VLADISLAVICH TO SLAVICH
PRIESTS TO MILITARY
HEROES AND GOLDMINES
Adam S. Eterovich
Some
of theVladislavich pioneers changed their name to Slavich in America. Most came
from Dalmatia and the Vladislavich from the Island of Brac, Dalmatia, Croatia.
Ivan Slavich was commander of the first armed helicopter unit in American
military history in Vietnam and it is interesting that his father, Ivan
Slavich, served in the American Army in France during World War 1. These
Croatian pioneers became night club owners, military heroes, produce merchants,
vineyardists, doctors, mayors, goldminers and priests. They left their mark and
contribution to the making of a great nation, America.
Mayor-Military-Doctor of Medicine
Dr.
John F. Slavich, 69, was Mayor of Oakland, California from 1941 to 1945 and a
member of the City Council for 16 years.
A native of Portland, Oregon, and a graduate of the University of
California in 1904, Dr. Slavich served in World War I as a captain in the medical
corps. He had for many years been active in the American Legion and was State
commander of the group in 1926-27. In 1926 he was named Oakland city physician
and in 1931 was elected to his first term as a member of the City Council. Dr.
Slavich was a past state deputy of the Knights of Columbus and a member of the
Oakland Elks and Moose Lodges, the Alameda County Medical Assn. and the Alameda
County Insanity Panel.
Night and Club Restaurant
Nick
Slavich. I kept seeing John
Barrymore sitting on his favorite bar stool, drinking 15-cent sherry and
reading a radio script. And you could practically hear Al Jolson’s voice, off
in a corner of the dining room, as he hummed through a tune he planned to use
on his show. Somebody hollered out
“Wanna buy a duck?” as he walked by Joe Penner, and Glenn Miller was discussing
some new tunes with song pluggers.
Ghosts” No, just memories. But there were at least a million of them
when the historic old Melrose Grotto
reopened yesterday. Nick Slavich opened the old grotto back
in the depression days and it soon became a popular hangout for the radio and
motion picture crowd. One reason was its
location, because NBC soon opened up it’s West Coast headquarters next door and
the actors, writers, directors, musicians, producer, —practically
everybody—naturally gravitated to Nick’s
Grotto. Through the years
practically all the top names in show business looked upon the Grotto as a
second home or office. On any given day
you could meet Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Dorothy Lamour, Ray Noble,
Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, any one of the Barrymores, Parkyakarkus, Ed Wynn and
scores of other people up and down the talent ladder. A few years ago Nick made a few million
dollars or some equally fantastic sum and sold out. Born Nikola Slavich in 1902 in Mirce on the
Island of Brac, Dalmatia, Croatia, Nick came to the United States at the age of
eleven. He worked in the restaurant
business in Los Angeles during the 1920s and opened “Slavich’s Grill” in San
Jose, California.
Vineyard-Fruit
John
Slavich, one of the largest fruit producers in this country, was born in San
Francisco in 1899 to parents who had immigrated from Croatia in 1897.
He
entered the grape growing and shipping business under the firm name of Delmonte Fruit Company. In 1929 he
established in New York a marketing business under his own name. He died
in May, 1959.
Restaurant and Goldminer
Lorenzo
V. Slavich was born on October 30, 1857,
in Dalmatia, Croatia, Island of Brac,
town of Mirce. Lorenzo V. Slavich attended the public schools of Mirce until he
had reached the age of fifteen, when he sailed for America. His uncle, the late George Slavich, was
proprietor of the Union Restaurant,
the oldest business of the kind in San Jose. Thrilled with the stories of
wealth to be found in mining, he went to Amador County, where he entered the
employ of the Plymouth Consolidated Mining Company, working in their mill;
later he removed to Eldorado County, where a large flume was in the course of
construction for carrying water for placer mining. He became and American citizen while
residing in Eldorado County. He was now
twenty-one years old, and concluded to return to San Jose. He conducted a billiard parlor for a time
during 1882, but sold out and invested the procedes in a restaurant in Gilroy.
In May 1897, Mr. Slavich purchased a restaurant business in San Jose on June
25, 1897. He organized and named the
Slavonian-American Benefit Society of San Jose in 1894, with a charter
membership of thirty-eight, and was president for eleven consecutive
years. He is also and active member of
the Italian Benevolent society of San Jose, and was a charter member of the
Chamber of Commerce. Since the founding
of the San Jose branch of the Bank of Italy, Mr. SLavich has been a member of
the board of directors.
Cooperage Business
John
Slavich. A prominent manufacturer of Fresno, California is John Slavich, whose
firm, John Slavich & Sons, Cooperage, is the only locally owned barrel
factory in Fresno County, and has been in operation here for over twenty years.
Mr.
Slavich is a native of Dalmatia, Croatia, born on October 12, 1876. He learned the cooperage business in his
native country and came to San Francisco when he was twenty-two years old. Three brothers had preceded him to
California, and it was not long before he was well established in business in
this country. Soon after arrival in
California he paid a visit to Fresno, but did not stay here long, and went back
to San Francisco. However, Mr. Slavich
ultimately returned to Fresno and established the business which bears his
name, and which has grown during Mr.
Slavich belongs to Croatian organizations in Fresno as well as in San
Francisco. He is affiliated with the
fraternal order of the Eagles.
Clerk of the Municipal Court-Military
Ivan
Slavich. "There was not a breath of scandal in my 19 years as clerk of the
Municipal Court of San Francisco." Slavich is now 65 and he retired last
October. He spent 40 of those 65 years working inside City Hall. He went to
Washington Grammar school, the old High School of Commerce and San Francisco
Business College. He was a sergeant in charge of an ammunition train at the
front in France in World War I and he was gassed in the Meuse-Argonne
offensive. After the First World War, Slavich returned to San Francisco,
completed his education and, in 1921, got a clerk's job in the city auditor's
office. Jimmy Rolph was mayor.
Altogether, Slavich served under five San Francisco mayors-James Rolph,
Angelo Rossi, Roger Lapham, Elmer Robinson and George Christopher.
Military-Pilot-Hero
Ivan
Slavich. The civilian in front of me, Mr. Ivan Slavich, a prosperous
middle-management executive with McGuire Properties, a very successful
Charlotte commercial real estate firm, was no longer Col. Ivan Slavich of the
United States Army. Twenty years ago,
when I was a young reporter in Vietnam, he had been the commander of the first
armed helicopter unit in American military history, a legendary figure, a man
of such skill and drive and bravery that he was for a time perhaps the most
admired officer in the country. There is
an efficiency report from those days marked by his superiors-including Brig.
Gen. Joe Stilwell Jr., known as a tough grader-measuring Ivan against a
presumed group of 100 other Army officers and giving him a perfect 100. No one,
Stilwell wrote, was responsible for saving as many American lives in
Vietnam. Two years ago, I had written a
memoir for Parade about Vietnam and I had said of him “the
bravest man I had ever known”. I
knew precious little of his background, only that his father has been involved
in San Francisco politics. His grandfather, I found out, had come from Croatia,
was a barrel maker in the California wine country. His father, Ivan Slavich
Sr., was a clerk of the municipal court and a local Democratic pol in San
Francisco. Everyone had known him in
Saigon, and when he was in a room, there had always been a special deference to
him, other grown men always waiting to know what he was thinking. Parade
Magazine.
Goldmine
George
Vladislavich-Slavich was born on the Island of Brac, Dalmatia, Croatia. George
embarked from Trieste on 1st December 1874 on the ship Gloria as a seaman.
He first came ashore on the North American continent in the territory of
Alaska in 1875. He didn’t stay long here
but immediately went south to California.
It was sometime in the year, 1875, that he came to the gold range in
Amador County known as Placerville by name and others called it Pokerville. The
name of this camp has since been changed
to Plymouth. The mining activity around
Plymouth was going along very well when George arrived. He worked for the established mining company
in the area and also started out his own claims on virgin ground adjoining the
mine property. One of his claims proved to be very important and the
Plymouth Consolodated Mining Company purchased it. He received cash and
stock in the company which was at that time the most productive mine in the
mother-lode. In 1883 this mine produced
one million dollars worth of gold. There
were about 150 men employed by the mine.
The mine paid a total of $2,800,000 dividends by the year 1887. George
Slavich from the date of his arrival in 1874 until the date of his death in
1925 lived in the city of Plymouth. His
grave is in the city cemetery right next to his long time friend George
Petrinovich. During their lifetime the two Georges spent many hours in
lively conversation. Those who remember
say that every one of their meetings ended in angry dispute over politics, but
the next day all was forgotten and they were friends again. George
Slavich maintained that he was an Austrian.
“You are not an Austrian; you are a Bracanin,” George Petrinovich would
argue.
Priest
Stephen
Vladislavich. Thus we encounter the name of the Reverend Stephen Vladislavich,
a native of the Island of Brac, Dalmatia, Croatia who after a short sojourn in
San Francisco died on May 21, 1883, at the age of 37 years, and is buried in
the priests’ section of the old Calvary Cemetery in San Francisco.