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Reference code
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Level of description
Item
Title
D80873-5
Date(s)
- 1954-02-20 (Creation)
Extent
Name of creator
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The 100th birthday celebration of Slavonian Community leader Andrew Guich. Guich was born in Milna, Brac Island, Yugoslavia. He set out as a sailing ship cabin boy at the age of 12 and saw much of the world before deciding that America was the place for him. In 1874, he worked his way to New York City as a seaman aboard a British ship. Once in New York, he worked as a barge operator, saloon keeper, grain elevator worker and a grocery store owner. He married at 25 to a girl fresh from Genoa, Italy and they had five children. The family arrived in Tacoma in 1891 by steamer. He settled in Old Tacoma and went to work as a cook at the Old Tacoma Emergency Hospital established by Dr. Spiro Sargentich. When the pair helped elect John W. Linck as Mayor in 1908, he rewarded the doctor with the position of City Health Officer and Guich was made a deputy. The pair dealt with waterfront rats, real "greasy spoons" and enforcement of anti-Chinese legislation. Guich retired from this position in his seventies. During WW I, the trilingual Guich (Italian, Slavonian and Greek) was appointed as interrogator of draftees at what was then known as Camp Lewis. After obtaining his 100 year, Mr. Guich died quietly at the home of his daughter the evening of March 7, 1954. He was succeeded by 3 living daughters, 5 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and 3 great-great grandchildren. (TNT 2/21/1954, pg. 1+, 3/8/1954, pg. 1)
Slavonian Hall (Tacoma); Birthday parties--Tacoma--1950-1960; Birthdays--Tacoma--1950-1960; Aged persons--Tacoma--1950-1960; Guich, Andrew; Slavonian-American Benevolent Society (Tacoma);