Mike Read/Pages From The Past
(Editor’s Note: This column recounts the news of Novato through the pages of the Novato Advance. It is compiled by the Novato Historical Society.)
100 Years Ago
January 1922
– Lyndall Cardellini has filed a suit for divorce from Primo Cardellini on the grounds of extreme cruelty, through her guardian, Mrs. Laura J. Wheeler. The plaintiff in the action, who is 16 years of age, set forth a long list of cruelties in her complaint.
– Sunday was the day set aside to raise $7,500 for a Community House at Novato but the subscriptions exceeded the expectations of the committee in charge and $10,500 was subscribed. Novato certainly has the community spirit and a fine lot of enterprising people.
– A mass meeting was held at the Community House. The officers for the Community House Council were elected as follows: president, Mr. Christiansen; vice president, W.E. Cole; secretary, C.E. Carlile; treasure, Mrs. J. Stutt. A council of ten are to be appointed by the president.
75 Years Ago
January 1947
– Claiming the distinction of being the first Hi-Y Club in Marin County a group of 28 high school boys are meeting each Thursday night at the Community House. This club is affiliated with the Marin County Y. M. C. A. and sponsored by the Novato Community Church. Mr. Dick Harris, director of youth work for the Church, is serving the club as adviser. The boys have chosen the name “Pirates Hi-S,” and are now busy meeting the charter requirements of the Y. M. C. A.
– Mr. and Mrs. Harry Hill expect to occupy their new home on Wilson Avenue about the first of February, according to the contractor Fred Everet. The place is being built on a portion of land owned by Mr. and Mrs. George Leghitto. Everet is also building a home for Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Hirst on Vineyard Road, on land owned by Ed Legnitto.
– The election on the proposal for joining the Black Point and Novato school districts, Novato residents voted164 for and 13 against, while Black Point residents cast 70 ballots for and 16 against. The unification goes into effect July 1, 1947. Black Point owns its school and the land on which it stands and its 35-passenger school bus. Novato owns its school building, bult at a cost of $30,000 years ago, but not the land on which it stands, which if not used for school purposes must revert to the Sweetser estate of which Mrs. Burdell is the heir.
– Charles Jensen is building four five-room homes, each on a one-fourth acre tract on the former Barney property, Eucalyptus Avenue and Center Road, purchased by him. The first house has been purchased by the Jack Sparrows, who are moving there early in February from the apartment in the medical building on Grant Avenue.
50 Years Ago
January 1972
– The city hall will be celebrating its 12th birthday this week and at the birthday party (a dinner-dance Friday at the Community House), special recognition of individuals and presentation of special awards will take place. The city council is using the occasion to inaugurate an annual “citizen of the year” award. The first award will go to Lee Wise, PG&E manager, who will be retiring next month. Head of the Novato office since 1954, he has served on the city’s underground utilities committee, the plan review committee, and planning commission. In addition to this and other community activities, he has been called Novato’s ”sixth councilman,” because of his regular attendance at council meetings over the years. In the future the council, instead of making the selection, will solicit nominations from the community and establish selection procedures for making the annual award presentation. Congratulations Lee, from us at the Advance.
– Mayor Joseph D. Gargiulo yesterday confirmed he would not seek reelection to the city council and announced that he would run for the office of Marin County superintendent of Schools in 1974.
– Partners Vinee Severietti and Milt Nenneman of Novato Pharmacy, 1316 Grant Avenue, have acquired the prescription files of the closed McCarthy the Apothecary drug store in Novato Fair Shopping Center. Severietti says the files contain approximately 400 prescription customers, which adds roughly 30 percent to the Novato Pharmacy files. Novato Pharmacy also purchased prescription merchandise from McCarthy, according to Severietti. Novato Pharmacy is now in its 10th year at the present location and under the Severietti-Nenneman ownership for 3 1/2 years. The store has a “grand old name in Novato” —it was founded 58 years ago where Perry’s Delicatessen now thrives on the northeast corner on Highway 101 and Grant Avenue.
– Bill Johnson who has owned and operated San Rafael Auto Radiator Service for the past two years has opened Novato Auto Radiator Service at 873 Vallejo Avenue, managed by Chris Dunbar. For six years before he opened his present business, Johnson owned and operated AAA Radiator and Auto Air Conditioning in San Rafael. He was trained as a cooling system and air conditioning system control specialist at the Fisher plant in St. Louis.
25 Years Ago
January 1997
– Three weeks into his new job as Supervisor of Marin County’s 4th District, the walls of Steve Kinsey’s Civic Center office are still bare. But the paperwork —on at least a dozen subjects, all seemingly jockeying for priority—is piling up. Kinsey, who lives in Forest Knolls and now fills the job held by Gary Giacomini for 24 years, has plunged into the job, which includes such unglamorous but gritty issues as an aging and polluting dump and configuring Marin’s transit future. In a conversation Monday afternoon, Kinsey, 44—who grew up in Delaware, the son of a DuPont executive—talked about Marin, Novato, and the county’s problems, challenges and opportunities.
– Novatan Dietrich Stroeh has been appointed to the Golden Gate Bridge District board. Stroeh was chosen by Marin County Supervisors to replace C. Paul Bettini, who retired after 26 years on the board. Stroeh, 60, is a former director of the Marin Municipal Water District. He is a principal in the Novato engineering firm of CSW/Stuber Stroeh. Stroeh was chosen from a field of finalists that included former Novato Mayor Bernard Meyers, former Sausalito Mayor Raymond Buddie and Marin Airporter owner Grace Hughes.
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