The residential area of Petaluma’s old East Side, which still includes most of its original houses, has changed very little over the years. The older dwellings along Wilson, Edith, Vallejo and East D streets remain standing and are aging gracefully. Unfortunately, those that once stood on East Washington St. were removed years ago.
Granted, the old East Side is no longer considered the “factory district,” where a silk mill, a tannery, a shoe factory, and a feed mill once employed hundreds of blue collar workers. And many of the long-time families have moved on. But in our memories, it’s still the family-friendly, working class neighborhood where kids played in the street and shoppers patronized nearby grocery stores, meat markets, barber shops, taverns and gas stations. And no East-Sider will ever forget the sights and sounds of the freight trains or the howl of the Poultry Producer’s daily whistle.
In a recent conversation with Kathleen Martini, a former fourth-generation East Petaluma resident who grew up on Edith St., we not only reminisced about our East Side childhood, but also delved back in time to when her great-grandparents - Italian immigrants Egidio and Inez Martini, along with their three-year-old son Dino - came here in 1906, when Petaluma’s population was about 5,000 residents.
The family had lived in San Francisco for three years before moving to Petaluma, following the 1906 earthquake. Egidio Martini became a warehouseman for G.P. McNear Co., where he worked for 46 years. Between 1919 and 1929, Egidio and son Dino, who was known as Frank, built three houses side-by-side at 234, 236, and 238 Edith St. When Dino married Chriska Peters, whose parents had immigrated from the Isle of Fohr, the couple moved into 238 Edith St, where they raised their two sons, Lawrence and Frank, while Dino worked at several Petaluma feed mills.
As a kid, Lawrence, known as Larry, was an enterprising young lad, who scoured the neighborhood for discards, which he would sell. At Petaluma High School, Class of ’39, he was a three-year starter on the football team. After serving in the U.S. Merchant Marines during World War II, he started a vending machine business, L&M Sales, which placed and serviced juke boxes, cigarette machines, pool tables and pinball machines in local establishments. He later added coin operated horsey rides, and much later, video games. Martini’s business, which began in a warehouse behind his residence, relocated to an East D St. location, and became Santa Rosa Cigarette Service before moving to Rohnert Park and changing its name to Coin Amusement, Inc.
In the late 1950s, he helped his father acquire Studdert’s Cigar Store, together with Robert Martinez, it became Frank & Marty’s Smoke Shop. Additional interests included partnering in a trucking business with hay and grain dealer Cliff Paris and investing in East Petaluma real estate. When his business ventures prospered, Martini purchased 910 D Street, for $35,000, in 1959.
He and his wife, June, were the parents of four daughters, Charlene, Kathleen, Lorrie and Linda. Primarily a homemaker, June Martini was active in the hospital auxiliary, Petaluma Woman’s Club and the F.I.S.H. food pantry. The family enjoyed vacationing together and spending time at their summer home in Rio Nido.
Kathleen Martini worked at various businesses around town and was the only one of the four Martini sisters who didn’t work for her father. Long-gone businesses Mattei Bros., Carithers Dept. Store, Chandler’s Dairy and Bud’s Pawn Shop, were among her former employers. A 1966 graduate of PHS, she and her sister Charlene were among a group of Petaluma High students that traveled around Europe in summer of 1964, chaperoned by art teacher Meg Chase, as part of the American Institute for Foreign Study.
Married three times, Kathleen was working at Bank of America when she wed native Petaluman and drywall contractor Ralph Tiemann. The marriage produced a son, Matt, and a daughter, Mia. After divorcing, she married John Hassold, a building contractor whose legacy included renovating their residence at 853 D St. into a memorable Heritage Home. She then married a San Francisco police department sergeant, Paul Largent, who died in 1995. Together, they had a son, Larry.
She operated Kathleen’s Capelli Nail Salon, before moving Scottsdale, Arizona, and then to Lake Charles, Louisiana, where she restored an old farm house. Now living in Rohnert Park, she actively pursues her passion of home decorating by staging property listings and working as a caregiver for In-Home Support Services.
Well-traveled, poised and congenial, Martini breaks into smile when she recounts how her father, who was married to her mother for 50 years, gave his four daughters hands away in marriage a combined 13 times, and would have welcomed his 14th son-in-law had he lived just a little longer.
A big thank you goes to Joanna Kosolov of the History & Genealogy Library for helping research this story.
(Harlan Osborne’s column ‘Toolin’ Around Town’ appears every two weeks. Contact him at harlan@sonic.net)
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