LIMA — To the newspapers he was the “Banana King,” an Italian immigrant who arrived in Lima in 1889 and grew a Public Square produce stand into a thriving distributorship by the early 20th century.
To his daughter Louise Cardosi, born Aug. 25, 1915, Victor Cardosi was the beloved father who “was always teaching me something,” the father who took her on a memorable trip to in Italy in 1920, the father who drove an electric car nearly 100 years ago. “My father never liked gas cars, don’t ask me why. I think he was afraid of them. Nobody would ride with him,” she said.
“It was in July 1886 that Cardosi landed in Lima, travel worn, weary, threadbare and penniless,” the Lima Daily News wrote April 18, 1920. “He had traveled alone all the way from Lucta, Italy, and now he stood alone in a small, though thriving, industrious becoming oil village. Speaking a broken English dialect, he set up a fruit stand on the Public Square, in front of the site on which now stands the Cincinnati block (the southwest quadrant of the Square).”
Well, sort of. Victor Cardosi was born Dec. 12, 1861, in Barga, Italy, the son of Antonino and Teresa Biagi Cardosi. According to the 1922 “History of Allen County” when he was 13, Cardosi accompanied his oldest brother, John, to London, England, “and for six years they employed their skill and time in manufacturing and selling statuary on the streets of London.” After those six years, Louise Cardosi said, her father “spoke English without an accent.”
According to the history Cardosi then returned to Tuscany and served four years in the Italian Army. “At the age of 26 he came to America, and going west from New York spent several years at Allegheny, Pa. Here he resumed the ornamental statuary business, making and selling his goods. He first entered the retail fruit business at Wellston, Ohio, and in 1889 came to Lima …”
In 1889, Cardosi also had returned to Italy where he married Assunta “Susie” Vitoi. “He went back and saw my mother,” Louise Cardosi said. “She was a little girl when he left and she was a mighty beautiful teenager when he went back, so he married her.”
In the late 19th century, Louise Cardosi explained, the Italian government “encouraged” people to leave the poor country, hoping they would return having learned a trade and gained wealth. According to William Rusler’s 1921 history of Allen County, “The majority of the Italians came to Lima in the ‘90s, among them the names: Cardosi, Colluci, Gonella, Pelligrini, Da prato, and while some are floaters, others acquire citizenship; they educate their children in public and parochial schools. … The Lima Italians are all Catholics with membership in St. Rose and St. John Catholic churches …”
The history also notes that “many Italians are engaged in the fruit and confectionery business downtown.” That was the path followed by Cardosi, who became a naturalized American citizen in 1890.
The 1891-92 city directory lists The Cardosi Brothers (Victor and his brother, Joseph) as proprietors of a store at 25 Public Square. By 1895, Victor is operating an ice cream, confectionary and wholesale fruit business at 37 Public Square while Joseph is running a similar operation at 322 N. Main St. Joseph eventually settled in Montgomery County where his occupations were listed as machinist and fruit dealer. He died there in 1918 of influenza. Another Cardosi brother, Louis, worked as a fruit merchant in Kenton, where he died in 1923.
During this time Victor and “Susie” Cardosi moved from an apartment above their store to 181 E. Circular St., where, the Daily News reported Dec. 1, 1899, they “royally entertained” their friends.
The 1905 “History of Allen County and Representative Citizens” describes Cardosi as “one of the city’s enterprising and successful business men. … In addition to really controlling the fruit trade in this section, Mr. Cardosi has invested largely in real estate. He owns five residence properties in Lima, and is proprietor of the fine Hetrick block, built of pressed brick, one of the most substantial and ornate business structures in the city.” The 1908-1909 city directory lists Cardosi’s business at 125 W. Market St. as in the Cardosi Block and notes their residence as 222 E. Kibby St.
On April 29, 1909, the Lima Times Democrat reported the sale of Cardosi’s “retail fruit and candy store … on West Market near the traction station” to John East and Son. By 1912, Cardosi moved his wholesale fruit business into a new building at 122-124 North Central Avenue.
“He had, I think, three or four trucks. They’d travel about a 40-mile of radius of Lima to deliver fresh fruits and vegetables,” Louise Cardosi said, adding that the Central Avenue building had warm and cold rooms for banana storage. “My father was an artist at having either green bananas or ripened bananas, whichever you wanted.”
A real estate transaction of a more personal sort was reported by the Daily News April 28, 1915. “A deed filed in the recorder’s office today transfers the handsome Crites homestead on West Market Street to Mrs. Assunta Cardosi, a gift from the well-known man of affairs, Victor Cardosi to his wife.”
Tragedy came to the new Cardosi home at 611 W. Market St. on Feb. 13, 1916, when Cardosi’s daughter, Hazel, who was born in 1896, died of tuberculosis. The Times Democrat said she “was a young woman generally admired and a wide circle of friends will learn with regret that the Grim Reaper has at last claimed her.” Another daughter, Mary, who was born in 1893 and had joined the Sisters of Charity in Cincinnati, died of tuberculosis in March 1919.
“Lima’s Banana King, Victor Cardosi, 611 W. Market St., is going to bid farewell to this El Dorado soon,” the Daily News wrote April 18, 1920. “He is making preparations to leave Lima the first of July on a journey to his native land, Italy.” Cardosi would take his wife and surviving daughters, Alvina, born in 1894, and four-and-a-half-year-Louise with him on the trip. Cardosi’s 23-year-old only son Edward would run the business in his father’s absence, the paper reported.
On Sept. 7, 1920, a powerful earthquake struck the region in Tuscany the family was visiting. Letters from Alvina to Edward and the Cardosis’ neighbors reported they were safe in the resort city of Viareggio on the Tyrrhenian Sea at the time. Louise Cardosi remembers the family sitting by “the front door downstairs every night” at the apartment they rented in Viareggio “so we could beat it outside” during aftershocks.
She also remembers that Viareggio was “a beautiful place” where, one night, a group of men gathered outside to serenade Alvina, who slammed the window shut, flying in the face of local custom. “My father was going around for days apologizing,” she added. “He said, ‘after this cover your ears.’”
Louise Cardosi also recalls entertaining other passengers on the voyage home with a song her father taught her in Italian. “He was a great teacher, but time caught up with him,” she said.
The advent of supermarkets and the onset of the Great Depression ruined Cardosi’s business. “That was devastating,” she said. “In some ways I think it broke his heart.”
The day after Christmas 1935, Cardosi suffered a stroke. He died Jan. 5, 1936. His wife died in September 1951. Alvina, who married Clem Boyle, died in July 1979. Edward lived until August 1989.
Recalling her father’s interest in electric cars and the resurgence of electric cars now, Louise Cardosi said “He would love it. He had a lot of moxie.”
Louise Cardosi, who turned 99 on Aug. 27, inherited that moxie. She was one of the pioneers of Amil Tellers, helping to found it when she left St. John High School in 1933, and began playing golf, before women playing golf became common, with four wooden-shaft clubs and leather-soled shoes. “You could about kill yourself on the golf course with leather-soled shoes,” she said.
Greg Hoersten is a freelance journalist living near Cridersville. Reach him at TLNinfo@civitasmedia.com. – source