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John was born in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco in 1940. In his youth, he was active with the Salesian Boys' Club, and later he managed a soccer team with the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club. He owned the famous A. Cavalli & Co. bookstore and print shop on Stockton Street, a cornerstone of the city's Italian heritage going back to the 1880s.
Recording:
Transcript
Transcript: John Valentini (1940-?)
Preface
The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with John Valentini on August 15, 1996. The interview took place at the A. Cavalli & Co. bookstore at 1441 Stockton Street in San Francisco, California. The interview was conducted by Judith Robinson, an author, historian and member of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, a community organization. This interview is part of the Italian-Americans of North Beach series of interviews that were conducted in 1996 by Judith Robinson with funding from U.C. Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. The interview was transcribed by Carmen White and edited by John Doxey in 2022.
Format: Originally recorded on one audio cassette tape. Duration is 34 minutes.
Attribution: This interview is property of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers Oral History Project. Quotes, reproductions and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with John Valentini, August 15, 1996. Telegraph Hill Dwellers Oral History Project.
Notes:
1- John Valentini is the subject of a separate oral history transcript produced by the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, which can be found in the First Collection at https://www.thd.org/oral-history-1. The First Collection transcript contains photos and a summary of the oral history interview that Judith Robinson conducted on August 15, 1996.
2 - As of early 2023, the editor of this transcript has not been able to locate John J. Valentini or members of his family, or to determine whether John is still living.
Summary: John J. Valentini was born in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco in 1940. His family moved to Marin County when he was six years old, but then returned to San Francisco’s Sunset district a couple of years later. John began working full time at A. Cavalli & Co. bookstore in 1959, after completing his army service, and purchased the business from his father, John P. Valentini, in 1978. At the time of this interview, John co-owned A. Cavalli & Co. with his wife Rosanna.
As outlined in this interview, A. Cavalli & Co. was established by Flavio (“George”) Cavalli in 1880, near the intersection of Montgomery Street and Columbus Avenue, as a store selling Italian-language books and news publications for Italian immigrants who settled in San Francisco after the Gold Rush. In addition to this business, George also worked as a journalist and notary public. And because he was too busy to run the bookstore himself, he brought his sister Angelina over from Switzerland to run A. Cavalli & Co. Angelina is the reason the bookstore is named “A” Cavalli & Co. The bookstore operated in various locations around North Beach, including the buildings that currently house City Lights Booksellers & Publishers and Vesuvio Cafe before settling into its final location at 1441 Stockton Street in 1934. John’s step-grandfather, Renato Marrazzini, purchased A. Cavalli & Co. in 1918, and his grandmother worked at the store for more than 40 years. John’s father, John P. Valentini, came to work at the bookstore in 1938 after finishing college. Marrazzini ran the L’Italia daily newspaper for many years and was a president of what is now called the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club. In 2006, John sold A. Cavalli & Co. to Santo Esposito, an Italian from Campania, who transformed the establishment from a bookstore and print shop to a cafe called Cavalli Cafe.
John was 56 years old when Judith Robinson interviewed him. In this interview, John focuses on his experiences at A. Cavalli & Co. and the store’s long history. He tells of how he spent nearly all his waking hours from a young age in North Beach, working at the bookstore and participating in neighborhood activities, including the Salesian Boys’ Club; attending Sacred Heart High School and San Francisco City College; his involvement with the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club, including running the club’s soccer team from 1969-1975; his memories of the SFIAC’s annual Statuto foot race; the Italian opera stars who visited A. Cavalli & Co. from the 1930s to the 1960s; taking Italian newspapers and magazines to Italian POWs interned at Angel Island during World War Two; hearing stories about men crowded outside the A. Cavalli & Co. in the late 1920s to listen to broadcast speeches by Benito Mussolini.
Carmen White and Judith Robinson have reviewed the transcript and corrections and emendations have been made. The reader should keep in mind that he or she is reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose.
Interview
JUDITH: This is a recording for the Bancroft Library of the Valentinis or John Valentini of the Cavalli Bookstore, North Beach, San Francisco by Judith Robinson, August 15th, 1996, at his store on Stockton at Columbus Avenue … The library … it’s a terrific program, their oral history program … but this is a special thing, being able to get a little more specifics from the North Beach and Italian-American community in San Francisco.
JOHN: I understand.
JUDITH: Now, I thought we’d just start by noting that your family apparently has owned the Cavalli Bookstore for more than a hundred years?
JOHN: Ah, well I’d say our family took it over in the … around 1918.
JUDITH: Nineteen-eighteen? OK. But it had existed before that?
JOHN: Since 1880, yeah.
JUDITH: But your family name is Valentini.
JOHN: Right. Well, in other words, it was founded by this Flavio Cavalli.
JUDITH: Flavio Cavalli?
JOHN: They used to call him George, his middle name. They used to call him George Cavalli. His name was Flavio. And he founded the store at, uh, the first block of Montgomery Avenue, which is now Columbus. Down by the pyramid, I guess, in that area.
JUDITH: Ah-ha.
JOHN: That was in 1880, and it stood there till about 18 … I’ve got all these dates here … ‘96.
JUDITH: Until 1896?
JOHN: Yeah, when it moved to larger quarters, on the east side of Columbus Avenue. Right near Broadway and Grant, there in that area.
JUDITH: And that’s the location there on the alley…?
JOHN: No, that’s the second location. At that time his sister came from Switzerland. He was a journalist and, uh, a notary public. He was so busy with that he couldn’t take care of the business. So he had his sister come over, and he had his sister run the store. And that’s why you see “A,” because her name was Angelina.
JUDITH: Ah.
JOHN: So they put A. Cavalli, and that’s the way the name … we’re known as Cavalli bookstore, Cavalli Italian. But no one calls us A. Cavalli & Company. [chuckles] But its correct name should be that. And she worked there…
JUDITH: That’s why it’s called A. Cavalli?
JOHN: Right. It was named after her. In other words, she joined him in running the business, you know. Uh, and he also founded the first Swiss-Italian paper in San Francisco. He was from Swiss … from Ticino, in the area above Italy. You know Como, up in that area?
JUDITH: Yeah, like the Lake Country.
JOHN: Lake Country. Right.
JUDITH: How do you spell Ticino?
JOHN: T-I-C-I-N-O. Ticino.
JUDITH: Ticino.
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: In the Italian Lake Country. So he founded the first Italian-Swiss…?
JOHN: …Swiss paper in California.
JUDITH: And that would have been in the same 1880s...?
JOHN: I would say in that area, yeah, in that area.
JUDITH: OK … in California?
JOHN: Right. The store remained there until it was destroyed by the earthquake. The 1906 earthquake and fire.
JUDITH: Oh. That was the one…
JOHN: The east side of Columbus Avenue…
JUDITH: … below Broadway.
JOHN: … uh, between Grant and Broadway. I guess where cafe, Steps of Rome, in that area there, you know, in that block there.
JUDITH: Oh, sure.
JOHN: I would say there.
JUDITH: OK. And it was destroyed in the fire?
JOHN: Yeah. Then in, uh, 1908 they opened where City Lights Bookstore is. [Transcriber’s note: the location of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers is 261 Columbus Avenue.]
JUDITH: OK. That’s what happened.
JOHN: They opened there.
JUDITH: In that very building?
JOHN: In that exact store. In fact, if you go there…
JUDITH: If you look you can see…
JOHN: …and you look on the entrance, on the floor there, you can barely see our name. It’s probably all gone. Written in the terrazzo in front of…
JUDITH: In the tile.
JOHN: Right. And, uh, it stayed there until 1917.
JUDITH: 1970?
JOHN: Seventeen.
JUDITH: Seventeen?
JOHN: Yeah. And then it moved across the alley to where Vesuvio is.
JUDITH: OK.
JOHN: A bigger building. And it stayed there, uh, until 1934…
JUDITH: Ah…
JOHN: …when it came here.
JUDITH: Ah, well the name is still on the Vesuvio building, too. [Transcriber’s note: the location of Vesuvio Cafe is 255 Columbus Avenue. The building was designed by Italian architect Italo Zanolini in 1916.]
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: Did they build that building?
JOHN: I don’t know. I don’t know that.
JUDITH: And that was until 1934?
JOHN: When they came here. And the store was so well known that they … we don’t own this building … they named this building the Cavalli building. They think I own the building, which I didn’t. [chuckles] So we’ve been in here since ’34, in this store.
JUDITH: And this is 1440 Stockton?
JOHN: 41.
JUDITH: 41 Stockton. Well, I’ll be darned. Well, now then when did your, uh, family come in? [Transcriber’s note: the address of the A. Cavalli & Co. bookstore at the time of this interview was 1441 Stockton Street.]
JOHN: My grandmother, whose name was Lena Masetti, M-A-S-E- double T-I.
JUDITH: M-A-S…?
JOHN: …E-T- T-I. Masetti. Uh, well, before that, Angelina who ran the store, uh, she married Luigi Giannone.
JUDITH: Spelling of that?
JOHN: L-U-I-G-I. Giannone. G-I-A-N-N-O-N-E.
JUDITH: Right.
JOHN: And he ran the store. He owned the store. Him and his wife owned the business.
JUDITH: OK.
JOHN: And in that time, in the, uh, ‘20s, late ‘20s, before we moved here, my grandmother … Lena Masetti, worked there.
JUDITH: Ah-ha.
JOHN: And her and my step-grandfather bought the business at that time.
JUDITH: I see…
JOHN: Probably in the late ‘20s. I don’t know the date, but...
JUDITH: Uh-huh. Your step-grandfather, when she remarried?
JOHN: Right. And my grandmother worked here 45 years.
JUDITH: And they bought it in the late ‘20s?
JOHN: I would say, yeah.
JUDITH: And she worked here for 35 years?
JOHN: Forty, 45 years, at least.
JUDITH: Wow. That’s amazing. Did you know her?
JOHN: Who’s that?
JUDITH: Your grandmother.
JOHN: Oh, yeah. She just died last year, 98 years old.
JUDITH: Oh, my.
JOHN: And she was lucid all the way to the end. She was in a rest home for about 10 years, but she knew … she would ask me “how’s the business? You’re still selling?”
JUDITH: And she died in ’95 at 98?
JOHN: Uh, she died in ’95, yeah, at 98.
JUDITH: Wow. And she still had an interest in the…?
JOHN: Well, she would ask me when I’d go see her in the rest home, wanted to know, you know, how things were doing.
JUDITH: Um-hmm.
JOHN: Then in 1938, when my father finished St. Mary’s College, he came to work here.
JUDITH: Oh.
JOHN: And he married my grandmother’s daughter. Who’s my mother now, right. And he stayed here, he bought the business from them in 1957.
JUDITH: OK. He married your mother? And what was her name?
JOHN: Vanna. V-A-double N-A.
JUDITH: And her last name was, uh…?
JOHN: Wait a minute now, let me get…
JUDITH: …was it Masetti?
JOHN: No, wait a minute…
JUDITH: Or was she named for your step-grandfather?
JOHN: No, she was named … I think Mariani. M-A-R-I-A-N-I. After my grandmother’s first husband, named Mariani.
JUDITH: OK.
JOHN: Kept that name.
JUDITH: OK. And your father was…?
JOHN: John P...
JUDITH: P?
JOHN: Yeah. Valentini.
JUDITH: And you’re John…
JOHN: J.
JUDITH: John J. Valentini.
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: And, uh, tell me again, then your mother and your father ran the store together, did you say…?
JOHN: No, my father and my grandmother worked together. My step-grandfather used to own the Italian newspaper, the daily here, L’Italia. [Transcriber’s note: L’Italia was a daily Italian-language newspaper published in San Francisco from the late 19th century through the mid- 20th century. Internet research has provided few details about this publication.]
JUDITH: Oh, yeah.
JOHN: He was the editor of the newspaper. So he was, you know, he had all his business over there. So my father was sort of a junior partner here.
JUDITH: The L’Italia?
JOHN: Yeah, right. And then eventually he…
JUDITH: And what was your step-grandfather’s name?
JOHN: Renato.
JUDITH: R-E-N-A-T-O?
JOHN: Marrazzini. M-A-double R-A-double Z-I-N-I.
JUDITH: Marrazzini.
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: OK. So that, um, and your father and grandmother ran the store?
JOHN: Right, and they had help, I’m sure they had … and, uh, I came to work here. I used to come in the late ‘50s, actually. I’d come to help on Saturdays, you know.
JUDITH: Uh-huh.
JOHN: And after I finished the army, ’58, I came here … ’59 … I came here to work. And I’ve been here ever since.
JUDITH: Are you … was the army your career?
JOHN: No, no, I finished junior college and I went into the army for six months, one of those tourist programs, they called them.
JUDITH: Oh, right.
JOHN: And I got out and I came here, and, uh, I bought the business from my dad in ’78.
JUDITH: Ah-ha.
JOHN: So now me and my wife both own the business.
JUDITH: OK. That’s very interesting … where are your family from in Italy?
JOHN: Uh, my father was born in the United States. He was born in Chicago.
JUDITH: OK.
JOHN: And my mother is from Carrara.
JUDITH: Spelling?
JOHN: C-A-R-R-
JUDITH: The marble?
JOHN: Yeah, it’s in the marble country, C-A-R-R-A-R-A, right.
JUDITH: Ah-ha.
JOHN: But my father’s parents were from Lucca. Tuscany.
JUDITH: That was my next question.
JOHN: Yeah, they were from Lucca.
JUDITH: Northern Italy?
JOHN: Northern Italy, yeah.
JUDITH: And where is Carrara?
JOHN: Carrara is in northern … it’s in Tuscany, the province of Tuscany, where Lucca is.
JUDITH: So both your father and mother are Toscano?
JOHN: Right, both Toscano.
JUDITH: Uh-hmm. And your grandmother, too?
JOHN: Yes.
JUDITH: You’re all northern Italian?
JOHN: Yes, all northern Italian, the whole family.
JUDITH: Yeah … did the L’Italia newspaper succeed the Swiss-Italian newspaper?
JOHN: No. I think they had another paper. Actually, they had two newspapers. They had Voce del Popolo, if I remember well, way down on Columbus, and L’Italia, were the two dailies. [Transcriber’s note: La Voce Del Popolo was a daily Italian-language newspaper published in San Francisco from the late 19th century through the mid- 20th century. Internet research has provided few details about this publication.]
JUDITH: Ah-ha.
JOHN: And L’Italia succeeded until it went out of business in, I don’t know ‘70s, late ‘70s.
JUDITH: The Voce del … the L’Italia?
JOHN: L’Italia, yeah, right.
JUDITH: OK. And we don’t have an Italian paper in the city anymore?
JOHN: No, there’s nothing. There’s a Los Angeles-San Francisco weekly.
JUDITH: Wow.
JOHN: …which is…
JUDITH: It’s still in Italian?
JOHN: It’s some sections. There’s an English section, too.
JUDITH: Uh-huh.
JOHN: But it’s not, you know, what it was.
JUDITH: An LA-SF Weekly?
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: It’s not the same.
JOHN: No, no.
JUDITH: Those papers were, uh, full of all the news? The Italian community…
JOHN: Oh, yeah, they were, everything … the world. There was about a 15-page newspaper. I remember it was quite…
JUDITH: Daily?
JOHN: Daily.
JUDITH: And in Italian?
JOHN: In Italian.
JUDITH: And, uh, that’s interesting that L’Italia lasted until the 1970s.
JOHN: I think. I can’t give you the exact dates … I would that, yeah.
JUDITH: But it was sold…?
JOHN: They sold the building here. Where the bank is now, that used to be the building. Remember that big red brick building?
JUDITH: Oh, right.
JOHN: That was the newspaper. And they sold it to…
JUDITH: What is it, the Western?
JOHN: Western. It was Columbus Savings, actually.
JUDITH: Columbus Savings, yeah.
JOHN: …was the first that opened.
JUDITH: It doesn’t look like that…
JOHN: Then they moved it … they changed the whole building.
JUDITH: It was very much more last century looking.
JOHN: Oh, sure. Then they moved down South of Market, yeah.
JUDITH: So they left North Beach?
JOHN: Yeah, they left North Beach and that was the end of it.
JUDITH: Did you grow up here in the neighborhood?
JOHN: Uh, I was born up on the hill, on Union and Larkin.
JUDITH: Ah.
JOHN: But then when I was six, I think, we moved to San Anselmo.
JUDITH: Uh-huh.
JOHN: And then we came back here in 1948 and we bought … my father had a house built in the avenues, Sunset. I grew up in the Sunset. But I was here 75 percent of the time. I was always in North Beach. I used to belong to the Boys’ Club, things like that...
JUDITH: Well, that was my next…
JOHN: All my activities were around here.
JUDITH: Um-hmm. So you belonged to the, uh…?
JOHN: Salesian Boys’ Club.
JUDITH: Salesian Boys’ Club.
JOHN: Yeah.
JUDITH: And were active in that?
JOHN: Yeah, I was also San Francisco Italian Athletic Club.
JUDITH: And the Athletic Club?
JOHN: Yeah, I was very active.
JUDITH: Are you still in the Athletic Club?
JOHN: Oh, yeah, I still belong, yes.
JUDITH: So you grew up in an Italian community…?
JOHN: Correct.
JUDITH: …family…?
JOHN: Right, right.
JUDITH: …with the festivals and…?
JOHN: That’s right, all that. Sure, sure.
JUDITH: Where did you go to school?
JOHN: I went to Sacred Heart High School.
JUDITH: OK.
JOHN: And then City College. Two year, junior college.
JUDITH: City College?
JUDITH: OK. And did you do sports or anything like that?
JOHN: Yeah, I used to run the … I played basketball and baseball. But I also ran the soccer team for the Athletic Club. During … from about 1969 to about ’75.
JUDITH: Oh, no fooling?
JOHN: Yeah, we had a semi-pro, I was the manager, a little bit about everything, I did that. I was on the board of directors, and, uh, quite a few things.
JUDITH: Um, who else was active in that? Who was telling me about it?
JOHN: Well, that…
JUDITH: There were many of you.
JOHN: Oh, yeah, it’s been there since 1915.
JUDITH: Joe Zambon, the bartender. [Transcriber’s note: Joe Zambon is the subject of an oral history interview by the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, which can be found at https://www.thd.org/oral-history.]
JOHN: Yeah, he was prominent.
JUDITH: You know he was a swimmer, did you know that?
JOHN: Yeah, they had a lot of sports…
JUDITH: He was a champion swimmer...
JOHN: They had a lot of sports in those days, in the early days. And my grandfather, my step-grandfather, was one of the presidents of the club.
JUDITH: Of the Italian Athletic?
JOHN: Yeah, I think he was the second or third president of the club.
JUDITH: Ah-ha. Wait, do you have some idea of its years, when it started?
JOHN: I think 1918, the club started.
JUDITH: And he was the second you think…?
JOHN: I think, yeah, second or third. If you go in the club they have pictures on the wall. They have all the presidents…
JUDITH: Uh-huh.
JOHN: …one of the oldest, older ones.
JUDITH: Do they have any kind of a history…
JOHN: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
JUDITH: …historic history that I could get or talk to about?
JOHN: You’d have to call them. They have a lot.
JUDITH: They have a manager I assume?
JOHN: Oh, yeah. They have a lot of information.
JUDITH: I think I should do that.
JOHN: But that was quite the thing in those days.
JUDITH: Yeah. I took a picture of it the other day.
JOHN: Yeah, that was quite the … they used to have this race, foot-race. They still have it now. Statuto it’s called. [Transcriber’s note: according to the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club’s website, the Statuto Race commemorates the creation of the first Italian Constitution (Statuto Albertino). The first Statuto Race was held in North Beach in 1919, and it has been run every year, except for one year during World War Two.]
JUDITH: The tuto?
JOHN: Statuto.
JUDITH: Statuto.
JOHN: And they still have it. And in those days, I mean you go in you see the pictures, wall to wall people along Stockton Street, you know.
JUDITH: Uh-huh.
JOHN: Now it’s, you get about a couple of hundred runners.
JUDITH: Really? They still do it?
JOHN: They still run it, they still do it, yeah.
JUDITH: Yes, Tom Cara mentioned it. [Transcriber’s note: Thomas Cara is the subject of an oral history interview by the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, which can be found at https://www.thd.org/oral-history.]
JOHN: Yeah, right.
JUDITH: S-T-A-T-U-T-T-O?
JOHN: One T.
JUDITH: Stand on your foot.
JOHN: One T. Statuto means ... actually means, uh … it’s when Italy became…
JUDITH: Statute, it comes from.
JOHN: Yeah, right. There you go.
JUDITH: It’s when Italy got unified?
JOHN: The first Sunday of June, that’s when they have it.
JUDITH: The first Sunday of what?
JOHN: Of June.
JUDITH: Oh.
JOHN: They always have the race on that Sunday because that’s when Italy was … that’s when it was…
JUDITH: Was it its unification?
JOHN: Unification.
JUDITH: Oh, it commemorates Italy’s unification. OK.
JOHN: Right … like the by-laws of Italy, maybe.
JUDITH: Right. So-called constitution.
JOHN: Right, there you go, there you go.
JUDITH: Uh, that’s interesting. I’ll have to check the date when that is. That was in the last century.
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: OK. Well, now, you sell books and papers in Italian here…
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: But they must be from Italy?
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: Do you sell daily newspapers? I just saw that man buy one.
JOHN: Right, dailies. About seven, eight dailies.
JUDITH: Really? From all over Italy?
JOHN: From all over. And all the magazines.
JUDITH: Um-hmm.
JOHN: About 100 different magazines. We’ve always carried them.
JUDITH: Wow.
JOHN: Then music, you know. Books.
JUDITH: Um-hmm.
JOHN: Everything’s Italian. Always geared towards them. We have Italian-American books in English, but everything pertains to Italy. It’s always been like that.
JUDITH: Yes. When you were growing up … I mean when were you born, for example?
JOHN: 1940.
JUDITH: Uh, so you’re … you and I are about the same. Did you have a sense of the regionalism of the Italian community in this area, or was it pretty much merged by that time?
JOHN: Uh…
JUDITH: Tom explained to me that when he was young, there was … the Calabresi were on Kearny Street, the Genovese were on Varennes Alley…
JOHN: Yeah, when I came here, I remember coming here in the late ‘40s, I guess, and it was very, you know, my god, it was wall-to-wall Italian.
JUDITH: Uh-huh.
JOHN: Everything was Italian. The Orientals wouldn’t dare venture past Broadway Street. [chuckles]
JUDITH: Right, right. Uh, but there’d been a lot of intermarriage, I guess, among the regions…
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: …so there wasn’t that factionalism?
JOHN: Oh, no. No more now, no more now.
JUDITH: Uh, what other things do you remember about … social affairs, events…?
JOHN: I remember, uh, they used to have fairs, the parades. Columbus Day parades, you know.
JUDITH: Still a wonderful event.
JOHN: Yeah, they still have it. They used to have a North Beach festival on Stockton Street. All the merchants would give out things. That was in the ‘50s.
JUDITH: Oh, really?
JOHN: They stopped it now. Now they have the North Beach Festival.
JUDITH: It was Tom, I mean Peter Macchiarini mentioned that. They used to have free… [Transcriber’s note: Peter Macchiarini is the subject of two oral history interviews by the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, which can be found at https://www.thd.org/oral-history.]
JOHN: Yeah, they used to have it.
JUDITH: But in the ‘50s it was different then?
JOHN: Yeah, in the late ‘50s and ‘60s.
JUDITH: You said the merchants gave out things?
JOHN: We would give out things, you know, free. But then the Orientals would come in and take everything, so we stopped it. [chuckles] Unfortunate.
JUDITH: What do you think about the fair now?
JOHN: It’s OK. You know, it’s good. I think it’s good. It helps everybody.
JUDITH: Businesses.
JOHN: Yeah, sure people come around.
JUDITH: It was well-attended this year.
JOHN: Yes, it was. They did a good job this year.
JUDITH: It wasn’t dirty or messy.
JOHN: No, compared to last year’s. It’s doing all right, you know.
JUDITH: Well, now did you grow up learning Italian?
JOHN: Up ‘til I was about … I went to school, I didn’t know a word of English. First grade, I remember, my mother told me that one day the teacher called and said “there’s something wrong with your son, he doesn’t seem to understand.” Well, “he doesn’t speak English, that’s why.” So they kept me … gave me special classes or something to learn English. I didn’t know any English. They thought maybe I was stupid. [chuckles] I didn’t understand.
JUDITH: So you’re bilingual?
JOHN: Yeah, and then I talked Italian up ‘til … then eventually I lost it, started to lose it. Then in ‘57, my grandmother, when I finished high school, took me to Italy for a three months vacation, and I picked it up like … and I’ve been ever since then, you know, read it, write it.
JUDITH: Well, it all comes back when you have it inside your brain.
JOHN: That’s right. That’s right.
JUDITH: That’s a wonderful asset, isn’t it?
JOHN: Oh, yeah, it is.
JUDITH: Do you have children who speak English, I mean…?
JOHN: I have a son. I have a son.
JUDITH: Does he speak Italian?
JOHN: Very little.
JUDITH: But it was when you went back after high school...?
JOHN: Right, that I really picked it up. And then I started working here. Actually, in here I had to learn.
JUDITH: Do you speak with a Tuscany accent?
JOHN: Probably.
JUDITH: OK. And your grandmother took you back you said?
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: And did she go there and visit relatives and family and cousins?
JOHN: Family, right.
JUDITH: All around the lake?
JOHN: No, no, that would be my … the ones from Switzerland were no relatives of mine.
JUDITH: Ah-ha.
JOHN: My grandmother bought in ‘18, 1918, whatever that era was. So that was when our family started in. The Cavalli family, we had nothing to do, no relationship.
JUDITH: Yeah, right. But your grandmother came to the States in 1918…?
JOHN: She was from Carrara.
JUDITH: Right. And she came to the U.S. in 1918…
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: …which was right at the height of World War One.
JOHN: Well, maybe it was later than that, I can’t give you the exact dates.
JUDITH: Or after?
JOHN: After, I would say.
JUDITH: And what about your step-grandfather? He’s the only one…
JOHN: He came before, I think. He came before.
JUDITH: OK.
JOHN: Exactly the dates, I don’t know.
JUDITH: Um-hmm. Well, that’s amazing that your parents still spoke only Italian at home into the 1940s.
JOHN: Yeah, they all spoke. Because my dad working here, he had to, you know.
JUDITH: Sure, but now you do it, too.
JOHN: Sure.
JUDITH: Well, when you go back, you said you’re going over next year. Do you go to Italy?
JOHN: Oh, yes, I go. I have some relatives. My wife’s family. Some in Venice, some in Tuscany.
JUDITH: Uh-huh.
JOHN: We go there. Then I go to Milano to do a little bit of business, buy a few things, you know.
JUDITH: Yeah.
JOHN: Try to get there at least every other year.
JUDITH: Oh, how wonderful. What about the merchants in North Beach? We’ve lost a lot of our Italian merchants now.
JOHN: Yeah.
JUDITH: Well, of course it’s been very infiltrated.
JOHN: The handwriting’s on the wall. I hate to say that. Small businesses … have a hard time now.
JUDITH: But, you know, we’ve lost many of our stores. I mean even when I lived here in the late ‘50s when I first came back to school I remember the grocery stores and so on. Did your mother and grandmother do their marketing here?
JOHN: Oh, we always used to buy here.
JUDITH: Yeah, you shopped?
JOHN: Shopped, always here everything here.
JUDITH: Bakeries?
JOHN: Everything. I remember…
JUDITH: Did you grow up with the tradition of opera in your family?
JOHN: Oh, very much so.
JUDITH: OK. Attended? Now there was an opera hall here in North Beach.
JOHN: Right. Used to be, used to be. Called the Milano theater, was that the one?
JUDITH: I think so.
JOHN: Yeah, I remember that.
JUDITH: It wasn’t the one that’s now across from Washington Square?
JOHN: I don’t know. I think it’s where the funeral parlor was.
JUDITH: On Green Street?
JOHN: Yeah, I think it was there. Uh-huh. Don’t quote me, but I think…
JUDITH: And they had Italian opera there?
JOHN: Well, they had like plays.
JUDITH: Ah-ha.
JOHN: They had plays, Italian plays and things. Maybe Fugazi Hall might’ve had something. But I remember, uh, my father was really an opera fanatic. We used to have autograph parties in here during … where all the opera stars used to come. Because in those days, I think, the head of the opera was named Merola. And he used to bring all Italian artists. And we used to have in the late ‘40s to maybe the late … early ‘60s, whenever the opera stars would come we would have autograph parties and the store would be packed. We had Tebaldi and you name it…
JUDITH: Renata Tebaldi? [Transcriber’s note: per Wikipedia, Renata Tebaldi was an Italian soprano in the post-war period who is often considered among the great opera singers of the 20th century.]
JOHN: Gigli … all the famous opera stars all came in here. [Transcriber’s note: per Wikipedia, Beniamino Gigli (1890-1957) is widely regarded as one of the greatest operatic tenors of his generation.]
JUDITH: Who was the second one you mentioned?
JOHN: Renata Tebaldi, Mario Del Monaco. Those were all famous opera stars.
JUDITH: And you remember them?
JOHN: Oh, yes, oh yes. Many, many. And that ended in the late … I’d say early ‘60s. Stopped.
JUDITH: Uh-huh. Did you ever hear them talk about people like Caruso, the Italian tenor…?
JOHN: Oh, yes.
JUDITH: …who refused to come back after the earthquake.
JOHN: No, that’s a little later after that. But Gigli used to come here. A famous tenor…
JUDITH: How do you spell that?
JOHN: G-I-G-L-I.
JUDITH: Oh, Gigli. And he was a famous tenor?
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: Um, and there’s that wonderful picture of Luisa Tetrazzini. [Transcriber’s note: per Wikipedia, Luisa Tetrazzini (1871-1940) was an Italian soprano of great international fame.]
JOHN: Tetrazzini, yeah.
JUDITH: Down at Market Street, singing at Christmas time.
JOHN: Well, I have … some old pictures at home and here, mahogany-framed pictures. Pictures of her, uh, older stars. Tito Scotto and some of these old … they’ve been here since, I guess, the store was founded… [Transcriber’s note: John may be referring to Tito Gobbi here. Gobbi was a famous operatic baritone.]
JUDITH: Wow.
JOHN: …old, old opera stars.
JUDITH: You also have that wonderful picture downstairs that you showed me.
JOHN: Uh-huh. That’s some, I have several pictures here.
JUDITH: Oh, you moved it … covered it up?
JOHN: Yeah, that’s one of the first store.
JUDITH: Of the first store?
JOHN: Of all the locations.
JUDITH: Uh-huh. Did you get through all of your notes by the way?
JOHN: Yeah, I think I … more or less … I told you about the autographs. Then all the Italians would gather here during the’30s and ‘40s and discuss, you know, politics, sports. And also during the war we kept a very low profile in the store, you can imagine. We had a lot of … my father told me … a lot of investigating, listening, spies talking, you heard this. We kept a low profile, nothing happened.
JUDITH: But that was a big factor here…
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: … because we did have internments.
JOHN: Oh, yes. I remember going to Angel Island to bring magazines and … must have been eight, nine years old … bringing magazines to the prisoners of war, the Italian prisoners of war.
JUDITH: Is that where they were interned?
JOHN: Yeah, some were at Angel Island, yeah. I remember going to Angel Island. They were probably in other places.
JUDITH: Uh-huh.
JOHN: I remember that.
JUDITH: And taking magazines, Italian magazines?
JOHN: Magazines, food, you know, with my grandmother...
JUDITH: Wow. Were people bitter about that? Did you hear…?
JOHN: Ah, I guess they were, sure, you know.
JUDITH: Or was the sense that, yes, there were people who were collaborating with…?
JOHN: Oh, there probably was around here. I guess there was in that era, sure.
JUDITH: So it wasn’t the sense of outrage that the Japanese had?
JOHN: I don’t think so, no.
JUDITH: Yeah. There weren’t a lot, as much of it, internment?
JOHN: No, oh no. Not that many, as far as I know.
JUDITH: But, yes, one can envision the store with the Italian languages and people talking about…
JOHN: They would come in and people talking about politics, sports and literature. I used to come in here and … my grandmother would tell me one guy saw it this way … when Italians get ... you get three Italians, you get five ideas, that’s the saying. They always like to, you know [chuckles]…
JUDITH: I love it. Three Italians equal five ideas.
JOHN: Five ideas. Never agree on anything.
JUDITH: And the hands waving.
JOHN: That’s the way we are.
JUDITH: [laughter] Keeps things lively. Right. Well that must have been great. Do you have pictures of those gatherings?
JOHN: No. I have pictures of opera things, but not of those.
JUDITH: Of the opera things you do? Now those would be most interesting.
JOHN: We have some pictures, and there’s some in the museum next door. You know Al Bacarri? [Transcriber’s note: John is referring here to Alessandro Baccari Jr., founder of the North Beach Museum on Columbus Avenue. Baccari, who passed away in 2021, also spent time as a city planner, research economist, radio broadcaster, political speechwriter, lecturer at San Francisco State University, poet, painter, photographer, historian and author of two books, according to his obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle.]
JUDITH: Yeah.
JOHN: He has some pictures we gave him.
JUDITH: From your store?
JOHN: From the museum there.
JUDITH: OK. That’s good to know. Uh, what else was I going to ask you? … oh, well, during big events, Italian events, I mean, the store must have been a gathering place. And if there were events in Italy, I suppose people kind of migrated here to discuss things…?
JOHN: To find out, yeah. I remember my father told me in the ‘30s before Mussolini was … in power, they used to broadcast the speeches. And I have the picture down there that shows people standing in front of Vesuvio Cafe about 10 deep on the street there, listening to speeches by him. Before he became, you know, what he became.
JUDITH: Sure.
JOHN: This was in the late … maybe ’29, ’30, you know, in that era.
JUDITH: Right, right. Now that’s very interesting … now, was this the only store in San Francisco of its kind?
JOHN: Uh, there was in that era, yes. Later on there was a couple…
JUDITH: OK.
JOHN: There was one on Columbus, lower Columbus, that then went out of business. And there was one over here, also on Columbus, that also went out of business.
JUDITH: OK. But Cavalli has succeeded all of them?
JOHN: Yeah, we’ve been here ever since.
JUDITH: Do you know anything more about the Cavalli family and where they came from?
JOHN: They came from Switzerland.
JUDITH: Yeah, well, you did tell me that.
JOHN: So I know that he was a newspaperman, like I told you before, but that’s about it.
JUDITH: OK. He was a newspaperman in Italy?
JOHN: Uh, I don’t know what he was in Italy.
JUDITH: You said he was a journalist.
JOHN: Journalist, a notary. He used to do a lot of things like that.
JUDITH: Uh-huh. Could I just get some particulars here. You’re John P…?
JOHN: J.
JUDITH: J. Valentini.
JOHN: V-A-L-E-N-T-I-N-I.
JUDITH: T-I-N-I?
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: And you were born 1940?
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: You want to give your date?
JOHN: Nine three. September 3rd.
JUDITH: OK. In San Francisco?
JOHN: Right, in San Francisco.
JUDITH: And, uh, you gave me your father’s full name, but let me just get that down again.
JOHN: John P.
JUDITH: He was John P. Valentini?
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: And, uh, he was born in Chicago?
JOHN: In Chicago, right.
JUDITH: Uh, but he was of Lucchese…?
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: … descent.
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: Lucca. And, uh, I guess Peter DeLucca is from Lucca, too? [Transcriber’s note: Judith is referring here to longtime North Beach resident Peter DeLucca.]
JOHN: Yeah, there’s a lot of Lucchese here.
JUDITH: And your father was the owner of the bookstore for many years? And, uh, your mother’s full name was…?
JOHN: Vanna. V-A-N-N-A. Mariani. M-A-R-I-A-N-I.
JUDITH: Mariani Valenti.
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: And she was actually born in Carrara?
JOHN: Yes, right.
JUDITH: Italy.
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: Have you ever been there … to her birth place?
JOHN: Oh, yes.
JUDITH: And she also ran…? No, she was a homemaker.
JOHN: Homemaker.
JUDITH: And is your wife American?
JOHN: No, she was born in Italy.
JUDITH: She was? Would you like to give her name?
JOHN: Rosanna. R-O-S-A-double N-A.
JUDITH: And where was her birthplace?
JOHN: Venice.
JUDITH: Oh. Did you meet her in Italy?
JOHN: I met her here.
JUDITH: Oh. And she’s your co-…?
JOHN: Partner. We’re partners.
JUDITH: Partner in the bookstore. And your son … you have one son?
JOHN: One son.
JUDITH: OK. Do you want to give his name?
JOHN: Eric. E-R-I-C.
JUDITH: Alright. Well, that’s very nice. Maybe when we go downstairs you could talk a little bit about some of those pictures for a minute.
JOHN: OK, sure.
JUDITH: Also, I’d love to take a picture of you outside the store.
JOHN: Sure. Fine.
[Transcriber’s note: at this point, John and Judith move to another location in the Cavalli bookstore and begin looking at photos]
JOHN: [unintelligible words here] …California Historical Society…
JUDITH: Oh, really? Society.
JOHN: Yeah, that’s the picture there. I guess the first store.
JUDITH: 1903?
JOHN: That’s even before, we don’t know the year of the picture.
JUDITH: That’s a wonderful picture. And that’s down, um…?
JOHN: That’s Lower Columbus, by Montgomery Avenue.
JUDITH: Yeah, which would have been right … that’s before the Montgomery Block was built. [Transcriber’s note: per Wikipedia, the Montgomery Block built in 1853 was San Francisco’s first fireproof and earthquake resistant building. It came to be known as a Bohemian center from the late 19th to the middle of the 20th century. It was located at 628 Montgomery Street, today the location of the Transamerica Pyramid. The Montgomery Block was demolished in 1959.]
JOHN: Right.
JUDITH: Uh-huh … In fact, now we would have preferred that they would have kept a little more of the [unintelligible word here] of it.
JOHN: Then from there we went to City Lights.
JUDITH: 1915. Oh, isn’t that wonderful.
JOHN: And then Vesuvio, the big one up there.
JUDITH: And we don’t know if they built that store?
JOHN: I don’t know.
JUDITH: That is such a beautiful building…
JOHN: It is a beautiful building.
JUDITH: Still.
JOHN: I don’t know what they did. And then they came here.
JUDITH: Right … since 1934.
JOHN: That’s the Mussolini speech.
JUDITH: Oh, there they are gathered, outside hearing.
JOHN: That’s the picture, a little faded.
JUDITH: That’s at the Vesuvio site, isn’t it? That’s great.
JOHN: Here’s some of the crowds for the opera stars, in the late ‘50s.
JUDITH: Oh, that’s right here at your store. Look at the hats, the wonderful hats the people wore. My dad still wore a hat ‘til the day he died.
JOHN: That’s some of the opera stars. That’s my dad and my grandmother, then my dad and my grandmother.
JUDITH: Oh, yes.
JOHN: And there’s more of the opera stars. I have many more photographs.
JUDITH: Now what’s that picture, 1965?
JOHN: That’s St. Francis Church. That was just in the scrapbook. I didn’t know it, I just blew it up and put it on the wall.
JUDITH: Oh, my word. Is that the one that was up on Grant?
JOHN: That might be the one … it says Vallejo Street. Would that be the one that’s there, or no? I think so. Might be.
JUDITH: I can’t imagine. And that’s supposed to be one of the oldest churches in the city.
JOHN: That must be that one.
JUDITH: The one right around the corner.
JOHN: It could be.
JUDITH: But it doesn’t look like the same building. Well, it might have burned in the earthquake.
JOHN: That’s right.
JUDITH: But I think it’s on one of the oldest sites of a Catholic church in … the city, certainly. Well, that’s wonderful. Well, let’s go outside. Let’s take a picture if you’d like.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
JUDITH: That concludes the interview with John J. Valentini. Dante Benedetti subsequently told me that Valentini’s father, John P. Valentini, had been born or lived as a youth on Jasper Alley in North Beach, running next to Dante’s New Pisa restaurant between Green and Union streets.