The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 20

Page A-2 S.F. Examiner March 21, 1979 HeritageA look at the Bay Area's cosmopolitan culture Christian Brothers a humble start j-. rn. j-. ilWmi Ik.

"holy weeks" and, for a small fee, would be able to fill their jugs up with Angelica, St. Benedict and other wines allowed during Prohibition. So untouched by Prohibition was the Christian Brothers Winery (which then was operated under the name of LaSalle Products Inc.) that in 1923, four years after the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, the brothers sold the cattle that also came with the Martinez property and converted the dairy and barns into a storage area for wine tanks. Twenty-two years before Prohibition began, the Christian Brothers' business had grown enough to allow them to build a three-story winery' in Martinez. That winery had the finest equipment available in 1897.

Grapes were hauled up to the third floor by a horse-drawn conveyor belt, where a hand-cranked crusher and press squeezed out the juice. Only gravity was needed to drain the juice from the fermenting tanks on the second floor to the aging cooperage where the wine was drawn into small kegs and barrels. The wine-making factory was soon outmoded, and with the rapid growth in Martinez threatening the brothers' solitude, the decision was made to search for new surroundings for the novitiates, winery and vineyard. In his history of the De La Salle Institute in Martinez, Brother Jasper came to a realization that many of today's Contra Costa residents still find true. "One of the first plans was to build anew further back from the town," he writes.

"But on examination it was found that we were completely surrounded by buildings and roads either Nd i k. txammer John Gorman Brother Maurice Flynn was in one of last classes of teen-agers to graduate from the Martinez institution By Don Lattin WHEN THE BROTHERS of Christian Schools purchased 70 acres near Martinez in 1879. they merely intended to use the land for a novitiate and training center to initiate more young brothers into a religious order founded 200 years earlier by Saint Jean Baptiste de La Salle in Rheims, France. Soon after they mo ved onto he site, however, the brothers began to take an interest in 12 acres of vineyard that came with the property. Even before they built their school and were still living in the old home of Henry Bush, the 1853 homesteader who planted the small vineyard, several enterprising brothers began experimenting with the wine crop.

An elderly brother, Victoriek. is credited with using a large wooden club to crush some grapes in an old water trough, drawing off the juice, allowing it to ferment and inadvertently founding the famous Christian Brothers Winery. This month, the Martinez Historical Museum is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Christian Brothers Winery and its humble Martinez roots with an exhibition of old photographs and documents. It was the solitude and scenic grandeur that brought the Christian Brothers' De La Salle Institute to Martinez in 1897. One historical account gave this description of the setting: "Situated on an eminence at the mouth of Alhambra Valley and surrounded by great natural beauty composed of hilL vale and water.

De La Salle Institute commands an imposing outlook upon the surrounding country. Directly before it lies the Straits of Carqutnez. Like ocean swells, great waves of undulating hills stretch on till they seem hut one vast ocean of billowed grandeur." Fifty years later, in 1930, urban sprawl and the beginning of the area's industrialization forced the Christian Brothers to seek a more quiet setting for the institute and growing winery a place that would not hinder the spiritual growth of the young brothers. They choose Napa Valiey, here they remain today. Brother Maurice Flynn.

now the archivist for the California Province of the Order of Christian Brothers, was in one of the last classes of teen-agers to graduate from the Martinez institute in 1928. "It was a boom time. Things were really on the rise," Flynn recalled. "I was very impressed by all the comings and goings of the wine trucks and the grape harvest, and enjoyed the picking. It was a break from our studies." Brother Maurice was in Martinez during Prohibition, but that dry period of US history had very little effect on the Christian Brothers Winery.

The federal government gave the Christian Brothers permission to make "medicinal wine," which required a doctor's prescription, as well as a variety of sacramental wines that were shipped throughout the country in lO-to-52-gallon barrels. Local Portuguese and Italian fishermen would come to the winery during completed or projected, so we definitely had to turn elsewhere for a new sight." When the owner of winery and 338 acres of surrounding Napa Valley land put his estate up for sale in May lf30, the Christian Brothers' offer of was accepted. It seemed like a good deal because the purchase price included a small winery and still, 100.000 gallons of dry wine, 12,000 gallons of grape juice, several small orchards, ponds, a swimming pool and 20 assorted buildings. i '-W'l it. Valley.

i Meanwhile, back at the monastery, the brothers continued to dedicate their lives to the religious order. Around the same time that the novitiate and winery moved to tb Napa Valley, the Christian Brothers' St. Mary 's Coliege. founded in San Francisco in 1889, moved from Oakland to Moraga where the campus remains today. Brother Maurice graduated frohf the Martinez novitiate in 1928 and was in the first class to use the new Moraga campus.

He described the novitiate as "testing ground for the academic and religious life." "It was rather strict." Brother-Maurice recalled. "There as no access to movies, no social excitement, no sports and no debating. It was a monastic order studying the spiritual rules and the history of the church." Brother Maurice lived near the old; San Francisco campus when he attended St, Mary's Parochial School from 1916 to 1924. "The old campus had sort of haunted situation about it." he "There were a lot of legends and myths about the place." The old buildings were torn when Brother Maurice was in the1 eighth grade to make way for a'; housing development called St. Park.

Many of the streets in the area are named after Christian Brothers, Young Maurice heard much about the Order of Christian Brothers during I elementary school and decided to go to the Martinez novitiate after a seventh- grade discussion with Brother Gregory Mallen. Another reason for the move water quality also will strike a familiar chord with today's Martinez residents. The Napa Valley had abundant and pure water, while the water in Martinez was described as "very unsatisfactory, inadequate in quantity and loaded with minerals." So in 1932, after the construction of a new monastery, the brothers moved from Martinez to the Napa Valley, taking along 60,000 gallons of mental wine and their winery equipment. About 150 prominent Contra Costa', residents attended a farewell party for the brothers on Nov. 16.

1931. at the Travelers Hotel. The brothers "expressed gratitutde for the kind treatment they had received during their 53 years in Martinez and heartfelt regret that they were obliged to leave." The Christian Brothers settled in the Napa Valley during the Depression. The economic hardships were so great that papers were soon drawn up for the sale of the winery and all the property except 10 acres around the monastery. Faith, diligence and shrewd work is credited with saving the winery during those years.

The modern era of Christian Brothers Winery began in 1937 when the brothers made Alfred Fromm of New York their distributor. Using his business savvy, the sacramental wines under the Mont La Salle label grew into the nationally distributed table and dessert wines bottled under the Christian Brothers label. Following a prosperous period in the 1940s, the Christian Brothers developed into one of the largest wineries in the country and acquired the largest acreage of vineyards in the Napa 4, '4 'v A A A A JkHf ImI 4 "-)! NQViTfATT wmtCHRtSTtAM BROTHERS MAHTtkCZ.COKI i The solitude and scenic grandeur of Martinez attracted the Christian Brothers in 1897 The problems that face the Charter Revision Commission From Page 1 balances and to sharply limit the opportunities for abusing the public treasury. The Board of Supervisors, arena for many past mischiefs, was restricted by the 1932 Charter to policy and lawmaking, to submission of ballot items and to approval of budgets, other expenditures and wage bills under strict requirements to notice the public of its actioas. Board members were prohibited from suggesting, interfering or tampering with the conduct of departments in hiring, firing, purchasing, contracting or otherwise affecting the city treasury.

The lf32 Charter also attempted to sanitize the civil service merit system and city purchasing and contracting procedures against political influence. The most signif ieant change in the 1932 structure has been the switch to district election of supervisors which voters approved in 1978 and which went into effect 14 months ago, dividing The City into 11 politital subdivisions. District election reduced the status of supervisors from citywide figures and focused attention upon many provincial, district interests in which supervisors, by virtue of restrictions on them, are powerless. Now pressured by district constituents, their patronage limited to hiring two- aides, supervisors have grown increasingly restless under the old Charter restrictions. This is one area, the restrictions on two patronage jobs and 22 civil servants in the office, now has a $7.3 million payroll loaded with patronage appointees and countless options for additional patronage in subsidy-swollen programs under control of the mayor's office.

The chief officer, often with consent of the Board of Supervisors, has also found ways to increase patronage appointees. The cumbersome civil service merit system proved too slow to keep up with the growth of city payroll, providing in recent years, numerous excuses to side-step the system. Though a recent Charter amendment will permit civil service to streamline recruitment and promotions, these procedures, so frustrating to women, minorities and bureaucrats supervisors, where major effort to change the 1932 Charter may be expected. While the 1932 Charter kept a lid on lawmakers and their options for corruption, it failed to glimpse that the powers given a mayor would blossom like a bouquet from a magician's hand. Beginning with a mayor's final authority over all expenditures and all city jobs, that office's traditional power extended by Charter through the right to appoint commissioners and, through them, department heads and cozy secretariats.

The traditional stronghold of mayoral power included the lucrative public utilities, source of huge public works and hundreds of jobs, city planning, controlling land use and development, the Fire Department. in the past, are apt to be targeted for change. The matters of great public mo-, ment the last generation have not concerned the Charter at all. The crowds have been drawn to City Hall meeting rooms over such issues as freeways, waterfront height limits. equal rights and open space.

These were matters governed by local ordinances or policy resolutions. always susceptible to change by the mayor and Board of Supervisors. Most controversies have dealt with land use, matters subject to change without going to the ballot, which is the only way the Charter can be altered. Where the general public bumpS i -See Page 3, Col. I with vital, state-hacked code enforcement power over buildings and, by no means least, the Police Department.

Traditionally, also, a mayor's whims and policies have carried persuasive weight in a score of other agencies, such as social services, recreation and park and the Board of Permit Appeals. Starting with the post World War II establishment of the Redevelopment Agency, proliferating state and federal subsidy programs have channeled control of colossal additional spending through the mayor's hands. The office now runs the $42 million CETA job training program, a $26-million-a-year federal development program and, until recently, ran the $1.5 billion wastewater program, via a surrogate. The mayor, who once commanded TAX REFUND SPECIALS SaOlSTSEftl, SERVING SAM FRANCISCO, SAN MATf ALAMEDA, CONTRA COSTA AND MONTEREY COUNTIES! Ve Don't Sell Baloney TIMBERLINE BOOKCASE MONTEREY 4 POSTER We Sell Quality Furniture Re-Upholstery CALIFORNIA PAD YOUR CHOICE INCLUDES; frame and Headboard, Mattress (5 yr. guarantee), Liner, Chemelex Heater wthermostat.

Pedestal wdecking WHY IS THIS NIGHT DIFFERENT? A Passover Workshop Tuesday Eve, March 27 7:30 THE CEREMONY, THE CUSTOMS, THE STORY, THE SEDER IF YOU HAVE A JEWISH NEIGHBOR OR FRIEND IF YOU ARE MARRIED TO A JEWISH MAN OR WOMAN IF YOU ARE JEWISH WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT YOUR TRADITIONS IF YOU SIMPLY LIKE TO LEARN CONGREGATION BETH ISRAEL-JUDEA 625 Brotherhood Way. San Francisco Donation $2 twitti fhtt A4 FREE Vibrator with any Bed Purchase WE DON'T ADVERTISE RIDICULOUSLY low labor prices and double our fabric prices. Andy's quotes you one price for the complete job. We sell top quality stock fabrics at low. low price.

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12-6 FREE Sat. tO-6. Sun. Closed QUALITY WORKMANSHIP REMAINS AFTER THE PRICE IS FORGOTTEN SHOWROOM 35 BAYHILL CENTER, SAN BRUNO MAIN SHOP-406 FIRST AVENUE, SAN MATEO Business Hours: Mon. thru Fri.

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