Merced County Biographies

EDWARD FOLETTA

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


        Though fairly successful Edward Foletta has met with many 
discouragements and has been bereaved of his parents, Jasper and Filomina 
(Pedrazzi) Foletta, who died in Switzerland, the former at the age of 
sixty-three and the latter sixty-five. Of their fourteen children eight are 
living: Edward, our subject; Josephine, in Switzerland; Mary, in Italy; John, at 
King City; Mrs. Joseph Vosti, of Modesto; Harry, in Modesto; Constantine and 
Rosalinda, both in Switzerland.
        Edward Foletta was born in Canton Ticino, Switzerland, on October 12, 
1865, and his education, begun in the common schools, was completed by a 
military course until he was twenty-one years old. The year 1889 found him in 
America and he landed eventually in Pescadero, San Mateo County, where he got a 
job on a dairy ranch as milker at twenty-five dollars a month for two years. He 
learned the trade of cheese-making and then earned forty dollars a month, 
continuing for seven years, when he had accumulated enough funds to go into the 
dairy business on his own account with 130 head of cattle on a 1200-acre ranch, 
at Pigeon Point; he also carried on a cheese factory for nine years, taking in 
milk from neighboring ranches; then for nine years he was at Point New Years, 
near Pigeon Point, on 600 acres. In October, 1909, he bought an eighty-two-acre 
ranch three miles south of Los Banos, and added twenty acres to it in 1921, now 
devoted to alfalfa; and he has a dairy of sixty cows. In 1922 he bought 
fifty-five acres three miles east of the home place which he runs in connection 
with the home place alternately.
        On February 21, 1898, Edward Foletta was married to Ernestina Cicardini, 
a native of Canton Ticino, Switzerland, born November 28, 1876, a daughter of 
Joseph and Mary (Goi) Cicardini. Her father was a native of Piedmonte, Italy, 
and her mother was of Swiss descent. He was a stone mason and lived and died in 
Switzerland. She was one of eight children, namely: Basilio, Theresa, Encelmo, 
John, Modesto, Angelina, Lena, and Ernestina. Mrs. Foletta was educated in the 
elementary schools of Switzerland and arrived in Santa Cruz, Cal., on April 13, 
1893, where her sister Theresa was already located. She worked five years as a 
servant girl before she was married. Mr. and Mrs. Foletta have seven children: 
Mary, Mrs. Albert Bizzini, of Volta; Lena, of Los Banos; Emma, Mrs. Hugo Debene, 
of Los Banos; Edward, Emil, William and Josephine. Mr. Foletta belongs to the 
Sunset Center of the Merced County Farm Bureau and has served as a trustee of 
the Central school district for nine years.
 
History of Merced County, California � Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 635-636