PIVOCH, GEORGE Orange
Grove-Oysterman-Saloon-Dance Hall-Winery
George
Pivoch, for several years a resident of Triumph in Plaquemines Parish, is an
outstanding example of the success that may be achieved in the United States of
America by a young, hard working immigrant boy entirely lacking in knowledge of
the language and customs of his adopted country, with no capital other than an
inborn determination to succeed and with very little educational advantages.
After reaching the United States and locating in New Orleans nearly thirty
years ago, Mr. Pivoch, then a youth of seventeen years, worked for fifty cents
per day in the oyster fields of lower Louisiana. He mastered the language and
by dint of hard work and thrifty habits, accumulated sufficient capital to
engage in business for himself and today owns a large and well-developed orange
grove and also has a mercantile establishment, a tavern and dance hall and a
large winery at Triumph where he located permanently in 1929. His mail address
is Buras, Rural Route No. 1. George Pivoch was born in Podgora, Croatia, on the
sixteenth of April, 1894, a son of Mitchell Pivoch, a farmer, veteran of the
first World War and who died in 1917, and Madeline (Letica) Pivoch, now living
in Podgora. Mr. Pivoch acquired a limited education in the schools of Croatia
and came to America alone in 1911. In 1929 he came to Triumph and started
development of his orange groves which now aggregate a total of thirty seven
acres with over twenty acres planted in fully-matured and bearing trees and a
number of younger trees that have not yet reached maturity. In 1934 he
established a dance hall and tavern and has conducted these enterprises since,
along with a good sized oyster business and his orange groves. In 1938 Mr.
Pivoch started an orange winery and
now has over eight thousand four hundred gallons of high grade orange wine.
Average output of his orange groves equals around four thousand bushels
annually and he also produces some grapefruit. In September, 1921, Mr. Pivoch
became a naturalized American citizen and later returned for a visit to his
native country where on the eighteenth of July, 1926, he was married to Miss
Simica Simich, also a native of Podgora. Mr. and Mrs. Pivoch returned to the
United States in 1927 and now are the parents of three children, Madeline, born
July 27, 1928; George Louis, Jr., born the thirteenth of December, 1930, and
Eleanor May Pivoch, born April 1, 1934. Mr. Pivoch is a recognized leader in
the local Croatian colony and for many years has been one of the most active members of the Croatian
Benefit Association. In religious life, he is a communicant of the Catholic
faith.