her birth and family records in Italy.

Donald, Jackie, Nick and Jennie Cabitto
This photo was taken near or in Redding California about 1934.

Nick and Jennie Cabitto The Early Marriage years in Redding, California. They lived on South Pine Street in the old part of Redding. Both mom and dad had grown up near Redding and their family was there. Dad spoke of a lot of different jobs he had the first years. Gold mining, cutting timber and a lot of odd jobs in Redding. Bernita Hill in a 1975 letter to David Cabitto says,”Jennie and Nick met here in Redding. They were married at my house on the R.R. tracks-outdoor wedding. Sept 12, 1929. Jennie was seventeen and Nick was eighteen years old. Nick was working at Jeagles Cafe, where his brother Pete worked and living in an old hotel uptown. They lived with us for three months.”

The two photos above are when Nick was about ages 9 and 17.

Nick Cabitto b 11 Oct. 1911, Redding Calif. Nick married Jennie Alice Hill in Redding, Calif. They had six children: Donald, Jacqueline, David, Doris, Jean, and Richard. Nichloas was the name used on his school registration form from Buckeye School, Redding Ca. No legal record exists as to Nick’s birth records were destroyed in a courthouse fire in Redding, Calif. We always knew him as Nick. He was born near Redding, California the year after his mother and Nick’s two brothers immigrated from Italy to Calif. Nick’s growing years from when his mother died in 1923 were under his brothers teaching. His father Luigi was distraught after Josephine’s death and he left the three boys on their own. He disappeared entirely from their lives until near his death. Records show Luigi had a small business in Sacramento Calif. after he left the boys in Redding. Luigi went deaf and his health was very bad. All during this time he made no attempt to contact the boys. As a boy I don’t remember dad receiving any letters from Luigi my grandfather.

Please refer to Joe and Pete Cabitto letters in their histories for details about Luigi Cabitto.

Nick was eleven years old when his mother died and he never returned to finish school. Nick had a lot of stories about working at Jagels Restaurant in Redding at this time. His two brothers Joe and Pete also worked at Jagels Cafe. He indicated things were rough for him and his brothers. Luigi returned to Italy to stay with Adolfo Cabitto his cousin and died there. I talked to several people who knew and visited Luigi during the last years of his life in Italy. One letter was received by Joe Cabitto before Luigi’s death. I include a copy in this on the next page of the history. Nick worked in gold mining and cutting timber west and south of Redding. About 1938-40 he went to work for the State of Calif. Highways and helped in the final construction of the Feather River Canyon Highway in northern California. He took a job as a machinist for the Western Pacific Railroad in Oroville, Calif. during World War II. He spent almost thirty years working for the railroad and when Western Pacific moved the roundhouse and work to Stockton, Calif. He and Jennie moved there. I remember dad being able to fix anything that was brought to him that was broken. Nick was a talented wood carver and enjoyed carving fun little animals and tools. He loved collecting and cutting rocks and making jewelry.

Letter from Adolfo and Luigi Cabitto to Joe, Pete and Nick Cabitto in 1948. Luigi died in 1950. Translation of the letter below and original copy on following page.

Millesimo(Savona) 25 April 1948

A. Cabitto
Lumberyard Mc Cloud, California
Millesimo (Savona )
Italy
Dearest Cousins,

We are late in writing to you to let you know if we received the package, be-
cause, indeed, we just received it yesterday and we thank you infinitely. But
you have gone to too much trouble and we do not know how to repay you. Your
father was happy and has requested that I tell you now that he is feeling fine.
He's sorry that he didn’t see you all before he left, but he did not feel very well
and for this reason had decided to come here to Italy, to breathe his native air.
Indeed, when he arrived, he was rather sickly looking, but now he's okay. He
asked me to ask you to write us about your brothers, especially the youngest.

Here we have experienced a tremendous battle with this election, but we have
achieved a victory by remaining free with a government bound to that of the USA
and not with Russian dictatorship. Moreover, the Italians have had their fill of
war, of horrors, of sacrifice, and bad food. It is now very late, but still there is
time enough to organize a quiet life, through honest labor, through democracy, and
not bolshevism. Do you understand? Do you speak Italian? All was destroyed in
Italy - cities, railroads, highways, and now much has been rebuilt. The roads are
good but there is still much to do.

Write to me if you are interested in receiving the news and if you think I can be help-
ful.

We thank you very much and send to all of you affectionate greetings with the hope of
seeing you again.

Your cousin,
Adolfo Cabitto

Greetings! Your father, L. Cabitto.

P.S. Pietro, your father is in good health but he is old. He always has the good
intention of going for a walk, but is always tired. Now he has become healthy, but
when he arrived he was low in spirits and in health. Thank you very much for the
gift package you sent. We send best regards for good health to all. Always,

Your cousin,
Adolfo Cabitto

Letter from Adolfo and Luigi Cabitto to Joe, Pete and Nick Cabitto in 1948. Luigi died in 1950

Castle Crags near Redding, Calif.

Obituary Nick Cabitto

LODI, California— Grave side services for Nick Cabitto of Stockton will be conducted at 2 p.m. Monday at the Cherokee Memorial Park here.

Cabitto died Wednesday at his home. He was 67. Born Oct. 11, 1911, in Redding, he lived in Shasta County many years before moving to Stockton.

He was a state Division of Highways employee in the Redding area and later was a machinist for Western Pacific Railroad Co. until his retirement in 1976.

He leaves three sons, Donald of Alaska, David of Woodbridge, Va., and Richard of Sparks, Nev.; three daughters, Doris Rabe of Oroville Jean Steeper of Yuba City and Jacqueline Pierce of Butte City; two brothers, Joseph of Redding and Pete of McCloud; two grandchildren; and several great grandchildren. Dr. Terry Burke will officiate at the services. The Martin Funeral Home of Stockton is in charge of arrangements.

Nick, Jennie, Donald and Jacqueline Cabitto about 1934, Redding, Calif.

Nick Cabitto and James Hill in Redding California.

Nick and Jennie Cabitto 1930

Nick Cabitto working on a railroad bed near Redding Calif. about 1928.

When Jennie and Nick were first married they moved into the mountains and Nick and Jess Winters and several other family member including Jennie’s dad, James Hill, worked at Orecal Mine for a summer. Parts of several families are shown in the photo in the next few pages and they all worked at the same gold mine. They lived in tents during that time. Mom’s sister Doris lived with them that summer in the mountains.

Nick and Jennie Cabitto

These two photos, bottom photo previous page and photo below, were taken on the same day and may have been in preparation for Dean Hill’s wedding. He is dressed in a wedding or riding suit.

Page 1 Jennie Hills notes her her parents and her families early years, written in 1975.

Page 2 Jennie Hills notes about her parents and her families early years, written in 1975.

Text of the notes read: “There is a picture of my Grampa and Grama Hill at Aunt Alice’s house in Redding, Calif. Grampa died of a heart attack in Redding. He is buried there.

Uncle John Hill said he ran away form home when he was a boy and made his own way. Grama was working as a cook on the Mississippi River and they met there. Grama was from the south. Her folks disowned her when she married him. Then they came to California. That’s what I heard.

Grama did house work and practical nursing for a living after Grampa died. All the years I knew grama she lived in Chico, Calif. She was a neat housekeeper and a good cook. I think Grampa did some gold mining.

My grandfather Norris was a photographer by trade, he did some sketching and could play the violin. The violin he played has been handed down and now in our family. He got it by trading a horse for it when he was about thirty five years old. In his thirties anyway. He went all over in a wagon. The family followed the fruit in season. Grama sold her fancy work and crochet.

Ada and mom used to sing and dance at home. Vern played in a band and mom could play a guitar. Dad was Ada’s boyfriend first but mom got him. Uncle John told me they came from Oklahoma.

My father was a “Jack of all Trades”. He was a gold miner in his younger days and made a few gold strikes. He liked to cook. He liked to help mom cook breakfast. He liked coffee and smoked Prince Albert or Bull Durham, “roll your owns.” He was a good fisherman and hunter (deer).

Mom could crochet and embroidery. She made quilts and sewed clothes for the children. She wasn’t much of an artist but she said she could draw flowers. Dad died from a heart attack. Mom had a stroke. Dad did carpenter work too.

When I was about five years old my father took the whole family to Idaho in a covered wagon. The first automobile we owned was a Maxwell dad bought in Idaho. We drove part way back to California in it. It broke down so we finished the trip by train. We all worked in the hops in Oregon and picking apples in Washington on our way back to Chico, California. We bought an Overland car in Chico.

One summer we all worked in the peaches. Dean wasn’t with us then. He had joined the Army in Idaho, and came back but was on his own by then. From Orland, Calif. we took a trip as far as Watsonville,. Came back to San Jose and spent the winter there. The older ones worked in the cannery. Bernita and I, Doris and Elmer were still too young. We went to school there. Then we went to Redding and stayed there until I was married.”



Jennie Hill and her sister Doris about 1930. b 5 Dec. 1911, Redding, Calif.



Jennie Alice Hill

An ink drawing by Jennie Alice Hill

Jennie taught David how to draw but never had much time to draw or paint for herself. She also taught Jackie and Donald how to draw and paint. Donald did some small oil paintings when we lived in Pulga. Jackie was a wonderful artist and could draw anything from memory. She had a real talent for cartooning and could draw all the Disney cartoons from memory including the seven dwarfs from Cinderella. Doris and Jean also could draw very well and so most of us children received this talent from Jennie. Richard always said he was left out of the art talent department.

Ink Drawing by Jennie Hill

Artists in the Family This is an interesting drawing that Jennie did called “Auto Rumble in the West” 1936. She had the talent to take her ideas and put them on paper. She loved to help us children with our art projects and there was a lot of time in the winter when we didn’t have anything to do so we painted and played games.

Doris Hill (Winters), Donald and Jennie Hill (Cabitto). 1931

  Donald and Jacqueline Cabitto

Nick and Jennie Cabitto, Jackie and Donald in the 1930s.

Jennie, Nick, Jean Doris and David about 1942. Jackie and Don about 1934.

Nick and Jennie Cabitto marriage certificate.

Nick and Jennie Cabitto about 1930

Nick and Jennie lived in Redding, Calif, for several years where Donald, Jackie, David, Jean and Doris were born.

On the left Goldie King and her two )daughters, Zella Hill holding Jackie Cabitto and Jennie Hill (Cabitto) on Nick Cabitto’s lap with Don in front. About 1935.

Jackie, Jennie and Donald Cabitto about 1935.

Depression Years Nick said everyone was affected by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Jobs that paid money were almost impossible to find. He dug a well for 10 cents an hour and worked 10- 12 hours a day. He talked a lot about the odd jobs he had to do to get enough money for food for the family. Their garden and trading food for work helped.

Nick Cabitto Family in the Feather River Canyon in the 1940s
The Quincy Years

Nick began work for the California State highway system in the early 1940s and worked for several years completing the highway through the Feather River Canyon. We first lived in Quincy and as the work in the canyon progressed towards Oroville to the south the family was moved every year or two. We lived in Rich Bar, Paxton and Pulga, (Camp Thirty-two) and the older children in the family went to school at the Pulga school. The school was a one room school house on the side of the canyon about thirty miles from Oroville.

Quincy, Calif. Jackie, Don, Nick and David Cabitto. Donald with a friend.

Quincy and Paxton, California I don’t remember much from the early years except what mom and dad used to tell me. I don’t remember Quincy or Paxton at all. Mom bugged me about the cat incident in Quincy several times over the years. Mom said I took the family cat out to the outhouse and tossed him down in the “muck”. I kept repeating this until she spotted me and my fun. She says I really “got it:” for that trick.

Don, Jackie and David Cabitto about 1940 Doris Cabitto on the right. about 1942.

Don and Jackie Cabitto Nick Cabitto on his grader in the Feather River Canyon.

Winters We had some bad winters while we lived in Pulga. The Feather River is noted for flooding and this was before any of the dams were built to prevent floods. Nick had a lot of dangerous work to do driving the grader to clear mud slides and rocks off the highway. He drove a snowplow all the way to the Nevada border and would tell us the the snow was higher than the truck and snowplow that he moved the snow off the road with. Deer would get caught in the roadway between the snow drifts and dad brought home a couple of them after running them down in the truck. Meat was hard to get during the war. We were often cut off from town by mud and rock slides which dad helped clear for his job.

Don and Jackie Cabitto in Rich Bar or Paxton, California about 1937-38

Jackie on her trike. Jackie holding Doris as a baby.

The Paxton Years The series of photos above are all of Don and Jackie in Richbar and or Paxton, California.

Don, David and Jackie Cabitto about 1939-40. David Cabitto

Jackie, Doris, Don and David Cabitto in Quincy, Calif about 1939-40. David washing his hands on the back porch about 1939.

David’s birth announcement

Easter I remember one Easter at Pulga Town which was a mile or so from the school on the Feather River. Of course eggs were hidden everywhere and if you found a gold egg you received a special prize. I used to go over the highway to play at Samuel Brunelli’s house. He lived on a small creek and we use to sit in it and play we were building dams. We both got in trouble for throwing rocks at Pulga school. One of other the children ended up getting stitches in his head in Oroville hospital after one of us threw a rock over the school. Mom said I was tremendously shy and would hide under her dress when visitors came to the house.

The copy of a poem or song David wrote as a child in Jennie’s hand writing.

Pulga Bridge

The Cabitto home on the Feather River near Pulga Calif, was located north of the Pulga bridge.

Experiences David remembers about those years follow: The old house had hand chopped and sawn cedar shakes on top of lath roofing and the walls were not sealed from the wind; It got pretty cold in the winter but summers were wonderful and us children played on the hillside and road near the house. The children had one special job during the big rains in the winter. The roof leaked a lot and we had a room full of drips to take care of with pots and pans every where. We watched the pans till they were full and took them out the front door and emptied them. During the war years we made butter from lard and I had the job of stirring in the butter, color flavoring. We had gas ration stamps and never had enough gas to go where the folks needed. Dad couldn’t get new tires for the car and resorted to rubber boots placed inside the tire to protect us from blowouts.

The Ice Chest We had an ice chest cooler which once a week the ice truck came from Oroville to place two 50 pound blocks of ice in the top where we kept meat. Dad dug a root cellar near the house on the hillside with a canvass cover to keep potatoes and vegetables in the winter. Donald and I had a little log cabin below the house where we slept. Recollections of the dark and being cold there are still in my memory.

Hot Rocks In the large wood stove in the old kitchen mom would place river rocks in the oven to warm up before bed time. We had some old army green blankets, wool and scratchy, we used on the bed in the cabin. Dad and Donald would roll the hot rocks in a couple of blankets and take them to the cabin to keep us warm for at least part of the night. Donald and dad split and sawed wood for the wood stove and we had a hen house and chickens for eggs. Mom made great chicken dinners.

Lost Fingers Donald and dad cut and split wood for our giant wood kitchen stove and the pot bellied stove for heating the house. They used a two man saw for small logs and an ax for the heavier pieces of wood. Dad cut off two of his fingers on his left hand one day splitting kindling for the wood stove. He picked them up off the ground and wrapped them and his hand in a towel then drove to Oroville and the hospital. The surgeon there sewed them back on and one of the fingers grew back perfectly. The other one he couldn’t use well and his hand didn't close properly.

David Cabitto on the front porch, Quincy, Calif. about 1940 Don and Jackie at Lassen Park, Calif.

Ironing Clothes Mom had several solid flat irons that she would place on the kitchen stove and detach the wooden handles so they wouldn't burn; when the irons were hot the clip on handle would be replaced and she could iron the clothes. We had one or two electric lights for the whole house. The electricity was out a lot of the time in the winter during storms so the kerosene lanterns were always handy.

Rock Creek Rainbow trout.

Fresh Trout I would go down to the river with dad some evenings and he would turn over rocks to find helgrimites to catch trout for dinner. It was great to be with him and watch him catch the fish. Dad told a lot of stories of shooting deer and working on the highway in the canyon. We spent a lot of time listening to his stories. I caught my first fish with my dad at Concow Lake near Yankee Hill, Calif. This is a water storage lake but is very beautiful and I loved going there on family picnics in the summer. Another time dad took me over past the Pulga school and up into the north side of the canyon on an old logging road to go trout fishing on Swamp Creek. I don’t remember catching a fish but the fun I had on the ride is hard to forget. We stopped and tried to find some Pulga Jade on the way to the trout stream.

Jennie Hill’s sister and husband Bernita and Paul Nicolet and Arnold and Margie came to visit us in Pulga several times. From the left: Margie Nicolet, Peter Johnson, Arnold, Paul, and Bernita Nicolet, Jennie, Richard, Nick and Jean Cabitto in front. About 1944.

Family Visits Photos of mom and dad show that many of relatives came to visit us there in Pulga and Zella Hill, our grandmother, came and stayed with us for a short time. The house there was small with maybe four rooms. Skunks would get under the house and really stunk us out. Dad got out the rifle and shot at them several times. Vultures and foxes tried to get the chickens and dad had to shoot at them too.

Jennie is Sick Before we moved to Oroville, mom was very sick and ended up having a operation in the bay area. I remember dad staying home for awhile to take care of us and his cooking was not all that good.

Christmas We always had a Christmas tree cut from near our house and very simply decorated. We had one gift and not always what we wanted but mom and dad really tried to make us a happy family. Sometimes the gifts were used and repaired by dad but we got something we wanted. I had this great wind up army tank one Christmas. It was geared to go very slow but would climb the highest pile of blocks, pillows and “stuff” while making a rat-tat-rat-tat-rat-tat sound of a machine gun. We all received hand made hobby horses one year to run and chase each other with. And of course hard peppermint candy and an apple or oranges in our socks. I didn’t like the peppermint but ate it anyway.

World War II I remember seeing fighter planes from Beal Air Force Base practicing dog fighting. This was during World War II. Dad did not have to go to war because of the six of us children. On the trip home up the canyon was scary for us kids, Yankee Hill was 18 miles of twisty curvy narrow mountain roads with high cliffs on one side and the Feather River, sometimes hundreds of feet below. The old cars we had didn’t always make it up the mountain and often over heated in the summer. Dad always carried tools and two large canvass bags of water for the radiator.

The Pudding Mistake Mom would kid dad about his cooking and when mom was sick and at the hospital in the Bay area dad tried to make pudding! Everything looked good until he tried to serve the pudding. He couldn’t get it out of the pan. He then discovered he had gotten a box of plaster of Paris and added milk to get vanilla pudding. Dad had to take a hatchet and remove the pudding from the pan. It was a pretty funny story, the story you don't want to hear every year, but it was told over and over.

Donald Cabitto and his guitar he loved to play. Jackie and David Cabitto with the cat.

The Violin and Art One very interesting thing dad did was to build a violin for Donald to play. He found the right type of tree and cut it down. He took some of the wood to Oroville and had it cut, dried and prepared for the making of the violin. Donald was given this violin when dad and mom died. I believe Donnie Lee Cabitto, Don’s son, has it today. You can see both Don and Jackie have a violin and guitar in some of the photos.

Music Both Don and Jackie learned how to play the guitar and the violin in the Pulga days. There was plenty of time in the evenings to practice and not many places to go in the dark. Mom had an old heirloom violin from her grandfather and dad bought another violin for Don to play and a guitar for Jackie. Dad also made the violin I mentioned before and Don also played this. Don eventually just played the guitar and Jackie stayed with her artwork and painting.

Radio We loved to listen to the old radio shows. Fibber Magee and Molly, The Green Hornet, The Whistler, and Jack Benny etc. This was before TV and just as much fun. I do remember listening to the radio and hearing the reports of the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President at that time, and the end of World War II was celebrated for a long time. Out first record that I remember was Burl Ives singing country songs; “Gimme Cracked Corn” and “Camp Town Races” were on the record which we played over and over. This was a small electric record player.

Nick Cabitto
Feather River near Paxton, Calif.

Donald and Jackie Cabitto Waterfall near Pulga where we lived on the highway.

Jennie’s mother Zella came to visit and stayed for awhile . This photo above left, was taken on a trip through the canyon. Donald and Jackie with the violin and guitar. Donald knew how to play both instruments. I don’t remember Grama Zella Hill or any of my grand parents but have many fond memories of Bernita and Paul Nicolet’s visits to Pulga and Oroville.

David and Doris Cabitto riding their trikes in the front yard in Pulga. About 1942.

Jackie Cabitto at Pulga. Donald and Richard Cabitto about 1944 near
Oroville, Calif. David Cabitto as a toddler at Rich Bar Calif.

Jennie Cabitto

On the canyon highway near Paxton, Calif.

The Feather River Canyon is beautiful year round and our family never tired of going to Quincy and Rock Creek to shop and visit dad and mom’s friends there. Dad took at least one of us kid’s fishing when he went and the trout were easy for him to catch. The old cars dad owned always broke down or had flat tires and there were stops here and there on our trips for repairs. Nick was great at repairs and there were people that would stop to help when we were in trouble.
Feather River Canyon near Pulga, Calif. I remember how beautiful and enjoyable it was to live in the canyon. Dad took us kids to fish and see the canyon often. We went to Oroville almost every Saturday. On days off went on picnics to Lake Concow ad spent many afternoons fishing along the shore.

The Artists Mom said I begged her to learn how to draw and she said I cried when my drawings didn’t turn out right. One of my first drawings was a crocodile trying to catch a duck in his mouth. I found this in Jennie’s trunk of keep sakes when she died. Jackie was the real artist and was very talented. I remember how beautifully she drew at that time. Donald could draw and liked to oil paint. He did a few small nature scenes which mom had for a long time. Both Doris and Jean have been able to draw well too.

by David Cabitto age 7.

Jennie A. Cabitto

One of David’s first drawings was a crocodile trying to catch a duck in his mouth

Nick Cabitto Family 1945 in Pulga

Doris Cabitto in the back yard at Pulga, Calif. 1942 California golden poppies on the Feather River.

Don, Jackie, Richard, David, Doris, and Jean Cabitto about 1943, Pulga, Calif.

Letha Hill (Johnson) and son Peter Paul and Bernita Nicolet also visited us at Pulga.

Don, Marge, Jackie and Arnold all teenagers.

Saturday Grocery Trips We always went to Oroville every Saturday to get groceries. This was an event as there were no stores in the canyon only some summer resorts which were closed in the winter. Soda was a nickel and so were cupcakes. Of course we didn't have much to spend. In nice weather we would grocery shop in the south side of Oroville then drive out past the Western Pacific railroad yard and have a picnic in the grass. It was fun to play there in the spring but summers were so hot with no air conditioning.

David and Doris Cabitto 1943 Rock Creek on the Feather River.

Donald Cabitto is on the left and the oldest boy in school. David is on the bottom row, right, with glasses. David was four years old when he started school. Jennie said she just couldn’t care for all the little ones at home and got permission to start David early. The photo was taken on a hike. Our teacher Mrs. Sinkey is on the top right row. The Pulga bridge is in the back ground and the school is over a mile away.

Pulga school and Mrs.Sinkey was the only teacher. There were 15-25 children attending school with grades first through eight being taught in the same large room. I remember Pulga school and learning my multiplication tables from cards with animals and birds. We raced outside at recess to play dodge ball and tag. The school yard wasn’t very big so we couldn’t go far.

Mrs. Sinkey our teacher was the only teacher. There were 15-25 students of all ages and sizes in the school. There was one boy my age, Paul Brunelli, that I played with. We played outside games like tag, Kick the Can and Deer Base. Dodge ball was fun too. Early on I enjoyed the wildflowers around the school. To day in 2002 the school looks nearly the same. Our house at Pulga is gone, covered by a hydroelectric dam and lake. The school is not used for teaching but is still open to the public. I took a video there in 1998 when the owners were cleaning and painting the school.

David, Donald, and Jackie’s school attendance record for 1943 at Pulga school with Mrs. Bessie Sinkey as the teacher.

Nick Cabitto Family Living in Oroville, California during the 40s-50s

2478 D Street, Oroville, California Nick and Jennie’s home late 1940’s into the 1980’s
Nick took his retirement from the State of California Highways and purchased this home for about a $900.00. When we moved in there were three rooms and an outside toilet plus an old garage-shed with an upstairs room for Don and David to sleep in. Nick later built walls on the front porch and it became Jackie, Doris and Jean’s room. Richard was still small enough to sleep with mom and dad. Basically there was a kitchen living room a bedroom and porch when dad bought the house.

Nick Cabitto about 1940.

Jackie and Richard Cabitto in the side yard in Oroville, Calif. about 1946.
Richard, Jean Jennie and Doris Cabitto This was our old Plymouth and the photo was probably taken out in the Thermalito area near Oroville or Chico probably taken about the first or second year after we moved to Oroville.

Jennie loved the spring flowers on the top of table mountain and the whole family spent some days every spring running and playing in the fields of golden poppies.
Table Mountain

Oroville When Nick and Jennie moved to Oroville their small home had a garden with several fruit trees and a large vegetable garden in the summer. Our yard had two walnut trees and four or five peach trees and a plum tree. Jennie canned a lot of fruit and vegetables which we needed to help with feeding us six children.

I started school there and was in the third grade at Burbank School just up the street from our house. Jean, Doris and Richard all went to school there. We were allowed to go to the movies some Saturdays. This was a great treat. The movie was 25 cents, a dime for a soda and popcorn a dime. But we didn’t get much money to spend sometimes only a nickel for a candy bar which were almost twice the size of today’s small bars. There were always two movies, two or three cartoons and a serial adventure which played every week for several months. I loved the Flash Gordon Science Fiction Adventures and Abbot and Costello Movies made me cry with laughter.

Nick Cabitto

Western Pacific Railroad engine workers Nick worked with at the roundhouse in Oroville. 1948

Nick and Richard Cabitto 1943 Nick and Jennie Cabitto, Stocton, Calif., 1977

Nick Cabitto at the Western Pacific Railroad yard in Oroville, Calif.

Western Pacific Railroad Nick was a machinist and heavy engine repairman for the huge diesel engines at the roundhouse in Oroville, California. He was very strong and had huge hands twice the size of mine. Before he retired from the WPPR he spent the last few years there repairing regulators that controlled the diesel railroad engines. He also took care of the machine tools and repaired them in the shop.

The Eggs Dad had a good sense of humor and sometimes would pull a practical joke on someone. Jack Wood remembers one joke at the roundhouse where they both worked. A fourtish lady worked in the cleaning room where tools and engine parts were cleaned prior to going on the train diesel engines. She kept her lunch there and often had eggs which she would boil and make sandwiches. One day Nick took her dozen eggs and put them in the acid bath boiler fro cleaning parts. Of course she was very unhappy!
Richard Cabitto age 4

Jennie loved her flower garden. We always had flowers in the yard almost everywhere. Mom loved roses and always had a vase of them in the house when they bloomed. She worked for several families in Oroville caring for their children and cleaning their homes. Jennie enjoyed reading and was a wonderful cook. She was a great pie crust and pie maker. We would ride up to the store on our bikes and get the ingredients for cream puffs, which we could hardly wait to come out of the oven and cool before we grabbed them off the kitchen table. Spring was Jennie’s favorite time of year and we always went for rides up the Feather River Canyon and to the top of Table Mountain, just north of Oroville to see the wildflowers. She had her favorite “sayings” about life and every day happenings. “a stitch in time saves nine.” etc.

Jackie, Richard and Jennie Jackie and Snippy our dog. Jennie and Nick Cabitto

David, Richard, Doris and Jean Cabitto in Oroville Calif. about 1951-52.

Jackie and George Wilbur (Bud) Pierce They were married on 28 June 1947 in Oroville, Calif. Data from Jackie Pierce letters and request for data and Information from Jackie's marriage news report from the Oroville Mercury Newspaper, Oroville, Calif., July 27, 1960. (see news article next page)

Jackie and Bud Pierce wedding. Jackie Pierce’s three children and spouses 1980.

  George Wilbur Jr. Thomas and
Theresa Pierce These are Jackie’s three children. Jackie Pierce in 1985. Stripped Bass
  Jackie and Bud Pierce

Jacqueline Cabitto b 27 Mar 1931, Redding, Calif. and Bud Pierce her husband.
Jackie and Bud moved around a lot. They worked on ranches and farms in northern Calif. Bud did construction, cement and carpentry work in addition to doing harvesting in the rice fields.
  Buddy Pierce

Jackie Cabitto (Pierce)’s three children and spouses in 1979, Stockton, California at Nick Cabitto’s Funeral. Teresa and Harold Bumgarner, George Wilbur and Jeanette Pierce and Thomas andKaren Marie (Germain) Pierce.

Jackie and Bud Pierce about 1979 Harold and Teresa Bumgarner Jackie’s daughter.
Obituary for Jacqueline Pierce Grave side services were held this morning at 10 a.m. in the Arbuckle Cemetery for Jacqueline Pierce 57, who died June 19, 1988 in her Arbuckle home on Sunday. Rev. Virginia Hughes of the First Christian Church, Colusa, officiated and internment was under the direction of McNary Moore Funeral Services. Mrs. Pierce was born in California on March 27, 1931 and had lived in Arbuckle for a number of years. She is survived by her husband George; children Thomas Pierce of Strathmore, George Pierce of Santa Rosa, and Theresa Bumgarner of Marysville. Also surviving are seven grandchildren, three great grand children, three brothers and two sisters.

The Bumgarner Family, Gridley, Calif, March 10, 1979 at their baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The Bumgarner Family, Stocton, Calif. on the left, 1980 David, Lillian Cabitto and Jean Steeper with Suzie Rabe, are on the right.

Richard and Nick Cabitto and Richard on his bike in Oroville, Calif. about 1952-53

David Cabitto about age 12



Richard Allen Cabitto b Dec. 5 1943 in Oroville, Calif. Richard’s high school graduation photo. Richard retired as a school teacher in 2002 and moved to Palm Springs, Ca.

Doris and Jean Cabitto and a friend and Richard, Doris, Jean and David in the yard at 2478 D Street in Oroville, Calif. Early 1950s.
The Southside We had a lot of fun growing up in Oroville and making friends in the “Southside” as it was called. It was a fairly rough neighborhood with a lot of ethnic groups represented. Hispanic, Italians, blacks, Greeks and okies and arkies were all foreigners in Oroville and a lot of us lived in the southside of town. But we had a lot of fun with the kids in the neighborhood and evening games of hide and seek and kick the can is where we made friends. A black girl in the 5th grade named Ernestine was big, over 200 pounds and I called her fat one day. This was based on two things. I thought she would forget and I thought she couldn’t catch me. Wrong on both parts she caught up with me in front of our house in the street and punched me out”. It was a good lesson one I haven't forgotten!

War games of Cowboy and Indians gave me a scar above my left eye when a sharp dry grass spear got me and stuck until mom pulled it out. Rubber gun wars erupted on a lot of afternoons. We took old car tire inner tubes and cut strips of rubber for the ammo. The rubber strips were stretched over wooden rifles and held down by clothes pins which were the triggers on the rubber guns. As we grew older we took our BB guns to the rock piles on the west side of town and had wars with them. We had helmets and cardboard shields for protection and wore long pants and long sleeve shirts to slow down the BBs.

Hikes to table mountain, about five miles from the house, were all day affairs with brown bag lunches including peanut butter or bologna sandwiches and an orange for the trip. We trudged down through Oroville across the metal bridge across the Feather River. Then walked up the Chinese Rock Wall along the river for a mile. In the summer we would stop and take a short swim. Our hike included climbing up towards the Big O which was made out of cement and adorns the right hand side of the mountain; then climbed to the top of Table Mountain where we threw rocks, chased each other, played hide and seek in the caves and came home bone tired.

Bikes and roller skates We loved riding our bikes and played street football and baseball games most of the summer. We often towed each other up and down D street on roller skates or up to Burbank School on the blacktop surface for races. Several of us boys would walk down to the Feather River and go swimming several hours on hot summer days. I really loved to do this.

David’s Bike Accident I was run over by a car down near the State Theater in Oroville on a ride to the movies one Saturday. This was on my Christmas bike that year. A dog started chasing me and I drove my bike into the front of a car. I was dragged down the street 40-50 feet and suffered a huge deep scrape down my left leg. I was at home with a cast for several weeks until I healed The kids from my 5th grade school class came down to see me and signed my cast. Dad repaired my mangled bike and I was back to school in a few weeks.

Doris, Jean and Richard Cabitto


Bud Pierce with Doris Cabitto Doris Cabitto Jackie and Doris Cabitto

The Oroville years were the growing up and play time years for us kids. Don and Jackie were both married as young teenagers. They were 6-7 years older than David and seemed like grownups. Dad worked for the Western Pacific Railroad and worked at night when we first moved to Oroville during the middle of World War II. He worked 12 hour shifts, 6-7 days a week during the war and was gone at night and tried to sleep in the day time. Our house was so small there was no place to play inside in the winter. It was very rough for mom and dad during this time.

Doris Wins a Bike A great treat for us kids was to go to the State Theater on Saturday and see the movies. Once in awhile the Theater had a drawing for a prize and one Saturday Doris won the “BIKE” I was so jealous and wanted to win it so badly. But what a surprise for her.

The Rough Years Mom had us under her feet all the time and this was very wearing to her health. She had what they called then, a “nervous breakdown” and never was the same after that. We had a lot of financial trials and medical bills which caused a lot of mom and dad arguments. There was a separation during those year between Nick and Jennie but it didn’t last long and I do remember how happy they were after Nick moved back home.

David’s High school art class 1955 and the sports mascots they painted. David with glasses.

High school Fun All four of us younger Cabitto kids graduated from Oroville Union High school. We all did well in school and Doris and Jean were both “Brains” in most subjects. We had many young men coming to visit and date the Cabitto girls. We all joined the LDS Church and attended church on Baldwin Ave. near the High school. We really enjoyed our friends and time spent there with many church activities and dances. I loved basketball and the church had a team every year. Also we went to Inskip near Paradise and went tobogganing every winter which was great fun. On one trip to Inskip I had built an eight foot long sled out of a pair of skies. Dick Fisher, Ron and Don Morford and I flashed down the hill and passed everyone on the snow. Of course the sled didn’t steer well and we eventually hit a tree which ended our fun for the day.

Richard Smashed Auto He and a friend were coming down D St. and almost home one afternoon. Another car traveling over 70 mph in a 25 mile zone ran a stop sign and drove his car through the side Richard was sitting on knocking the car into the telephone pole and breaking it off. We were all sitting eating dinner at the time and heard the terrible smash and screeching of tires. We all jumped up to see what happened and Mr. Overstreet who lived on the corner of D street next to us came running up. He said, ‘don’t go to the car” because he could see it was Richard. He did not want mom or us kids to see what happened. This was a gigantic scare for all of us. Richard was unconscious and rushed to the hospital in Oroville. He had a hip injury and massive amount of other contusions. But by some miracle wasn't’ killed. Eventually Richard recovered fully from his injuries.

Nick Cabitto in his work clothes.

Doris and Jean and Richard spent a lot of time together and had a lot friends to play with there in the southside. We all shared a love for drawing and reading and I remember going to the library to get books every week. I read dozens of books in the summer and was fascinated by cowboy stories and science fiction was just starting and I loved reading those type of stories. I remember school being difficult for me and I was small compared to a lot of the kids my age and always lost the “battles” kids got into at that age.

Boy Scouts I was in the Boy Scouts at age twelve and had a lot of fun camping in the woods at French Creek. Later I joined the Sea Scouts and we had a fifty foot motor launch in Sacramento which we took trips in to the San Francisco Bay. We wore Navy uniforms and visited Mare Island Naval Base, trouped aboard carriers, submarines and a destroyer. We ate in the navy mess and slept in the navy quarters or in bunks on our little ship.


Jennie A. Hill (Cabitto) Nick and Jennie Cabitto Oroville,Calif

The Cabitto Kids leave home. David went to Yuba Junior College and then to San Jose State college and graduated in 1959. He also was drafted into the Army and worked at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Doris, Jean and Richard all went to college. Jean went into the Navy for several years. Doris married and settled down in Oroville. Richard graduated from Brigham Young University and started teaching high school in Williamsburg, Virginia for a few years. Richard moved to Nevada and taught school there for over thirty years. He taught Spanish, French but also could speak Italian.

Cabitto Family Oroville, California about 1952.
Richard, David, Nick, Jennie, Doris, Jean



David’s LDS church basket ball team 1955. David bottom row in glasses. David Cabitto High School Graduation 1955 and US Army photo in 1961.

Spring wildflowers near Oroville, Calif.


Nick and Jean Cabitto Jean at our house in Oroville



Above left Jean, Doris and Richard Christmas in Oroville, playing a game. Russ and Jean Steeper

Jean Cabitto b Aug. 31 1940 Redding, Calif. Jean Cabitto and her husband Russell Steeper Russell and Jean Steeper They lived in Yuba City, California and were married on 2 June 1971. Russ died of cancer. They had no children. Jean retired as a school teacher in 2002.



Doris Audry Cabitto b 9 Mar 1939 in Redding, California and David Rabe. They were married 28 May 1960 in Oroville, California. (see wedding news report on next page) Doris, Betty Worthy (King), Suzanne Rabe, Jean Steeper and David Cabitto 1978 at Jennie A Hill’s funeral.
David and Doris had two children, Daniel and Suzanne. They lived in Oroville, Calif. for a few years and lived in Thermalito north of Oroville across the Feather River. David worked for a reloading and machine tool gun shop called RCBS in Oroville. Later David and Doris moved to Wheeler, Oregon and later still to Mc Minnville, Oregon.


Doris and Jackie Cabitto Danny Rabe Doris and Suzie Rabe


Wedding Announcement David, Danny and Suzie Rabe at Lake Oroville, Calif.



Suzanne Rabe and her husband Michael Howard were married on 28 May 1960 in Oregon.

Elaine Hill and Doris and David Rabe 1978. Doris, Jean and Jackie Cabitto 1978.

Daniel Robert Rabe and Michelle Lynn Tallman were married 23 Dec. 2000. Lillian and I attended the Wedding in Auburn, Calif. and had a great visit with David and Doris Rabe and got to meet Dan’s wife Shelly and her family. Dan is a fire fighter and Shelly is a school teacher.

Donald Lee Cabitto b 19 Apr. 1930, Redding, Calif.

Don and Ida Cabitto in the late 1950 in Santa Clara Calif. with their two children Donnie and Shelia.

On 1 Oct 1949 Donald married Ida Aguzzi from McCloud, California. They had two children, Donnie Lee Jr. and Shelia Ann. Donald lived in McCloud for a time and worked there. Later they moved to Santa Clara Calif where many of Ida’s sisters and mother lived. Don worked as a driver for an orange juice delivery company and as a carpenter for several years but his love was the guitar and he always played in a band. He was a marvelous musician and could play anything on the guitar. Don and Ida lived in Alaska for a number of years and Donald played in several bands and had a music store.

Donald with his guitar and holding Richard as a baby in Oroville, Calif.

Don and his cousins Marge and Arnold Nicolet David Cabitto and Donnie Lee as a child in Santa Clara ,Calif.

Shelia Ann Cabitto Donald and Ida Cabitto and Donnie Lee Jr and his wife, Elaine Marie (Ferdina) Cabitto. Alaska in the 1960s

Elaine and Misty D. Cabitto
Lillian A. Wood and David P. Cabitto 2001.

David P. Cabitto b 7 Oct. 1937, Redding, Calif.
Lillian Ann Wood and David P. Cabitto were married on 23 Oct.1964 in Oroville, California. They had five children. Richard Christopher, Jolene Michelle, deceased, Aaron Neil, Julianne, and Noah Matthew Cabitto.

They lived in Oroville the first two years they were married and then David went to work for the government in Washington DC, first for the Maritime Administration and later for the Library of Congress where he retired in 1997 after 31 years of government service.

Jack L. Wood and Ardith Wood, Lillian and David Cabitto, Nick and Jennie Cabitto wedding reception.

David and Lillian Cabitto wedding photos in 1964
David and Lillian were married at the home of Burney and Sandra Kram in Oroville, Calif.
We spent our honeymoon in San Francisco, Calif. David worked for the Butte County Agricultural Commissioners Office and Lillian worked for the Hospital in Oroville. All their children were born in Virginia.

David and Lillian Cabitto Family photos in the 1970s Woodbridge, Virginia. Richard, Aaron and Noah Cabitto.

David and Lillian Cabitto Family photos in the 1970s Woodbridge, Virginia. Richard, Aaron and Noah Cabitto.

Lillian and David Cabitto in 2001
We have retired and live in Magalia, Calif.

Jolene Michelle Cabitto is buried in Mount Comfort Cem.,Va

Lillian Cabitto and her sisters and mother in 2001. Lillian, Eva Jones, Ardith Wood, Kathy Jewkes and Judy Saville.


Noah Cabitto works at Costco and lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia

Noah loves music and plays the guitar. He also enjoys writing and has had his poems chosen for publication.

Richard Christopher Cabitto and his Family in Haggerman Valley, Idaho 2001

Richard, Tracey and Hadley live out in the country on a small ranch that Tracey’s parents own. It’s quite near the Snake River and there is lots of fishing and hunting in the area. Tracey will be a teacher soon and Richard works for a tire company in a small town nearby.



At grama Cabitto’s house in 2002 for a visit; making cookies of course.

Hadley Cabitto

Aaron Neil Cabitto and Julie Marie, Rosalie, Samuel and Amanda 2001

Aaron and Julie Marie live in Spotyslvania, Virginia out in the country on four acres of farm land. Julie loves to grow all kinds of herbs, vegetables and other “stuff”. Aaron works for a computer contractor in Washington DC and travels by train or works at home some days.



Amanda learning to walk, Rosalie, and Samuel Cabitto 2002

The Boyce Boys and Alexis 2002 Julianne Boyce (Cabitto) and Alexis

Alexis Alexis and Shawn Dylan

Jared Shawn Derik

Julianne Cabitto (Boyce) and Shawn, Derik, Shawn Anthony, Jared, Dylan and Alexis live right next to Quantico Marine Corps Base in Triangle, Virginia. Shawn is the Vice President of a Paving Company and has a small business of his own. No need to guess what Julianne is doing. Most of the time with five children chasing her or her chasing them she is busy.

The Luigi Cabitto Family Early 1900s Redding, Calif.
Luigi and Giuseppina had three sons, Joe, Pete and Nick.

Pete, Joe and Nick Cabitto with their dog doing tricks in Redding,Calif. about 1918.

Joe Cabitto b 1 Nov. 1904, Biestro, Italy. Parish records at Biestro, Italy and obituary from Redding newspaper. Joe CABITTO changed his name when he became a naturalized citizen of the USA. See the letters included here with the details. He was born Giuseppi Antonio Cabitto. Joe married Anne Cabitto (MAZZONI)
in Redding, Calif.

Joe Cabitto wrote a very interesting history of his growing up years that includes some detailed items about the family. Growing up American A YOUNG ITALIAN COMES TO SHASTA COUNTY as told by Joe Cabitto This article can be obtained from the Shasta County Historical Society in Redding, Calif., The Covered Wagon 1977, PO Box 277, Redding, Calif. Excerpts and photos from that article will be inserted into the news paper article using italic print. These excerpts will add data to the article and clarify some of the information in the newspaper article. Photos are from those sent to David Cabitto and Anne Cabitto or those copied from the Shasta County Historical Society Covered Wagon article dated 1977.

Joe Cabitto: He mines life’s experiences PROFILE by GARTH SANDERS: Record Searchlight Sat, May 8, 1982, page 25 Only one photo, Joe and Anne, from the article was included here because the newspaper copy I have is damaged.

JOE Cabitto was washing dishes in Jaegel's Cafe when the two prospectors came in lugging a gunny sack holding a gleaming 370 ounce gold nugget. The miners had found the nugget in Motion Creek, which joins the Sacramento River just below Shasta Dam. At the time, Shasta Dam was still 30 years in the future, Cabitto was a strapping young fellow and Redding had about 4,000 residents who swatted mosquitoes and shivered with malaria, even in the blistering summer heat. Jaegel's, where Cabitto washed dishes and waited table, was a no frills cafe offering hearty roast beef dinners for 35 cents. Jaegel's location eventually would be swallowed up by The Mall in downtown Redding, and Oser's women's wear store would replace the cafe. Nobody even dreamed of a mall.

One of the first jobs I had was in La Moine working for the La Moine Box Factory. I went there on a work permit from school. That was before my father decided 7th grade was enough schooling and I had to quit going to school altogether. I must have been about sixteen at the time. Anyway that was about the first money I ever earned and I remember coming back from La Moine on the train with a sack of money in my Mackinaw pocket. It was about ninety dollars in four bit pieces. My whole summer's pay! But when I got to Keswick, the station on the railroad where I got off before walking up to Quartz Hill, I didn't have my sack of hard earned money. Not a penny of it ! I don't know whether I Iost it or it was stolen. But I can tell you that I learned to take care of the money I'd earned after that.

Cabitto was "pearl diving," or washing dishes, in Jaegel's Cafe. Across Market Street, in those days, was Bags McConnell's pool hall, where a Western Union "boy" stood on a stool and read a blow by blow telegraph version after each round in the 1927 Dempsey Tunney fight. Cabitto won $800 on that fight, the outcome of which still stirs bitter arguments because of the "long count" the referee gave Tunney after Dempsey knocked him down.

An afternoon of conversation with Cabitto is like a trip back in time. The trip is fun, because Joe Cabitto's wry sense of humor has ripened like fine wine for 78 years—ever since he opened his eyes on this crazy world Nov. 1, 1904, in Biestro, a tiny village near Genoa, Italy.

"You never know about Joe," his wife, Anne, said the other day when asked about Cabitto's sense of humor. She admitted she didn't know whether he was serious or joking when he proposed taking some poison oak for transplanting in Italy when they visited the Old Country last year. Italy has given America so many outstanding things, such as the Mediterranean fruit fly, Cabitto said with a sly grin, that it's time America returned the favor in kind.

Giuseppina Parodi (Cabitto) Josephine in her garden on Quartz Hill.
Giuseppina Parodi (Cabitto) Pete, and Joe, and their grandmother, Viglietti Petronilla. Photo Genoa, 1910. A trip to the photographer's studio was the last thing to be done before boarding the ship to America. Joe, in his new sailor suit, poses with his mother and grandmother and younger brother Pete. I never saw my grandmother again.

Joe's father, Luigi Cabitto, left Italy for America when Joe was 4 years old. On our place in Italy
we grew chestnuts which our family traded at the mill for flour to make bread. My father, Luigi Cabitto, was a soldier in the Italian army in Ethiopia in 1895 - 1896. The Italians were defeated and he was captured as a prisoner of war. The family thought he was dead. Somehow my father managed to escape. He made his way through northern Africa back to Italy. He remained in Biestro for a short time. Later he went to France to work. After several years he came back to Biestro. It was at this time that he married my mother, Giuseppina Parodi. After my younger brother, Pete, and I were born my father decided to go to America. He got a job on a ship which carried bricks. He finally made it to Shasta County where there were some "paesanos" (fellow countrymen) working as laborers in the mines. Two years of work in the mines of Shasta County gave Luigi enough money to send for Joe and his mother, Giuseppina (Josephine), and Joe's younger brother, Pete. They went by ship from Genoa to New York. We sailed from Genoa on the S.S. Duca di Genoa. My grandmother came to see us off and we had our picture taken. I remember that day as the first time I had ever tasted candy. We never saw my grandmother again. Cabitto cannot remember exactly how long the Journey took. "The trip seemed like two weeks. It was terrible. We were third class, way down below the water line." Joe remembers sleeping in a four decked bunk and being very seasick. After they were processed through the Immigration Service's Ellis Island center, the tired mother and her two children began the week long train trip to Redding. They arrived in Redding on a spring day in 1910. Joe is certain it was spring, because the poison oak was in full bloom. Would you believe that in Redding was the first time I had ever seen a black man? These men were pushing the baggage carts for the hotels and had come to meet the train. That same station is still there, but it's the freight depot now.

The reunited family spent the first night in Redding in the old Columbus Hotel, which is now a rehabilitation center for alcoholics. Then the family moved to Rocky Ranch, west of Redding near the present site of the Catholic cemetery on Highway 299. He and other immigrant children played hide and seek in a patch of poison oak. "I scratched like hell." he recalled. The ranch was a landing spot where Italian immigrants could stay until they found jobs in the mines, the farms or the woods. Nobody seemed to "own" the ranch; it was just there to be used, Cabitto recalled.

As I recall, our first home in this new country was a place with some fruit trees and a vineyard west of Redding on the road to Shasta. It is just opposite from where the Catholic cemetery is now. In 1911 my youngest brother, Nick, was born there. Then we moved to Keswick where my dad had a job at the smelter. We even moved up to McCloud for a short time, but then he went to Iron Mountain, where I went to school some more. It was the first time I ever had a man teacher. Our classroom was on the second story above a boarding house. We could look down through the cracks in the floor and see the people eating.

Joe took this picture of his younger brother Pete, (right) and a friend, with a box camera his mother got for him with green stamps. Giuseppina’s brick oven is in the background. Quartz Hill, about1914.

After that we moved to Redding and lived in a couple of places on Tellurium Avenue. (They call it West Street now). I went to the West Side Grammar School for a year. Then we moved out to Quartz Hill because my dad had a job at the Reid Mine in Old Diggings. That was during World War I, because I remember I was going to Buckeye School in 1918.

It was while we were at Quartz Hill that my mother got a job baking bread for a mining company that had come there. It was called the Red Top Mining Company. She baked it just like she learned to bake it in Italy. We built her an oven out doors. The first oven we made did not last very long. We used cement blocks and some bricks for the floor. Pieces of iron served as a door. We made a pyramid of wood and kin dling which were covered with gunnysacks, and then plastered over with mud. After it had set for two or three days we started a wood fire inside, to bake the mud. It worked OK but the chickens scratched it up and we had to build an other one. This time we made it of bricks that we picked up and brought home mostly from the Calumet mine. To bake the bread we would build a good hot fire early in the morning and keep it going while the loaves were rising. When the wood, mostly manzanita, was burned up and the oven was hot we would rake the ashes out with wet gunny sacks on long sticks, and the bread was put in to bake. In cold weather sometimes we would have to keep the fire going all night to make it warm enough for the yeast to work My mother would make about twenty five loaves each day. We kept some for ourselves and me rest went to the miners.

The Red Top Mining Company didn't last long though. A fellow named Duffy had the mining claim and Spaniards, Jose, Manuel, and Valentine, set up a company. They made Duffy the Superintendent, but they had the money. They came from a place called Campo Seco. They had some pretty good ore specimens with them. At any rate, at first just the three of them worked. They used a single jack in the mine and a horse to pull the ore up. After they had stock piled some ore they bought a used 10 stamp mill and got some Spanish miners to work on shares with no pay. Then they had to sell stock to get more money to operate the mine. One night they borrowed a horse and saddle from my father to go to Kennett to sell stock. After several days the horse came back without the saddle and we never saw those Spaniards again. I guess a lot of people lost money.

Iron Mountain about 1912. The two story building, center right, housed the school on the upper floor and a boarding house below.

Luigi Cabitto landed a job in the Mountain Copper Co.'s Hornet Mine on Iron Mountain, 12 miles northwest of Redding. The family settled into a cabin in the camp provided for workers by the mine owner, the Mountain Copper Co., a British firm. The cabin walls were made of single thickness boards. The women tried to brighten them up by tacking cheesecloth to the boards and pasting wallpaper over the cheesecloth. Joe walked two miles by mountain trail to a company schoolhouse at the main mine to learn English. His father worked in the tunnels, but astutely avoided the drilling and blasting jobs that killed, crippled or sickened many miners.

Luigi’s home at Quarts Hill near Redding, Calif.

After a stint at Iron Mountain, Luigi landed a job at the Reid Mine in the Buckeye area about 10 miles north of Redding. The Cabitto family settled on a mining claim at Quartz Hill in the Buckeye area and, true to Italian tradition, put in a garden and orchard. Luigi, who rode a horse over the ridge to his job at the Reid Mine, taught his sons how to garden, a skill that was to prove vital years later. Signora Cabitto was an energetic mother. She and her sons traveled around with a horse drawn wagon, gathering apples from abandoned farms. They hawked the apples and produce from their own garden door to door in Kennett, the Mammoth Copper Co.'s smelter town, six or so miles from the Cabitto home. The smelter fumes had killed all the trees and gardens in Kennett.

The Italians always knew how to work hard and make a living even when there was a depression and times were hard. Recycling things was a way of living or surviving. Up at the Mammoth Mine they even salvaged the boxes the blasting powder came in, and built their houses out of boards they made by fitting the short tongue and grooved pieces together.

Prohibition: Another memory from my past that comes to mind took place one day when we were living in Quartz Hill. I went hunting over the hill from our house. I came upon a place in the woods where some guys were talking Italian. I stopped to listen and it didn't take long for me to figure out they had a still and
were going to make moonshine. When they spotted me listening they asked me if I wanted a job watching the still and keeping the fire going. When I told my dad about it, he didn't want me to do it because I might get caught. Later he decided a little more money could help the family. So I took the job. One day when I was working around the still I heard somebody coming and quickly hid in the back to get out of sight. The owner was expecting some customers from Dunsmuir, but instead it was a couple of "pro hi's"(police), as we called them. From my hiding place, I watched them put the handcuffs on the guy and then they destroyed everything. I ran over the hill to tell my father. Shortly afterwards the "pro hi's" came around the hill to our place with my boss handcuffed in the back seat. They had taken time not only to break up the still at my boss's place but everything in his house as well, even chopping up the windows and doors among other household items. The fellow got six months in the county jail, and while he was there his wife arrived from the old country! To make a long story short, these fellows also searched our place but all we had was a barrel of wine which was allowed for family use. This was just about the beginning of Prohibition. I couldn't have been more than fifteen at the time. How did the Italians feel about Prohibition? Well, it was an easier way to make money than at hard labor in the mines. The law was not enforced much. It was only a misdemeanor offense with a fine and short sentence, not like moonshining is now, a serious offense to cheat the Federal government out of tax money.

Joe Cabitto riding the tram at the Hornet mine, 1923.
The Cabitto boy’s wrestling on Quartz Hill.

By then, Joe could speak English as well as any Shasta County native. So his mother hired him out as an interpreter for immigrant Italian peddlers who sold everything from groceries to clothing in the mining and smelter towns around Redding. Another job I had when I was quite young, actually it was before World War I, was helping Joseph Cerro peddle vegetables in Kennett and at the Mammoth Mine. We would leave Redding long before daylight with a team and wagon full of vegetables, going up through Buckeye and Newtown, over the hill and down into the canyon to Kennett. After peddling around Kennett to the housewives and to the restaurants and boarding houses, we'd hire an extra pair of horses to pull the wagon up to the mine. Then we'd turn the extra horses loose to find their way back down the hill while we'd sell the rest of the fruits and vegetables. It wasn't so hard bringing the empty wagon back down the hill, but it was long after dark when we got back to Redding. I can remember lying up front in the wagon and seeing the sparks flying off the horses hooves in the dark.

I was working on the tram at the Hornet mine. It was when I had the job there that I went partying one night to a dance at French Gulch. It was in the winter time and I got real hot and pie eyed and went to sleep in the car outside the hall. The car belonged to a friend of mine. It was one of those open touring cars with side curtains. I felt really “bum" when I woke up. My friend took me into town and put me on the train to Matheson. I was really sick. I guess I had pneumonia. I stayed in the bunkhouse for three weeks. It was warm and a bootlegger friend cured me with his "jackass" whiskey. I couldn't eat anything. When I was able to work again I was told my shift had all been laid off. So i collected my pay of thirty dol
lars and went to Redding and got a room at the Western Hotel. One day when my money was about gone and I was eating dinner at Jaegel's Cafe they offered me a job as dishwasher and general helper. I was glad to get it, taking what I was told was a temporary job for three days—and I stayed seven years. I didn't work all that time at Jaegel's because sometimes I had jobs that paid more money, but I could always come back and go to work there again.

Cabitto remembers how his father be came ill with the deadly Spanish flu in 1918. A family in Buckeye had one of the few telephone's in Shasta County. Joe's mother told him to hike over and phone for a doctor from Redding. Joe then fourteen, walked to Buckeye, found the hand cranked telephone was broken and hiked on into Redding. There were four doctors in town. "They were always hanging around the saloons or playing pool," Cabitto said. He found a doctor shooting pool. The doctor sent him to the livery stable to get a horse and buggy and they both went back to the Cabitto mining claim, arriving five hours after Joe had started on the mission. But Luigi Cabitto was already past the worst and on the road to recovery.
There were a lot of Italian families who came to this area because of the work in the mines and smelters. There were enough to warrant having an Italian language newspaper for a short time. The editor, who had been educated as a priest, made one of his advertisers, a hotel owner, angry by referring to the rooms as "stalla" which meant stalls or stable. They really were new rooms in a new hotel. The editor of the newspaper left town soon after that.

Mosquitoes plagued Redding and they spread malaria. "They gave me so much quinine for malaria. I couldn't hear anything," Joe recalls. Deafness is a side effect of quinine. Work was considered more im portant than schooling in those days and Joe left school for good after completing the seventh grade at age 17. He has held more jobs than he can remember. One involved farming on the open land where Redding City Hall is now situated. City sewer lines discharged onto the tract. The sewage flow was switched from field to field, allowing the filth to soak into the ground, which was later farmed by the owner. Cabitto was supposed to plow the ground. He headed his horse and plow into what looked like an expanse of good, black soil, but was actually sewage crusted over by Redding's blistering summer sunshine. He resigned immediately.

Another job that I still remember was one that my mother sent me to get. I earned fifteen dollars a month, but it was a terrible job. It was on Redding's City Farm near where the city hall is now. The land was leased out to individuals and the Redding sewage was processed here. There were no sewer disposal plants at that time. I recall that it was a slippery mess. I did not stay with this job too long. Also at this time many people had malaria from the mosquitoes there.

Joe, Josephine and Pete Cabitto

When I was still in school I didn't want to have much to do with other Italians because I wanted to learn to speak English. My father never learned English because he always hung around with his cronies, the Italian speaking workmen. On the other hand, my mother learned English because she had to. She needed English to buy supplies at Mc Cormick Saeltzer, the local department and grocery store. She also learned to drive a car, even though she died in 1924. This was a sad period for the family.

"I even tried working for a bootlegger, "he said. Cabitto was supposed to keep a wood fire burning under a whiskey still. "My dad made me quit. You never knew what the Prohis (federal prohibition po lice) would do." He worked in the box factory of the old Dollar Lumber Co. plant at LaMoine during his summer break from school.

After the mines and smelters closed down many of the families moved to Redding. They operated hotels, boarding houses, or opened grocery stores. My father in law was Domenico Mazzoni. He ran a hotel at Coram. The Balakalala mine was above Coram. Coram was just about one mile south of where the Shasta Dam is now. When the smelter at Coram closed Mr. Mazzoni bought some property south of Redding where he planted a vineyard. That's how I got to know my wife when I used to go down there to drink wine he made.

Jaegels was the favorite restaurant not only for the men who worked in town, but also for the farmers and miners who came to town on business. It was on the west side of Market Street just north of the Yuba Street intersection. All the cooking was done behind the counter on a wood stove. I had to go out into the alley in the back to cool off. There were a couple of big ceiling fans but all they did was keep the flies off the counter. The meals were served at the counter except for a couple of tables at the back where the few women who came in were served. It was my job to serve them. We called the tables the "Blue Room" and I really hated waiting on those women, especially when they were drinking. Dinners were thirty five cents and were served from 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM. That thirty five cent dinner included what they had cooked that particular day—roast beef, roast pork, beef stew, or on Thursday we had corned beef and cabbage, plus three pieces of bread with butter, potatoes, coffee or milk. After 3:00 PM the meals were served short order, mostly steak. A rib steak cost forty cents, a T bone sixty five cents. They were thick too. Fridays we had fish—halibut and sanddabs from Seattle, or fresh eastern oysters which came in cans packed in ice. Jaegel's was the only place in town that served 10 cent coffee. All the other restaurants sold it for a nickel. The reason was we had to get rid of the morning coffee drinkers so there'd be room to start serving dinners at 11:00 to the regular customers. Some of the other people who worked there were: Ed Gibson and August Jacobi, the bartenders, Bob Gibson and Barnett, the cooks, Bill Rester, the waiter. George Lapp was the owner. His mother had been a Jaegel. The pay was $85.00 a month and board for seven days a week, eleven hours a day and no vacation. So we figured the more we ate the more we got paid. I went from a modest ] 65 pounds to 240 pounds. During the Depression we had to take a cut in pay, down to $65.00 a month, but they didn't cut the prices for the meals.

Joe met Anne Mazzoni at LaMoine; she worked in the factory too. A half dozen years later, they were married. He landed a job at the Hornet Mine when he left school and moved into one of the Mountain Copper Co. bunkhouses high on Iron Mountain, 10 miles northwest of Red ding. Mountain Copper owned both the Hornet and the adjoining Iron Mountain Mines. Workers received brass discs bearing numbers when they went to work at the mine. The number, not the worker's name, identified him on the payroll. Cabitto's number was 101. Cabitto operated the cable tram line that brought ore from the mountain top mine to the railroad at Matheson, in the Sacramento River Canyon 15 miles north of Redding. He and the other men worked seven days a week, eight hours a day for 50 cents an hour.

A bachelor miner had to grab hard for gusto because there wasn't much time, Cabitto said. He went to a dance at French Gulch on a Saturday night in 1923 after working at the mine all day. He drank a bottle of bootleg beer and promptly fell asleep in his open Dodge roadster outside the old IOOF Hall in French Gulch, where the dance was being held. "They put ether in the beer in those days," Cabitto said. He awoke at daybreak with incipient pneumonia, struggled back to the mine bunkhouse and collapsed on his cot. He was sick for a month, and before he recovered enough to return to work, the mine shut down because of a nose-dive in copper prices.

Cabitto drew his closing pay from the mine, moved to Redding, rented a room at the Western Hotel and dropped in at Jaegel's Cafe. George Lapp, the cafe owner, offered Cabitto a dish washing job. He grabbed it. "I wasn't proud," Cabitto said. "I was broke and hungry." $85 a month, which wasn't bad for the times, considering he also got his meals free and Lapp didn't mind if he ate T bone steak three times a day. But Cabitto had to work an 11 hour, split shift each day.

He was working at Jaegel's one day in the 1920s when two miners brought in a gold nugget that weighed 370 ounces on the restaurant scales. The Redding Chamber of Commerce wanted to buy the nugget to advertise the town. But the miners sold the nugget to the US. Mint in San Francisco. One of the miners came back from San Francisco, wearing a new suit and flourishing a handful of greenbacks. A panhandler in Jaegel's Cafe asked the miner for the price of a cup of coffee. The miner handed him a $20 bill. "I used to be poor myself," the miner told the panhandler.

I didn't take every job that was offered. Once I answered an ad in the paper for a farm worker. I wondered why I was supposed to go to the bark to be interviewed until I found out it was Ed Frisbie, the president of the bank, who was looking for someone to work on his ranch near Bella Vista. He drove me out there to show me the place but kind of hedged when I asked him what the job paid. He showed me a barn with a cow in it, saying the pay included a quart of milk a day and a house to live in. I finally found out that the pay was 75 cents a day. I probably would have taken it, because it was year around work, but by then I was married and I didn't want to ask my wife to move out there. It was 1929.

Joe Cabitto and his 1924 Dodge Joe Cabitto on his motorcycle

Joe Cabitto and his 1924 Dodge touring auto are pictured above left. The photo was taken in 1927 as the license indicates. The car could travel 55 m.p.h. and “rattled like it was going to fall apart," Cabitto said. It got about 25 miles to the gallon. The top was cloth and had side curtains. On top of the radiator was the thermometer, "where it worked," he added. The car had 4 cylinders and gas was about 12 cents per gallon. Cabitto remembers the broken arms from cranking the autos in those days, and that "self commencing" models were becoming popular. Cabitto still lives in Redding with his wife, Anne, and remembers "the good old days" with fondness in his voice. Photo and caption information from the Palo Cedro Times, Palo Cedro, Calif. p. 17, Oct 13, 1976.
Cabitto struck it rich himself in the Jack Dempsey vs. Gene Tunney heavyweight championship fight on Sept. 22, 1927, at Soldier Field in Chicago. Something told Cabitto that Tunney was going to win. That counter to the prevailing sentiment here abouts. It seems Dempsey had a Greek trainer who had friends in Redding. The trainer kept sending glowing reports about the "Manassa Mauler," which drove the betting odds on Dempsey trough the roof. On the day of the fight, Cabitto washed dishes at Jaegel's and periodically slipped across to Bags McConnell's Pool Hall. Television was 30 years in the future and radio was in its infancy, so McConnell had arranged for relays of Western Union telegraph messengers to bicycle over from the telegraph office in the Lorenz Hotel with blow by blow reports after each round. Cabitto borrowed $80 from Lapp and bet it all on Tunney. Dempsey knocked Tunney down for the infamous "long count" and Cabitto felt worse than Tunney. He went back to the cafe sick, figuring he would be working the next month without pay. A little later, he slipped back to the pool hall to discover that Tunney had retained the championship he'd taken from Dempsey the year before. Cabitto's $80 had turned into $800, with which he bought a brand new Dodge touring car.

By 1929, Cabitto and Anne Mazzoni were ready to get married. "The problem was to get some money ahead," he recalled. He was tired of dish washing and mining, so he headed south and landed a job in the Pickering Lumber Co.'s pine woods in Tuolumne County, setting chokers on logs and firing one of the steam donkey engines that snaked the logs out of the woods. "I went up on that mountain in April and didn't come out until November, when the logging closed for the winter," he said. He saved all his pay: $1,000. He and Anne were married in 1929. They now have a grown daughter, Joanne Sciaroni, a schoolteacher in Brisbane in the Bay area. They also have a granddaughter. Anne has worked, too, as a retail clerk.

Shortly after the Cabitto's were married, the Great Depression struck. Cabitto summed it up: "You could get a loaf of bread for 5 cents—but who had 5 cents?" He spent a summer cutting oak firewood near Folsom for $1.50 per tier. 'We made a living," he said. He moved back to Redding, borrowed some money from his father in law and rented three acres south of town. He raised vegetables and peddled them to Redding stores. Later, he landed a job at the Gerlinger Foundry and Machine Shop, helping build a dragline gold dredger. World War II began and Cabitto went to the San Francisco Bay area, took a welding course in a trade school, and began building mass produced ships for the war effort. But he was sickened by the fumes from the welding torches. His employer, Western Pipe and Steel Co., got the contract for installing pipes on a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. hydroelectric project on the Pit River and Cabitto was able to transfer back to Shasta County.

After the war, Cabitto worked for the Redding Water Department, operating a big pumping station on the Sacramento River. "I retired when I turned 65, " he said. The high point of his life came last year when he and Anne visited Italy. They'd saved for the trip for years. It was his first time back, but he found he hadn't forgotten the language. He dropped in unannounced on an old boyhood chum. The chum, past 80, was trying to play an accordion. Cabitto introduced himself as an accordion salesman from the United States. The chum fell for it and Cabitto was delighted.

Despite his long life and multitude of experiences, Cabitto considers himself a young man. And how does he stay young? "Interest. People get old when they lose interest," he said. He's interested in photography. He insists he isn't a pro with a 35mm camera. But he loves the hobby. He's avidly devoted to his citizens band radio. His CB "handle" is "Mountain Copper," because of his mining memories. And he is interested in old cars. "I've got a 1950 Plymouth with only 11,000 miles on it," he said. As with most things in Cabitto's life, the Plymouth has its own story. It belonged to an Italian who loved Geyserville wine and used the car only to haul wine from Geyserville to Redding. The Plymouth's owner contracted gout and lost interest in wine and Cabitto was able to snap up the Plymouth. That's a story with the Cabitto twist. (end of article)

Obituary for Joseph ' Joe' Cabitto Passed away peacefully at home November 15, 1988. Joe was born in Biestro (Savona} Italy, November 1, 1904, Rosary will be recited 7:00 p.m. Thursday, November 17, 1988 at McDonald's Chapel. Mass of Christian burial will be celebrated 10:00 a.m. Friday, November 18, 1988 at St. Joseph's Catholic Church; burial at Redding Cemetery.Joe's parents were Giuseppina Parodi Cabitto and Luigi Cabitto. He lived in Shasta County since he was five years old. He grew up in the Quartz Hill and Buckeye area. As a young man, he worked in La Moine, Iron Mountain Mines, and at Jaegels Cafe. During World War II, he worked in the shipyards in San Francisco. Later he owned the C. H. Welding business. Mr. Cabitto was a member of the Shasta Historical Society and contributed many articles to the Covered Wagon. Joe was the dearly beloved father of Joanne Cabitto Sciaroni; father in law of Rinaldo Sciaroni; dear grandfather of Elisa Anne Sciaroni; loving uncle of Bob Allen. He leaves one brother, Pete Cabitto of Mc Cloud.

  Anne Cabitto in 1979.

Joe and Anne Cabitto on a visit to Oroville to see Nick and Jennie Cabitto, early 1950s.

Joe Cabitto letter July 30, 1975, Redding, Calif.

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Joe Cabitto letter May 10, 1975, Redding, Calif.

Joe Cabitto notes on his father Luigi Cabitto, 1975, Redding, Calif.

Joe Cabitto letter Aug. 6, 1976, Redding, Calif.

Nick and Jennie Cabitto and Anne Cabitto

Joanne married, Rinaldo SCIARONI

Joe and Anne had one daughter, Joanne Cabitto. Joanne married, Rinaldo SCIARONI and they have one daughter, Elisa SCIARONI. They live in San Francisco, Calif.

Joe Cabitto birth certificate in Italian Pallare, Italy.

The Luigi Cabitto Family Luigi and Giuseppina had three sons, Joe, Pete and Nick.

Pete and Virginia Cabitto

Peter CABITTO is his naturalized American name. Died at age 82 in Mt. Shasta, Calif.

Pete married Virginia Tacchini. He gives a little history of his family in the following letters.

Virginia Cabitto and her son Ernest and his wife in 1980 Stocton, Calif. Nick Cabitto’s funeral.

David Cabitto on the right with Julianne and The Pete Cabitto Family of McCloud Calif. about 1977.

Pete and Virginia with Wilbur Pierce in Stocton, Calif. 1980

Pete Cabitto letter April 2, 1975, Redding, Calif.

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Pete Cabitto letter April 2, 1975, Redding, Calif.

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IN MEMORY OF Pete Cabitto BORN June 29,1907 PASSED AWAY August 25, l989 SERVICES August 28,1989 10 AM. Mount Shasta Memorial Chapel, Mt. Shasta, California OFFICIANT Father Benedict DeLeon PALLBEARERS Richard A. Cabitto, Timothy W. Cabitto, Daniel P. Cabitto, Gordon Bray, Terry Hitchcock, Steve M. Boone INTERMENT Mount Shasta Memorial Park, Mt. Shasta, California



Pete Cabitto with his two boys, Richard and Ernest as children and teenagers.

Virginia, Pete, and Richard Cabitto in 1978 at Jennie Cabitto’s funeral in Stocton Calif.

Ernest married, Trina BIGA. They live in McCloud, Calif.

Richard Steven Cabitto married, Jamie Snellen Davis. They have four children Tim, Robert, Susan and Richard. They live in McCloud, Calif. Richard Steven Cabitto is deceased.

Richard Cabitto McCloud — Grave side services for Richard Steven Cabitto, 54, of McCloud will be conducted at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Mc Cloud Cemetery
Mr. Cabitto died Monday, Aug. 17, 1992, at his home after a long illness. Born May 2, 1938, in McCloud, he was a lifetime resident of Siskiyou County. He was.a carpenter for Champion International and a member of the McCloud Volunteer Fire Department. Survivors include wife Jamie, sons Richard of Mount Shasta, Tim of Grenada, and Robert of Arizona, daughter Susan Bray of Yreka, mother Virginia Cabitto of McCloud; and six grandchildren.

Pete Cabitto letter, undated probably 1975-76, Redding, Calif.

Trina Cabitto, Anne Cabitto, Virginia Cabitto and Ernest Cabitto, Stocton California in 1979.

Giuseppi Cabitto Born about 1790-1810 Biestro, Italy. From records at the church in Biestro, Italy. Giuseppi had four children. Domenica, Carlo, Gio Batta and Antonio. His wife was Maria Venturi. Carlo’s son, Antonio, born about 1860, immigrated to Argentina in 1876.

Enrique Pablo Cabitto in front of his home in BA, Argentina 1975 and with a friend at the beach.

How did David get Enrique Cabitto’s name? David’s brother, Richard Cabitto, who had attended Brigham Young University, said a teacher at the university told him he looked like a Cabitto she had met from Argentina. With that bit of information David checked the Buenos Aires Argentina telephone directory in the Library of Congress and found Enrique’s address. Writing for information about the Cabitto’s history he received several letters from Enrique.

The grandson of Antonio, Enrique Cabitto 1975 letter April 1975, to David Cabitto: My grandfather Antonio Cabitto came to Argentina from Italy in 1860 (appx.) ( His birth date and date of arrival from Italy I’m not sure of) Enrique explained that there were few records kept in his country and by his family so most of this information came from family members he talked to recently. Antonio and Maria had seven children the youngest of which was my father Antonio. All of my Uncles and Aunts are dead and unfortunately I do not know the names of two of them. Birth and death records are not recorded here like they are in the USA so I have been unable to obtain them. The others were called Mercedes, Cesar, Enrique, and Ernestina. My father Antonio, was born in Argentina in 1889. In 1918 he married Josefina Alvarez and they had three children: Maria Angelica, Antonio, and me, Enrique Pablo. My father died in 1970.

This 2nd letter clarifies, corrects and adds more data about the family. Enrique Cabitto 1976 letter July 1975, to David Cabitto: My grandfather Antonio Cabitto was born in Piamonte, Italy about 1860 and came to Argentina about 1876 and married Maria Olcese (born in Genoa, Italy) about a year after she came to Argentina. We are a middle income family and live in the Villa Serto, a residential area of the capitol,(BA). Our home measures 20 x 50 meters and we have a large garden and trees. I and my brother Antonio sell industrial and agricultural tools and machines. My mother and sister still live at the same home. My brother lives in an apartment across the street with his wife and daughter.

My Grandmother Maria Olcese and Grandfather Antonio Cabitto had seven children:

(1) Jose Cabitto b 1875 d 1919 Jose was married to Liberata Romano and they had four children: 1. a son, Aurora (married) 2. a daughter Armieda (married) 3. a daughter Enriqueta (single) 4. a son Alfredo (married)
(2) Mercedes (female) (single)Cabitto b 1877 d 1962
(3) Cesar (single) Cabitto b 1879 d 1961
(4) Ernestina Cabitto b 1881 d 1969 Ernestina married Benito Urbasos and they had two children: 1. a son, David 2. a son Enrique who lives in the USA.
(5) Enrique (single) Cabitto b 1882 d 1910
(6) Irene Cabitto b 18 ? d 19 ? (Irene has been interned due to mental illness since she was a child and is under the guardianship of David Urbasos.)
(1) Antonio (my father) Cabitto b 1888 d 1970 Antonio was married to Josefina
Alvarez 28 March 1917 and they had three children: 1. a daughter Maria Angelica b 23 Dec 1919 2. a son Antonio b 1 Sept. 1923 (married) they have one child 3. a son Enrique Pablo b 7 April 1938.

Antonio Cabitto b 1888 d 1970 and Josefina Alvarez. The two children are Antonio and Enrique Pablo Cabitto. Enrique was about three years old. At their home in the Villa Serto, BA Argentina about 1941. The 2nd photo is Enrique’s brother and sister Antonio and Maria Cabitto.

The San Francisco Cabito’s My dad Nick told me there were some Cabittos in San Francisco and I found their addresses in the phone book at the Library of Congress where I worked. These are two of the letters I received from them. I never made any personal contacts except for sending them copies of the Cabitto History , which included their family information.

David P. Cabitto April 23, 1975 14342 N. Belleville Ave. Woodbridge, Va. 22193

Dear Mr. Cabitto:
You wrote to me, my aunt Angelina Cabito in Redwood City, Ca., my aunt Ida Cabito in S.F., and possibly my cousin Allen Cabito, Angie's son. Ida doesn't seem interested enough to correspond, my father
didn't get your letter because he's not listed in the telephone book, and Angie, having been married to Albert Cabito (d. 1973), knows less than my father, the only knowledgeable sibling. Therefore, I discussed
the matter at length with my father and will attempt to piece the facts together as my father knows them:

My grandfather, Adolfo Cabito, changed the spelling of his name at some time, possibly upon entry to this country; he was born in 1878 in Italy I'm not sure where. Around 1908 1910 he went to Buenos Aires with a brother, as a first step toward getting into the U.S. After a few years he went back to Italy and married in 1912, Giuseppina Resio. At that time they were living in Biestro, a small village a few miles north of Genoa. My father, Jake, was born in Biestro, May, 1913 and was two months old when his mother rejoined Adolfo in San Francisco. Adolfo had come to S.F. shortly before my father was born.

They had four children, Jake (1913 ), Naomi (1916 1950), Ida (1922 and Albert (1920? l973). and Angie have a son, Allen, living in Foster City, Ca., and I have a brother, Gary, living in S.F. I was born in 1942, Gary in 1945, and Allen around 1947. There are no other children of the four children of Adolfo and Giuseppina Cabito. Adolfo died (approximately). 1957, Giuseppina (approximately). 1960.

My father believes that we are related because he remembers that when he was 14 or 15, an uncle would occasionally come from Redding or McCloud, Ca. to visit his parents for 2 -3 days at a time, sometime between 1928 -1930. It must have been Luigi. My father thinks that he may have had another uncle, a brother to Luigi and Adolfo, but is not certain. My father is also sure that the spelling of our names had been changed from Cabitto to Cabito.

That is virtually the extent of our combined knowledge; if you have further questions, feel free to write me.
It seems that we are second cousins of some kind.

Sincerely,

Stephen Cabito
600 Capp St. San Francisco, Ca. 94110

Angelina L. Cabito

22 April 1975

Dear David,

Yes, I am sure you are a relative of my late husband's. I have talked to his sister and she says the back ground is definitely the same as hers. Said that her father Adolph Cahito dropped one of the t's in the name.

One of your letters came to my husband, Albert Aldo Cabito, who passed away on January 18, 1973 of cancer at the age of 51. We have one son, Alan Eugene Cabito (the letter you addressed to 2942 Franklin, San Francisco) who was married last September and now lives in Foster City, California. (very near me. He was 27 on April 13.
I can't figure out who the other Cabito is that you addressed a letter to. A brother of my late husband, Jake Cabito is unlisted in the San Francisco Area, and the one sister Ida Cabito is also unlisted. Their addresses: Jake Cabito 95 South Hill St. San Francisco, Calif. 94112 Ida Cabito 472 Edinburgh Street San Francisco, Ca. 94112 Ida Cabitto still lives in the old family home. Her mother passed away about 1960 and her father about 1955.

I will pass your letter on to Jake, as I think he can help you further. He was about nine years older than my husband. When we were married in 1946, his mother gave us the following address: Mr. & Mrs. J. Cabitto Box 368 Redding California That must be your uncle Joe. Your grandfather Luigi must have been my father in laws brother.

Jake has two sons, Steve and Gary. Maybe they are listed in the S.F. directory. I don't know.

As I said, I will pass your letter on to Jake and hope he can give you the added information you need. If you can't get what you desire, maybe I can help further, but think that they should be able to. I will be very interested in finding out what you gather, as I am sure my son will want to know more about his background, and family.

Sincerely,

Angelina L. Cabito

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Memories of the Cabitto Family

Thursday, April 23, 2009

The Cabitto Families of Biestro, Italy are Linked to the USA and Argentina

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