Healdsburg native John Biasotti was known to many as an outgoing and friendly man who worked hard at his grocery store, Biasotti’s Market. He was also known as an adept carpenter and mechanic, fisherman and boat racer and he’ll surely be remembered not only for his many hobbies and achievements, but also for the positive impact he had on family and friends.
Biasotti died on Oct. 8. He was 99.
He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Donna Biasotti, and his three children, Joan, John and Jimmy, as well as several nieces and grandchildren.
Biasotti was born and raised in Healdsburg and went on to marry — he met his wife Donna at the grocery store — and have three children and eight grandchildren, all of whom he adored.
Biasotti’s daughter, Joan Hilden, said her father always loved attending his grandchildren’s events, whether it was an FFA fair or a sporting event.
“He was always really proud of his grandchildren,” Hilden said.
Over the years, Biasotti had three different incarnations of the market.
“There were really three markets. There were four Biasotti brothers and three of them, Uncle Johnny (John Biasotti) and two of the other brothers first had Browns Market on what was then West Street, now Healdsburg Avenue,” said Barbara Jo Biasotti Larson, Hilden’s cousin.
In 1954, three of the brothers bought a larger market together on Center Street. The brothers co-owned the store until it burned down in the spring of 1963.
After the fire, Biasotti bought another market, the one that became known as Biasotti’s Market. It was on the southeast corner of Healdsburg Avenue (then West Street) and North Street.
Donna Biasotti was a home economics teacher at Healdsburg High School and did her grocery shopping at Biasotti’s Market. There, she met John Biasotti and later they started dating.
“On our first date he took me bowling,” Donna Biasotti said, and the rest was history.
Biasotti Larson and Hilden remember visiting the store as children. When they get older, they would work in the market during the summer months.
“I used to take Joan to the store when I worked there. We’d go in and I’d put her on the counter in a little chair,” Donna Biasotti said.
Biasotti Larson worked at the store from the time she was 10-years-old.
“One of my favorite memories of him is in the Biasotti Brother’s Market. I worked there from the time I was 10-years-old and every now and then there would be a customer coming in and would start talking about something, ranting a little, and we never argued with people because the customer was always right, but Uncle Johnny would just let them talk on and when they left he’d just smile and shake his head and say ‘well it’s a free country.’… He was very accepting, he just met people on their own ground,” Biasotti Larson said.
She said it would be great if more people had that kind of attitude and were as friendly and good-natured as Biasotti was.
“I think we need more of that kind of attitude these days if we could just appreciate each other. You didn’t have to be perfect to be his friend, he didn’t draw lines. He was the kind of guy that if you were in the neighborhood you didn’t just drive by (the market), you stopped in and said ‘hi’ to him,” Biasotti Larson said.
In addition to running the market, Biasotti had many hobbies. A favorite of his was racing boats on the Russian River and on lakes.
“My dad used to race boats on the Russian River and he used to be the man that laid on the front of the boat to keep weight on it while they were racing,” Hilden said.
This type of racing role is called a deck rider. Biasotti raced with Bill Siemsen, a racing champion.
“He was a true daredevil,” Biasotti Larson said.
She added that Biasotti actually had a boat of his own, a class F hydroplane, which he raced himself. He also liked to go fishing for steelhead and abalone.
”When he was fishing for steelhead in the river down here, the night before we made bait and he’d get up at 4 or 5 a.m. in the morning and go down the river and fish and he’d catch big steelhead and his mom used to bake them in the oven. It was so good,” Donna Biasotti said.
Biasotti also used to take Biasotti Larson fishing when she was little and they’d also go to Dry Creek and dig for eels.
He also was an avid gardener and cook and Hilden said he was known for his garden, which grew produce and a wide variety of flowers.
“He was very generous with his time. He always had a vegetable garden and he and Aunt Donana used to sell the produce from their vegetable garden and their fruits and their flowers that Donna grew at the farmers market. He also gave a lot of that stuff away and he actually would send beans to my husband and I here in Sante Fe every year. They were wonderful,” Biasotti Larson said.
Hilden said looking back, they always had people over for lunch and always had plenty of food.
After the grocery store, Biasotti worked at a lumber company building prefab homes.
“He really installed a good work ethic with me and my two brothers. He was always a hard worker,” Hilden said.
In addition to all of his other hobbies, he was a journeyman level carpenter and mechanic. He was also a World War II combat veteran.
During the war he worked on tanks and heavy equipment. As a carpenter, he later built all of the cabinets in Biasotti’s Larson’s family home on Matheson Street.
Family services for Biasotti are being held Oct. 24 at 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. and Oct. 25 at 10 a.m. at St. John’s Catholic Church in Healdsburg.
