Our Family
Francesco Crinella
Anna Crinella
Domenico Zurlo
Theresa Zurlo
Marino Crinella
Marian Zurlo Crinella
Uncle Domenic
Uncle Lou
Aunt Marguerite
Cousin Marina
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Our History •
Wine Beginnings •
Our Family
Domenico Zurlo
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Domenico "Il Vecchio" Zurlo was
born in about 1860, in
Cercemaggiore, a small, remote
village in the steep mountains of the
Abruzzi, a region due East of Rome
which also is on the Adriatic. ( It has
since been split in two and
Cercemaggiore is now in what is
called Molise.) Even today Via Zurlo
is still a main road in the area as it
has been for hundreds of years.
Prior to the unification of Italy by
Garibaldi in 1865, various parts of
Italy were ruled as city states and
samll principalities. The Abruzzi was
ruled by the Spanish Bourbons who
had initiated a disastrous policy a few
years before Domenico was born that
devastated the economy and caused
the deaths of millions of people. It
also brought about the emigration of
hundreds of thousands of Italians to
America.
For thousands of years the Abruzzi
and neighboring regions of Italy had
been economically self sufficient.
Farming was the backbone of the
region. Soils were good and people
lived simple but contented lives for
the most part. To be sure, they had
heard of the huge gold and silver
strikes in California and the vast fortunes that were being made. Perhaps it was pleasant to
dream for a moment or two about going to America. But less than a few thousand Italians actually
migrated until the 1880's.
Our grandfathers family were townspeople, what are called artisans, that is people of some
education who provided goods and services to the local people, such as tailors, jewelers, or
bootmakers. One branch of the family was related to the family of King Umberto, very distantly it
seems, as when Umberto was touring California and Grandpa paid a call on him, Grandpa was not
received. ("Given the bums rush" as Nona Zurlo later explained it.)
Industrialization had swept Europe in the 1800's but Italy was far behind, principally because
it had almost no natural resources to run plants and factories except a little coal up in Le Marche
where the Crinellas lived. In a scheme to modernize the regions under their control the Spanish
Bourbons began a policy of deforestation in much of southern Italy. Instead of farms, the
Bourbons would have factories and plants which would be fueled by wood instead of coal, gas and
steam. Thousands and thousands of acres of trees were cut down,
to supply the factories which caused flooding and loss of habitat for wild life and hunting. The top
soil of the region was washed away and the farms failed. Swamps were created where mosquitos
thrived and caused widespread malaria epidemics which killed hundreds of thousands.
In the days when our grandfather was growing up there, the Abruzzi had already been
energized by interest in California, no doubt fueled by the stories of the gold rush and vast
fortunes which were found there.
In 1853 the peasants of Vasto, a town near Grandpaˆs, had protested the Bourbon
deforestation of the Abruzzi. They wrote a letter to the Bourbon minister complaining about the
policy and asking the that it end or "the undersigned and all the inhabitants of the Abruzzo region
will be compelled to emigrate to California."
As a young man, the option of emigrating was always an alternative for Domenico to the
extreme economic hardship and he also had a wanderlust that would remain unquenched
throughout his life. He sailed to New York and then traveled by train to Los Angeles, where he
took up his cobbler's trade while waiting to make his fortune in the next California gold rush. He
soon turned to real estate and developed a reputation among the Italian immigrant community in
Los Angeles, as a bon vivant, a somewhat Bohemian character, who with little encouragement
other than a glass of wine or two, spouted poetry of Dante or sang arias from Verdi and Rossini in
a beautiful tenor voice.
Although not an American citizen, Grandpa Zurlo served with Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish
American war. After his adventure in Cuba, he learned of a huge new gold strike in Alaska. He
sold everything he owned to finance his expedition to the north and joined the rush to the
Klondike in the Yukon Territory.
Life in the mining camps was very primitive with temperatures that went to 40 degrees below
zero in the winter. The reality soon caused him to abandon Alaska and return to California
although he probably did hit a strike of some sort.
He next turned some profitable real estate deals that made him wealthy by most standards of
the day. Certainly, he had enough for our gandmonthers aunt to promote a marriage between her
niece and Domenico. Perhaps the aunt had also convinced Domenico that his life would be much
happier with a good wife and children, too, although he was perhaps ill-suited for the day-to-day
routine of marriage. In 1902, when he was about 40 years old he married 16 year old Theresa
Azarro, who had traveled from Italy to join him in Los Angeles. His occupation at this time was
real estate. He was considered a "good catch" by Theresa'a aunt. A respected, prosperous
landowning husband seemed to be the highest good fortune that could befall a poor, young girl
from a non landowning family in the old country, granted they had the advantage of being
"townspeople".
Although both Theresa and Domenico seemed to have been romantics in their own ways, their
marriage must have disappointed both of them. Domenico was almost 25 years older than his
wife, yet Theresa seemed to have been the more practical of the two. She wanted security for her
children and did not have the thirst for the huge fortune that Domenico had his heart set on.
In those days, California had frequent boom or bust cycles and Grandpas fortune always
seemed to mirror California's with many ups and downs. Much to Theresa's displeasure, he
speculated heavily in beach front property in Santa Monica which he thought would be worth quite
a lot. (Time certainly proved him right but not soon enough to benefit the family.)
Soon after their marriage the first of Domenico, and Theresa's children our mother Marian was
born in 1904. Our Uncle John was born in l908. During this time the family moved somewhere
near a racetrack, possibly Santa Anita. One day Grandpa Zurlo told his wife that he was going
over to the racetrack 'to see what they do there.' It seems at this time that his natural thirst for
adventure and thrills burst into an unquenchable lust for gambling which caused the loss of the
real estate the family owned in combination with a downward blip in the California economy. So,
as often happens in life, the reason the marriage was entered into was altered, leaving the very
conditions that our grandmother had sought to escape.
The family moved around California and even lived for a time in Colusa near where we now own
about seven hundred acres of rice farmland. Four more children followed Vincenzo, Michele,
Colombo, and Margarita. They finally settled in Santa Rosa as Grandpa Zurlo sought to regain his
fortune. Domenico founded a cobblerˆs shop that included delicatessen, next door,featuring the
Italian cuisine prepared by his wife, Theresa. There, he held court, singing, spouting philosophy
and poetry, or regaling his listeners with the Italian folk tales from Boccacio's Decameron. Often
he would go to Glen Ellen and discuss literature with Jack London over a glass or two of wine.
Once, he decided his true calling in life was to write operas
and he launched with enthusiam into this new career. Upon advice from Jack London, he hired a
secretary to type his libretto. Nona Zurlo promptly fired the secretary and put an end
to that venture. During the early 1920's with his wifeˆs help, he became well to do again but even
before the Great Depression fell over the land he had made another error which caused him to
lose much of what he had accumulated. He was too old and discouraged to start up once more.
The family lost almost everything they had except the family home. Next, he drifted about the
state in an aimless search of a new fortune. A good deal of his time was spent gold prospecting in
the Mojave Desert, but he was never to strike it rich. When we were very young sometimes
Grandpa Zurlo would turn up at Nona Zurlos home on "F" Street in Petaluma. He was always
elegantly dressed about the house in a suit and white shirt. Then, he would be off again on some
new adventure, confident when he had his new fortune he would be redeemed in the eyes of the
family. That was never to be. It is likely if he had made a thousand fortunes he would never have
been forgiven by his wife, a proud and practical woman who had to shoulder his share of family
responsibility. He died a sad and puzzled man who never understood how it was that the golden
promise of California had escaped him.
Grandpa Zurlo was a gourmet, or more accurately a bacchanalian, who ate and drank with
great enthusiasm. He would hold forth at the dinner table, telling his stories, and no one was
permitted to leave the table, not even to remove a dish. He probably drank more wine than he
should have, and this became a source of friction between him and his wife, and also his children.
But, he was knowledgeable about food and drink, had strong preferences, and was particular
about the way in which each dish was prepared. Nona Zurlo admitted that she learned a great
deal about Italian cuisine from Grandpa Zurlo, "Il Vecchio."
Grandpa Zurlo loved poetry, drama, the movies, and especially the operas of Verdi, Puccini,
Donizetti, and Leoncavallo. Once, the great Caruso came to San Francisco to sing with the opera,
in "I Pagliacci." Grandpa took the train up from Los Angeles and made his way to the opera
house, but found that there were no tickets left. Along with many other disappointed opera buffs,
he hung around the stage door entrance to catch a glimpse of the great Caruso. Leaving the
building, Caruso was touched by the large crowd awaiting his exit, who had not been able to see
him perform. Standing in his carriage, he sang a few arias, a cappella, including "vesti la giubba"
from I Pagliacci. It was arguably the high point of Grandpa Zurlo's life, and he told the story over
and over again. The next day the great earthquake hit San Francisco shortly after Grandpa had
caught the train back to Los Angeles.
Years before, on his first trip to the New York Metropolitan Opera, Caruso had ordered chicken
livers and spaghetti, a rather commonplace dish in his hometown of Naples, at an Italian
restaurant. The chef did not know how to prepare the dish, and Caruso went into the kitchen to
instruct him. Later, the dish became known in the United States as "Spaghetti a la
Caruso." Given Grandpa Zurlo's great affection for Caruso, Grandpa adopted the dish as his own favorite.
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