Biography of C. J. Giacomazzi of Soledad California

Few men only thirty-four years of age can look back upon a more varied career than can C. J. Giacomazzi, editor and publisher of the Soledad Bee. He was born in Soledad, November 20, 1890, and is the third in order of birth in the family of four children born to Con and Sarah ( Serafina) Giacomazzi, both of whom were born in Switzerland and came to America in 1870. They first located at Watsonville, California, and in 1885 came to Soledad. For many years the father was a rancher on a rather extensive scale but retired in 1910 and died the following year. The mother is still living in Soledad. Their other children are: E. P., the oldest of the family, a resident of San Juan; Aurelia, the wife of Charles Jones, of Soledad; and Jennie, the wife of Thomas Mattart, of Salinas.

After attending the local public schools, C. J. Giacomazzi spent one year in taking the combined business course in the Oakland Polytechnic Institute. Later he took a correspondence course in the Chicago School of Law and was graduated but never practiced. Upon leaving the Polytechnic Institute he occupied a clerical position for one year in Oakland. His occupation during the next four years he describes as an “itinerant jack of all trades,” and in that period he traveled over a large part of the United States, Mexico, Canada and Alaska. He finally landed in St. Paul, Minnesota, where for two years he was assistant foreman in the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway freight house. He then returned to Soledad and with his brother edited and published the Soledad Bee for about six months. Again caught by the wanderlust, he went to Portland, Oregon, where he filled a clerical position in the freight department of the Southern Pacific Railway until .1914. At that time he came to Soledad on a vacation and while here bought the Bee, which he has since conducted, except for the time he was in Europe during the World war.

In 1918 Mr. Giacomazzi enlisted as a private in the infantry and was sent to Camp Lewis. His regiment was assigned to the Ninety-first Division and ordered to France. He was in numerous engagements, including the fighting in the Argonne and around St. Mihiel. In one of the actions nearly every man in his company was either killed or wounded, but he escaped without a scratch, being the only member of his company that was not wounded or sent to a hospital. He was also in the engagement at La Scheldt in Belgium and was in Belgium at the time the armistice was signed. Later he was ordered to Brussels with the regiment and was there when King Albert returned, parading in his honor. Not long after this the regiment was ordered home and he was mustered out at the Presidio, San Francisco, April 14, 1919, as a first-class private.

Returning to Soledad he resumed his editorial work on the Bee, an eight-page weekly, which he has made one of the influential newspapers in this section of the state. His wide and varied experience as traveler and as a soldier overseas has given him the qualifications of an entertaining and forceful writer. He was active in the organization of the Soledad Chamber of Commerce, of which he is vice president, and he has been called the “Father of the Incorporation.” He was a member of the city board at the first meeting of the city trustees in 1921 and is still on the board.

Mr. Giacomazzi is a Granger, also a member of Soledad Post, No. 32, American Legion, of which he is adjutant, the Foresters and the Druids, and is deservedly popular in all. In 1917 he married Miss Elizabeth Anderson, of Los Angeles.

Source: History of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, California : cradle of California’s history and romance : dating from the planting of the cross of Christendom upon the shores of Monterey Bay by Fr. Junipero Serra, and those intrepid adventurers who accompanied him, down to the present day. Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1925.