Merced County
Biographies
PETER A. CATSEFTAS
Among the later additions to Merced's business circles must be mentioned Peter A. Catseftas, who, together with his partner, James Moskos, is making a success of the Valley Lunch Counter at No. 537 Sixteenth Street. Mr. Catseftas came to Merced from San Francisco in 1923 and at an outlay of $4200 thoroughly remodeled his place; and despite the competition of live restaurateurs on either side, the Valley Lunch Counter is constantly forging to the front as a sanitary and up-to-date eating house. It is largely patronized by the traveling public. A commodious dining room with its snow-white linen gives ample accommodations to ladies and children and tourist parties, while the long lunch counter facing the grill is largely patronized by clerks and business men, farmers and laborers. Prices are very moderate and its numerous patrons get the advantage of excellent cooking, Mr. Catseftas' experience in the culinary art extending over a period of almost a third of a century.
Peter A. Catseftas was born at Sparta, Greece, on September 17, 1869, a son of H. Aristides Catseftas. His parents are poor but honorable Greek working people, who are still living in their native land, having attained the remarkable ages of 102 and 99 years, respectively. Our subject grew up in Greece, where he attended the Greek schools and was reared in the Greek Orthodox Church. At the age of fourteen he began to work in a silk factory and together with his good wife continued in that work as long as they lived in Greece. He was married at an age of nineteen to Sophia Arneotes, who was born near Sparta and began working in the silk mill when a little girl of eleven years of age. She is thoroughly conversant with silk weaving and has made some of the finest dress goods that ever came from Greek looms.
Fired with an ambition to see the New World and to better his condition, Mr. Catseftas left his wife and family in his native country and came to San Francisco, in 1895. He immediately entered business for himself, becoming proprietor of the Gust Restaurant at No. 29 Ninth Street, between Mission and Market Streets. Fortunately he sold this place a short time before the great earthquake and fire and for a few months ran a restaurant in the outskirts of the city and thus escaped the great fire. In 1907 he made a seven-months trip to Europe, making a five-months visit to his old home, and on returning to San Francisco brought his wife and two children with him. Sad to relate, however, his oldest child, a promising young man of sixteen, died a month after reaching California.
Mr. Catseftas was best known as the proprietor of the Cosmopolitan Restaurant in San Francisco, which he ran for sixteen years until he came to Merced and opened up his present place. He believes in "live and let live" and American standards of living at that. Mr. and Mrs. Catseftas have a comfortable home in Merced, where both are highly respected as industrious and enterprising citizens. They have become parents of four children, namely: Florodia, who died in Greece; Louis, who died in San Francisco; Ernest A., who was born in Greece and is now in the Merced Union High School; and Catherine, born in San Francisco, and now in the grammar school.
In entire sympathy with American institutions and in thorough accord with the business life at Merced, Mr. and Mrs. Catseftas and family are cordially welcomed. They are at present, as a side issue, engaged in raising silk-worms in Merced for the production of raw silk and Mr. Catseftas is very optimistic in the belief that the silk-industry will, before long, become of commercial importance in Merced County.
History of Merced County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 803-804
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
JOSEPH GAVAZZA
As part owner and one of the proprietors of the Winton Mercantile Company, of Winton, Merced County, J. Gavazza has already become a well-known figure in commercial circles in Merced County. He was born at Villa San Secondo d'Asti, Italy, on December 23, 1892, the son of Valentino and Angela Gavazza, farmer folk in that country. The father was a lieutenant in the Italian Army for fourteen years and fought in the Italian-Austrian wars from 1858 to 1859, also in the war of 1870 when Italy became free from foreign domination and gained its national unity and independence. The parents are both deceased. They had two children: Claudine, wife of Arri Jefferino, of Oakland; and Joseph, our subject.
Joseph attended the public schools of his native land, completing the fifth grade, and can read and write Italian as well as English. Bidding good-bye to his home and family he joined his sister and her husband for California, coming direct to Oakland, arriving March 13, 1910. He was then seventeen years old. He began working on ranches, mostly in market gardens in Santa Clara County for two years, then going back to Oakland he worked as an apprentice moulder for six months, then took up carpenter work, making boxes for moulds, etc., following the moulder's business until 1921, when he came down into Merced County and began raising tomatoes on Bear Creek, continuing one year. The following year he went to Livingston and engaged in peach growing and market gardening for the season of 1922. That year he began working for the Pregno Mercantile Company at Atwater, and after six months was transferred to the Winton branch and became a partner in both stores. On July 1, 1924, with his partner, H. Dessiaume, he bought out the Winton store, stock and fixtures, changed the name of the company to the Winton Mercantile Company and they are continuing the business along broader lines than carried on under the former name.
Mr. Gavazza was married at Merced in 1923, to Miss Ruby Frances Logan, daughter of Henry Logan, a rancher at Winton. Mr. Gavazza was naturalized in Oakland in 1916 and registers as a Republican. He has purchased a comfortable home, the George Fast residence, in Winton.
History of Merced County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 804-805
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
ALFRED R. NEVES
The splendid new store in Atwater, the Atwater Mercantile Company, which has a general line of merchandise and which employs two clerks, is owned by Alfred Neves. How it was acquired is something worth relating. It was at Pico, on a distant Isle of the Azores, that the proprietor was born on October 9, 1880, the fifth in a family of ten children. His parents were Joseph and Mary (Perpetua) Neves, both natives of the same place. The father died there at the age of fifty-four. The mother came to California and spent her declining years at Livingston, passing away in 1916, aged sixty-four.
Alfred attended the common school in Pico, and learned agriculture on his father's farm. When his brothers, Manuel, Joseph and Antone, came to America, he was naturally interested in the glowing letters they wrote of the wonderful prospects in the Great Golden West. So when he had saved up enough money for traveling expenses he followed his brothers hither in 1903. He took the first job that offered, that as a farm hand on the Bloss Ranch, and with the exception of two years spent at Sugar Pine, in the Fresno hills, he has lived in Merced County. He raised stock and cultivated sweet potatoes near Atwater up to 1912. That year he opened a small store 30 feet by 25 feet on the site of his present store at Broadway and Fourth. In 1916 he succeeded to the Pregno-Souza Mercantile Company on Front Street, and changed the name to the Atwater Mercantile Company, and carried on the business for seven years in that location. In the meantime he made investments and erected the present building, 45x115 feet, in 1922, which would do credit to a city five times the size of Atwater, and removed his stock to the new location. Mr. Neves received his United States citizenship in Judge Rector's court in Merced and, as a Republican, has fulfilled the duties of an American citizen. In August, 1922, he was elected city trustee of Atwater on the incorporation of the town.
In February, 1912, A. R. Neves was united in marriage with Mary Leal, born at Angra, in the Azores, the daughter of Frank Leal, a mechanic of St. George. Her uncle, Antone Leal, was an early settler in California. The children of the union are Harry and Guida. Mr. Neves is a very enterprising business man and what he has achieved thus far in life has been through the exercise of his frugality and honest industry. He was one of the organizers of the Atwater Pentacost Club and is ex-secretary of the I. D. E. S., and secretary of the U. P. E. C. societies; and is the banker of the Atwater Camp of the Woodmen of the World.
History of Merced County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 805-806
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler