YesterYears 2023

YESTER YEARS

Saturday, March 18, 2023

Photo contributed by Turlock Historical Society

Harry Ramus, shown with his roadster, circa 1923.

Methodist Church built in 1909.

Turlock’s Village Fresh one of few remaining Pallios grocery stores

BY JOE CORTEZ Turlock Journal

The story of Village Fresh Market is more than that of a neighborhood grocery store.

It’s the story of Greek immigrants and the American Dream.

Stelios Pallios immigrated to the United States from Greece — the Isle of Crete, to be precise — in 1906. After a brief stop in Pennsylvania, where he worked as a miner, Pallios made his way to Utah and there married Athena Kissamitakis.

The couple’s three sons made their way to California and, in 1951, the two oldest sons — Gus and John — entered the grocery business when they opened Richland Market on the corner of Evans Road and Richland Avenue in Ceres.

Eventually, younger brother George would join the partnership and they would go on to have seven stores in Stan-

islaus County.

Richland Market officially came to Turlock on September 17, 1965, nearly 60 years ago. When a site on Canal Drive and Johnson Avenue became available, the family responded quickly and negotiated a lease for the 17,200-square-foot space.

Of course, the shopping center looked a lot different back then.

The grocery store was situated closer to Johnson Road than it is today. Bilson’s Sporting Goods was also located in the shopping center, on the east side of the market. There was also a Rexall Drug Store, located where you’ll find the Canal Veterinary Hospital today, and the Penguin Ice Cream shop, now a Starbucks.

The Pallios brothers purchased the shopping complex from the Taylor family in 1973 and began an expansion project in 1979. A year later, the family moved into the new Richland Market at 2090 E.

Canal Dr., where it sits to this day (since 2005, however, the store has been called Village Fresh Market).

The market closed early one evening in 1980 and began moving inventory from the old market into the new 31,000-square-foot facility (the size of the market has since been reduced with the addition of a Dollar Tree store and an Edward Jones financial services branch).

Members of the east Turlock neighborhood pitched in to help the family make the move to the new store, filling up grocery carts and pushing the inventory next door to its new home.

The move was completed that evening.

In the early 2000s, the family began exiting the grocery industry. Two stores were sold off and the families of Gus and George kept three markets, along with the Richland name, while John’s family kept two stores — in Turlock and Oakdale — under the Village Fresh Market

banner.

Eventually, the Oakdale store was sold to Raley's and the Canal Street location remains under the ownership of John's son, Jim Pallios.

Today, there are not many employees still with the family who worked at the store when it was known as Richland Market.

Store manager Ron Senk, assistant manager Marco Van Oostende and longtime family associates Don Gonsalves, a local realtor, and Jim Stevens, the original meat manager at Richland, are the last of the Mohicans.

But while the name may have changed, Village Fresh Market remains a familyowned business where you can shop for your groceries, get greeted by name, and asked about your family.

Which is exactly what Gus, John and George had in mind all along.

Photo courtesy the Pallios family Richland Market officially came to Turlock on September 17, 1965, nearly 60 years ago. Since 2005, the store has been called Village Fresh Market.

The rich and delicious traditions of Sunrise Bakery

BY CHRISTOPHER CORREA Turlock Journal

Turlock is home to one of the largest Assyrian communities in the United States, hovering between 15,000 and 20,000 people – nearly a quarter of the entire city population. One of the most popular traditions of this storied culture is baking, which makes it understandable as to why Sunrise Bakery on 1561 Geer Rd. has been successful for over three decades.

The storied history of Turlock’s oldest Assyrian bakery begins with Filameh Givargis and her love of baking. Her son-inlaw and bakery co-owner, Sargon Eddy, simply described Givargis as someone who just couldn’t stop baking, particularly nazook, which is a traditional pastry with a crispy, flaky crust, wrapped around a buttery, sweet roux-based filling.

As her nazook started getting a cult following and requests for the pastries started piling up, Givargis and her husband, Ebrahim, decided to take the leap into the business world.

The two would open Sunrise Bakery in 1991 down the road from their current location in the shopping center that now houses Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market. In 1996, skyrocketing popularity led them to move into downtown Turlock at the former home of Polly Ann Bakery before finding their permanent home on Geer in 2006.

And popularity continues to grow, as Sunrise Bakery offers nationwide shipping on their nazook and on lavash, a thin flatbread usually leavened, tradition-

ally baked in a tandoor or on a sajj. The bakery also sells a variety other Middle Eastern and European desserts like pirogh, kadr, tabagha and custards.

Over the years, Sunrise Bakery has built a reputation for some bigger baked creations: cakes. The business offers

extravagant custom cakes and dessert tables for a number of special occasions, including weddings, bridal showers, baby showers, baptisms, birthdays and more. Customers are encouraged to bring in photos of cakes they have seen either via online or in magazines that they like so

that consultants could customize cakes to their expectations.

Whether you just want to stop in for a quick snack or want plan ahead for a major celebration, Sunrise Bakery has their door open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday to Saturday.

Journal file photo

Sunrise Bakery co-owner Sargon Eddy opens up a box of pastry favorite nazook. Nazook comes in vanilla and cinnamon flavor with walnuts

The original partners of Owl Grocery, Ed Warren and Carl Andre, stand in front of their store. It was located in the Geer building on E. Main St., which still stands at the corner of Main and N. Center streets.

Serving the memorial needs of the Turlock community for over a century

BY KRISTINA HACKER Turlock Journal

Community leader John Mitchell donated 5 acres of land to the Turlock Cemetery Association in 1886; today, 137 years later, Turlock Funeral Home and Memorial Park sits on 100 acres and serves more than 600 families a year. What started out as community cemetery all those years ago, is now a full-service funeral home and memorial park and the largest funeral home in Stanislaus County. Lonnie Alvares has been working at Turlock Funeral Home and Memorial Park for the past 29 years, starting as a groundskeeper and now serving as the company’s CEO and President.

“When I first started here in 1995 there were five employees and now with the

cemetery and funeral home there are 40 full-time employees,” said Alvares about the company’s growth.

Alvares said that the Turlock area is unique in that where funeral arrangements have recently leaned toward cremation in the past several years, traditional burial arrangements are what the majority of local families choose.

“In our rural area, because of the cultures and religions, we at Turlock Funeral Home are still seeing an 80 percent traditional to 20 percent cremation rate,” Alvares said.

Turlock Funeral Home and Memorial Park takes its role in the community to heart, offer tribute services, grief support and veterans services.

Turlock Memorial Park has hosted a

community Memorial Day event for the past 59 years. A week before the holiday, American flags are placed along the cemeteries’ pathways creating an Avenue of Flags and individual flags are places on every U.S. veteran’s grave site. “Memorial Day is the biggest event we put on throughout the year. We go the

extra mile to thank all of the veterans who have served,” said Alvares.

Turlock Funeral Home and Memorial Park is also planning for the future, with develop planned on an additional 10 acres of land on the corner of Tully Road and Canal Drive starting this summer, according to Alvares.

Branches located in Stockton, Angels Camp, Brentwood, Elk Grove, Fair eld, Lodi, Manteca, Modesto, Napa, Oakdale, Pine Grove, Rio Vista, Ripon, Sonora, Tracy, and Turlock.

Winton-Ireland, Strom and Green: Over 100 years in insurance

BY CHRISTOPHER CORREA Turlock Journal

How do you turn a job as a bank cashier into a successful insurance agency that would span over a century? Look no further than Gordon H. Winton, the founder of Winton-Ireland, Strom and Green Insurance Agency.

WIS&G was founded by Winton in 1913 while he was an employee of the First Bank of Livingston. Winton was compelled to open his own insurance agency after experiencing the lack of services in the area, especially in a community heavily reliant on agriculture.

Winton would wind up focusing on the insurance business full-time in 1924, and 30 years later, would see Winton Insurance grow stronger than ever when his son, Keith, joined the business after returning from World War II. In 1954, they formed a partnership and changed the name to Winton Insurance Agency. Things would only get bigger when Mike Ireland joined the company and helped Winton Insurance purchase F. W. Andrew Insurance Agency in 1973 and opened a second office in Turlock.

Ten years later, Keith Winton would pass, but the legacy he left behind at the

time of his death was a 650% business increase since 1944.

Strom and Green Insurance was also seeing success in Turlock. The agency was founded by Dewey W. Green in 1964 after he purchased a small book of business from Preferred Risk Mutual.

Like Winton Insurance, the business expanded quickly when Green purchased

another book of business from Ed Backman in 1967 and the Fred Caulkins Agency in 1970.

Flash forward to 1988, the two agencies decided to merge to form the now familiar Winton-Ireland, Strom and Green Insurance Agency name.

WIS&G currently offers commercial and personal insurance services, includ-

ing risk mitigation and compliance services as well as home, renters, car, boat, pet, flood and earthquake insurance. In Livingston, WIS&G can be found at 503 Main St., the same address that Gordon H. Winton opened his practice at almost 110 years ago. In Turlock, WIS&G is at 627 E. Canal Dr. with another office in Modesto at 1100 14th St. Suite. C.

Main Street Antiques home to historical items — and a friendly ghost

BY JOE CORTEZ Turlock Journal

When you’re talking about the history of Turlock, there’s really nothing more historical than an antique store, home to all sorts of old and interesting items.

And when you’re talking about old and interesting items, there’s not much that compares to a ghost.

Main Street Antiques, 208 E. Main St., has been selling vintage and antique merchandise for nearly three decades, offering everything from antique furniture to comic books to vinyl records to vintage dishware.

They have yet, however, to find a buyer for a ghost that reportedly hangs out in the southwest corner of the store.

“I’ve never seen it,” said co-owner Jennifer Jensen, who has partnered with Lori Smith since 2015. “But we’ve had customers tell us, ‘You know you have a ghost in here, right?’”

Based on customer response, the ghost hasn’t made an appearance in the store for quite some time. But Jensen figures if there was a ghost on the premises, it likely had something to do with the figures that plagued the building in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

According to Smith, the original building was constructed in 1871 … back when the front door faced Golden State Boulevard, then called Front Street. In the late 19th century, the entire block was destroyed in a fire.

The second building on the site suffered from a multitude of fires — 17, according to Jensen.

“They discovered that sawdust was used as insulation,” said Jensen. “That probably had something to do with all the fires.”

The current building was constructed in 1920. Over the years, a number of businesses have occupied the site, including Miss Margie’s clothing store, owned by the late Richard Soderquist. It eventually became Expressions, then Express for Less, but when big commercial retailers started moving into town, Soderquist decided to get out of the clothing business and opened Main Street Antiques.

Smith and Jensen both started as vendors within the store, and both still love what they do.

“It’s a fun business because everybody’s happy when they come in here,”

said Jensen. “It’s definitely not the DMV.”

Smith agrees with her partner.

“It never gets old,” Smith said. “You’re always learning new things about all the old things we have for sale. I love doing research and I love our customers. It’s all about walking down memory lane.”

Smith remembers exploring old, abandoned buildings with her family when she was a youngster.

“Back in the day when you could do that sort of thing,” she said.

That led to her love for vintage and antique items. But not just a love for the objects themselves. It’s the thrill of the chase that’s most appealing.

“That’s why I got into it,” said Jensen. “I like to go hunting for things. It’s fun.”

Jensen pointed out that these days, people aren’t just collecting items, they’re actually using them.

“For a time, everybody seemed to be collecting Depression glass,” Jensen said of the product that got its name because companies that made luxury crystal were

forced to reconsider their products during the Great Depression. “People still want it, but not to collect. They want to use it.”

Whether you want to add something to your collection or use it every day, whether it’s antique (more than 100 years old) or vintage (more than 30 years old), and whether it was once owned by a Turlock pioneer or still owned by a loitering ghost, it’s probably on the shelves at Main Street Antiques.

Journal file photo Owners Jennifer Jensen (left) and Lori Smith stand outside Main Street Antiques, which will celebrate 27 years in downtown Turlock on Aug. 1.

VALUE OF HISTORY

As the first irrigation district in California, TID has been a pioneer in providing irrigation water for over 135 years and retail power for 100 years.

Turlock Carnegie Library, opened in 1916 on 250 North Broadway.