Now 94, Rita Angelina has seen Gilroy grow
By Jen Penkethman Special to the dispatch
Gilroy – Rita Angelino is a petite woman with friendly eyes who, when asked whether Gilroy has changed since she was born, is likely to exclaim, “And how!”
She also happens to be 94. Age has hardly taken its customary toll on her memory, though.
“I was born in 1912,” she said. “I remember when Gilroy had no electricity, and we were all going around in horse-and-buggies. You could get fish delivered to your door, and the butcher came every morning with meat.”
Angelino was born and grew up in Gilroy, where she was part of a family steeped in Gilroy’s agricultural past. Many members of her family – “all full Italian,” she is proud to say – were farmers or worked at Gentry Foods, where they canned and picked produce. Angelino has more than a passing familiarity with the company, which is now apart of Gilroy Foods.
“When I was 10 I worked in the cannery canning prunes and tomatoes,” she recalled. This wouldn’t be legal today, and it wasn’t in 1922, either – Angelino was one of many children who worked illegally in the factory. The only way the children could stay hidden from inspectors was if a supervisor blew a whistle in warning of the inspector’s arrival. On hearing the whistle, the underage workers could scurry off to hide behind a building.
“It was hard work,” Angelino said. “I think our wage was about 10 cents.”
Like many women of her generation, Angelino did not attend high school. Instead, she finished eighth grade at St. Mary’s, and then spent the rest of her life raising a family. She stayed close to her agricultural roots, raising crops and livestock with her husband, a farmer. The land she lived on and helped farm has all but disappeared under housing developments, she said.
She also has been a wife and mother. Her three children, John, Arnold, and Debbie, were from her first marriage. She went on to remarry and still carries that name. She is stepmother to her second husband’s children, Frank, Laura and Geraldine Meacham. Now a widow, Angelino spends her time seeing friends and playing card games. She has a special passion for the game Pedro, which she plays often with her good friend Juanita Wallace, also of Gilroy.
“She has a very sharp mind for someone her age,” Wallace said admiringly of her friend. The two have known each other for 40 years.
Through it all, Angelino never left Gilroy, and has lived in more than one of its four corners. She remembers attending the Garlic Festival in its first years, though it’s grown too big for her to attend anymore. She says longevity runs in her family – she has a younger sister, Margaret, who is 91 and has also lived in Gilroy all her life.
When she thinks back to the change she has seen in the span of her lifetime, Angelino is amazed.
“I used to walk to St. Mary’s when there were no cars. Now Gilroy is a lot busier,” Angelino said. When asked what she likes most about the town she has spent 94 years in, Angelino replied, “Everything.”
