Petaluma native enjoys life on childhood farm

Fred Guglielmetti still lives on the beautiful 1,700-acre west county dairy ranch where he was born in 1918.|

Not many Petalumans can claim they still live in the house they were born in or that the scenic landscape surrounding it has barely changed since their childhood. But, most weren’t born on a beautiful 1,700 acre west county dairy ranch like Fred Guglielmetti was in 1918.

Standing near the comfortable home built in 1917 by his parents, Alfred and Katherine Guglielmetti, 97-year-old Fred Guglielmetti motions across a wide expanse of jaw-dropping panoramic views of verdant hills and lush, grass-covered pastureland encompassing some of the most picturesque scenery this county has to offer.

“This has been a great year for the grass,” Guglielmetti said of the welcomed rainfall, while pointing out an area that was once planted with 40 acres of Zinfandel grapevines before gesturing to another spot where a large apple orchard and an apple and hops dryer once stood.

Out back, near the last remnants of an old picket fence, sits the dilapidated skeletal remains of the 19th-century house where his grandfather, the early Petaluma farmer Giovanni Guglielmetti, lived with his wife and their five children.

The ranch, located about seven miles west of Petaluma, was later operated by Giovanni Guglielmetti’s sons Alfred, Robert and William. As successful ranchers, they had nearly every modern convenience from that era, except for telephone service, which was quickly becoming popular in town.

Wishing to bring state-of-the-art telephone service to their rural area, the Guglielmetti family took it upon themselves to install poles and string wire linking Petaluma to their Spring Hill Road ranch, ultimately creating the Guglielmetti Telephone Company, a rural farmer line with an office in Petaluma. Though the exact dates of the company’s formation are in question, reports indicate it was founded in either 1904 or 1909. The service eventually reached to Penngrove, Cotati, Hessel Station and other points, growing to more than 800 customers before being sold to Pacific Telephone in 1949.

In addition to the telephone company, William and Robert Guglielmetti partnered together in operating of two automobile franchises. One was an Oldsmobile dealership and the other was Petaluma’s first Dodge dealership, which included two weeks of driver training with each vehicle sold. William Guglielmetti also had a hardware store and a machine shop.

“He had a lot of irons in the fire,” said Fred of his most admired uncle.

As a kid, Fred Guglielmetti attended elementary school at the old Iowa School on Purvine Road and graduated Petaluma High School in 1935. He was best friends with his cousin Bob Corippo and the two of them often met in town to roller skate on the concrete at the train depot, where he lost a lot of skin, and to play marbles in former Argus-Courier columnist Bill Soberanes’ driveway. The two cousins were once hired to stack hay in a neighboring barn for $1.50 a day, including lunch. They must have done a good job because they were hired back the next year and paid $1.75 a day.

Around 1940, changes at the ranch prompted Fred to take a job in the machine shop at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, where he learned the relatively new trade of welding. While there, he was told by the Draft Board to go home and prepare to be drafted, which he did, but the draft orders never came.

In the mid-1950s, Fred married his late wife Phyllis, who did all the cooking at the ranch, and together they raised their two children John and Kathy, and his stepson Tom Logan. Hunting and fishing have always played a big part in Guglielmetti’s life, and with thousands of acres of pristine land available on the adjoining properties, he and his neighbors enjoyed abundant deer hunting in the surrounding hills and bountiful duck hunting on the nearby lagoon. The family reservoir was always stocked with black bass and bluegill and ocean salmon fishing was just a short drive away, but once Fred discovered fly fishing, it became an obsession of his.

While admitting to slowing down a bit - he turns 98 in June - he still likes to “putter around and fix stuff” and his property reflects his resourcefulness. With his welder, he’s built all the gates, metal pipe fences and cattle guards and he continues to mend crumbling wooden fence posts with epoxy glue that bonds two old posts to make a single sturdy one. He still drives, both his car and his Gator ATV, and continues to smile a lot when reminiscing about the good old days.

A hearty thank you goes to Solange Russek of the History Room and to historian Jack Withington for providing information for this column.

(Harlan Osborne’s column Toolin’ Around Town appears every two weeks. Contact him at harlan@sonic.net.)

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy:
  • This is a family newspaper, please use a kind and respectful tone.
  • No profanity, hate speech or personal attacks. No off-topic remarks.
  • No disinformation about current events.
  • We will remove any comments — or commenters — that do not follow this commenting policy.