Salvatore
Peter Tedesco
(1928-2014)
Sal's parents, Anthony Tedesco
and Marcella Cantalupo, were from Naples Italy. Sal was born in the North
Beach area of San Francisco and his parents divorced shortly after. His
stories of life and people he knew as a kid were vivid. Victoria Bakery,
the old movie theater, St. Peter and Paul's. . . His grandmother sang and
declaimed poetry during the thirties at Fugazi Hall. She took him regularly
to the Cosmopolitan Opera downtown where he once appeared as one of the
"ragazzi" in La Bohême. Sal remembered doing calisthenics at Fugazi
Hall wearing the white uniform shorts and shirt of Mussolini's Balilla
Youth.
In the forties Sal moved
to El Cerrito and attended the newly built high school. The Principal and
staff took him under their wing and opened up a new world to him. He loved
playing football and in 1945 was named to the All-County Team as Tight
End.
Sal served in the U. S. Army
and was stationed in Guam and later in Korea. Upon his return he married
Sylvia Scovil in Mapleton, Utah. They lived on Regent Street in Berkeley,
CA and Sal went to U.C. Berkeley (blessing the G.I. Bill) graduating with
a degree in Political Science. At the graduate level Sal interned with
the League of California Cities in their offices located at the Claremont
Hotel.
Sal and Sylvia moved their
young family to Santa Cruz, CA in 1955. In his years there he went by his
middle name, Pete. There he began as Assistant City Manager and then City
Manager from 1956 to 1962. He dealt with the floods of the San Lorenzo
River in 1955 and worked with local officials and citizens to locate the
new University of California campus in Santa Cruz. In 1962 Sal responded
to the challenge in President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address "ask
not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country."
He then joined the Peace
Corps and moved the family to Ghana as Assistant Director of the Program
in Accra and then to Somalia as Country Director in Mogadishu. Later he
served in Nairobi Kenya setting up new Peace Corps programs for East Africa.
He returned to Washington, DC to work in the Poverty Program with the Men's
Urban Centers Division from 1965 to 1967. After the Poverty Program he
transferred to the Department of Housing and Urban Development and assisted
in developing the Model Cities Program.
Sal returned to California
while with HUD and was assigned to the San Francisco Regional Office as
a senior urban grants manager to cities and counties. He retired from federal
service in 1985.
He stayed involved in local
Castro Valley affairs. He served as a member and as Chairman of the Castro
Valley Municipal Advisory Council, chaired the CV Downtown Specific Plan
Development Committee, served on study groups investigating the feasibility
of incorporation and actively worked to achieve incorporation for CV. Sal
also served on the County Grand Jury, County Advisory Commission on Aging,
the Measure A Oversight Committee and on the Board of Eden Housing.
Sal lived in Castro Valley
for 45 years with wife Sylvia and their two sons, John and Greg (both Canyon
High graduates that went on to graduate from local universities). They
and their wives, Julie and Carol, survive him as well as grandson Matt
who is finishing his senior year at U.C. Davis.
Sal kept busy with continuing
studies at Cal State Hayward and helped Sylvia take groups on opera tours
as part of her travel agency, (The Avenue Travel) in Albany, CA. Sal enjoyed
reading, listening to and attending opera, watching the 49ers and taking
walks through the neighborhood. He would engage in conversation and a joke
with anyone he met and was always ready to break into song. He loved cooking,
parties, an evening Scotch and Soda and frequent trips to the grocery store
and Costco.
Sal enjoyed his years with
Castro Valley Rotary, the Monday afternoon Senior Singalong Chorus, and
Cal Football.
A gathering will be held
later this year to celebrate his life, his family and his friends.
"Ti voglio bene Salvatore!
Tante belle cose!"
Published in San Francisco
Chronicle on Jan. 31, 2014 |