Interviewer: Darrell Quirici

Interviewees: Sara Troyan and Ellie Carmichael

April 2, 2025

Sara Troyan: This is Sara Troyan. I am pleased to welcome Darrell Quirici, whom I’m interviewing on behalf of the St. Helena Historical Society’s oral history program on Fulton Lane in St. Helena, CA.

ST: When and where were you born?

Daryll Quirici: I was born at St. Helena Hospital, formerly known as the St. Helena Sanitarium on June 19th, 1959 at 5:01 p.m. I was delivered by Dr. Charles Queary.

ST: Tell us about your family. Where did they originate?

DQ: My father’s family came from Italy.

His father was from outside of Bologna, in the Amelia Romano region, and his mother was from northern Italy, up in Piedmont. My mother’s parents emigrated from Sweden. So both my grandparents, both sets of grandparents came through Ellis Island to the United States. Neither of them was married then, but they met and got married while here in the United States.

ST: Did you have siblings?

DQ: Yes. I have, I had three siblings, one of them passed away. My oldest sibling is my sister Carolyn, who was born November 9th, 1951. Then, my second sibling, my brother Ken, Kenneth, who was born on October 4th, 1953. He passed away on May 12th, excuse me, May 19th, 2012, from multiple myeloma, which is a cancer of the blood. He was 58 years old. And then my next brother, Russell, was born December 12th, 1955, and he lives in Virginia, so I am the fourth of four children. I am the youngest, I am the baby. And, you know, I was born June 19th, 1959.

ST: What were your parents like when you were living with them? And what were their careers and hobbies?

DQ: When I was living with my parents, they were likely to be parenting and giving us guidance, and disciplining us, and making us, shaping us like a parent does with their children. My dad worked at Kaiser Steel in Napa, California. He was the quality control manager; he ran the test lab, where they did tests on the steel they were producing the pipe, you see. My mother was a

bookkeeper for vineyards and vineyard management companies. She was kind of her own person, her own boss. She started her own business back in the early 60s.

ST: Do you have a very memorable family gathering here?

DQ: Yes. Holidays were a big deal. I mean we had Thanksgivings, Christmas, 4th of July; my parents always hosted a big, family gathering because we lived in Rutherford. I grew up in Rutherford, not Saint Helena. I grew up on Manley Lane, 1205 Manley Lane, between Rutherford and Oakville. And there would be a great view of the fireworks at Robert Mondavi Winery. So we had very big family gatherings.

ST: The most memorable experience from from age zero to fifth grade.

DQ: Wow. Playing little league baseball. Growing up down in Manley lane where we grew up playing with our neighbors, the Chaix, C-H-A-I-X, family, lived across the street from us and we had great fun. We made our own fun playing on bikes and wiffle ball and just making our own fun throughout, especially the summers.

ST: Do you have any specific memories of your time playing baseball in Little League?

DQ: I do. I was, my first year, I was on the Zumwalt Ford Falcons, because the Falcon was the flagship car of Ford.

He was a very very good, honest coach who tried to teach us not only baseball, but some life lessons.

And then, my second year, they changed it to the Mustangs, because the Ford Mustang came out. So that team became the Zumwalt Ford Mustangs, which is still out on Little League fields today. So, and then, in my major league career in Little League, I was on the American Legion Eagles, and coached by a man named Angelo Ivanitch, who worked for PG&E as a lineman. He was a very very good, honest coach who tried to teach us not only baseball, but some life lessons.

ST: Do you have any memorable field trips or lessons that involve the history of the Napa Valley, when you were a kid?

I remember going, well that was California, we went to Sonoma, the mission, and the square.

DQ: Memorable field trips involving the history of Napa Valley. So that would be California history. And when I was in fourth grade, we did that. Actually, in second grade, we went up to PUC, Pacific Union College, in Angwin, they had a dairy up there, and we got to watch them milk cows, they made butter, and they also had an egg-laying chicken thing. So PUC had its own dairy up there, which is long, long ago. I also remember in third grade, being

Mrs. Cathy Patterson was my third grade teacher, and I had a love of the stars and astronomy

So she would arrange for us to go to the observatory at the airport at PUC and also there was a man named Mr. Harding up on Byrd Road, north of Saint Helena, and he had a telescope, so we were able to go up there and look at the stars from his house.

ST: What did your trips into town and other less rural areas look like in your exposure to larger agricultural producers?

DQ: Well, I grew up in Rutherford, so Saint Helena was the big town.

We got to realize that. We had nothing in Rutherford. Actually, we had two grocery stores in Rutherford back in the day. There was the handy store, which was run by Ralph Garcia, and Guigni’s grocery store in Rutherford. So those were our local stores and along at the post office, there were actually three restaurants in Rutherford back in the day, there was the Mount St. John Inn, the El Real, and the Old Oaken Bucket, so, Rutherford was a brimming place, but coming to Saint Helena was the big time, where they had Safeway and Purity Market, which is now Sunshine, and three hardware stores and two five and dimes.

ST: What did moving to the University of the Pacific feel like after being in such a small town?

DQ: It was a change, but Stockton at that time was not a huge town. It was a small city, but not like the big city, like in Los Angeles thing, so it was different. I mean, a whole different, there were good areas and bad areas of town and there was, but University of the Pacific was a really nice safe haven. It was a beautiful campus with brick buildings and ivy. It was not culture shock per se, but then the second phase of my career was more of a culture shock when I went to Los Angeles.

ST: Right.

ST: What did you hope to bring back to the Napa Valley from USC as a licensed dentist?

DQ: I hoped to bring back being a caring individual to provide a service to your community. So I mean, it was always my goal to come back here. I had opportunities to work elsewhere, but it was always in my mind to come back here and take care of Saint Helenans in my practice.

ST: Did you ever consider moving somewhere else?

DQ: I thought about it originally, but this town drew me back and I wanted to be back here. Some of my classmates at USC used to laugh when they’d read the St. Helena Star and read the police log or read the front page headline. The big thing was somebody's bull got out or, you know, there's a big dance coming. They thought I was growing up in, I was going back to Hicksville until they came here and saw what this community was like and then wished that they could have lived here as well.

ST: Where, when, and how did you meet your wife?

DQ: I met her in high school, actually. I knew her for a long time because she and her friend Denise Hoppe ran the Little League concession stand, so when we were out there playing, they were selling the 10-cent Cokes and the 25-cent hot dogs, so they ran that. So I knew her there. And then later in high school, we hung out with a group of friends, and the beginning of my senior year, the beginning of her junior year, we just kind of started dating and never looked back. Here we are, 43 years later. Well, it won't be 43 years until April 24th, but we're getting close. That's married years. So we started dating on September 24, 1976. How's that?

ST: That's impressive memory. Wow. When were your kids born relative to you starting a practice moving back to the Napa Valley?

DQ: We moved back in May. I graduated May 9th, 1985 from the USC Dental School, and then I had to wait to get the results from the state board exam that I took to make sure that I passed the boards, and some of my friends heard before me because I had moved and somehow my forwarding address didn't come, but anyhow, a few of my friends didn't pass and I was getting nervous, but I finally got the letter that I had passed. So I didn't start practicing until July 29th, 1985. So that was my first day of practice, which is going to be 40 years this July, and we didn’t have our first child for 2 years. Our first son, Greg, was born on October 26, 1987.

ST: What is being a dentist and doctor meant for you to watch your client's grow and change?

DQ: It’s meant the world. I see now grandchildren of people who were my patients! I've seen these kids grow up and it's just really heartwarming to have them still be in my practice and allow me to provide their dental care.

ST: That's great. What has been your most difficult challenge of starting a practice here in the Napa Valley?

DQ: Starting practice, it was slow. You know, at first you're just starting out and it people, some people knew me, the Saint Helena Star ran a great article on me coming back to town, so that got me some new patients, but it was just the biggest challenge is having to build a practice and it takes time. It takes a few years to get things going. So it was lean. Didn't make a lot of money to start and had a lot of free time, but it all worked out in the end.

ST: How long have you been coaching kids in the St. Helena community?

DQ: I started coaching kids when my son Greg was eight years old so that was 30 years ago. No, I started when he was in super rookie, so 31 years ago. He was in super rookie. So 31 years ago, I coached Little League every level of that from t-ball super rookies, minors, major, senior league, which was from 13 and 14-year olds. And then, in 2007, they needed a JV baseball coach, and so I told a friend of mine he needed to do it.

We were sitting at a basketball game in the gym and it was January

They needed a coach for February, so I told my friend Monty Reed, I said, if you do it, I'll help you. So he did it. I helped him along with a guy named Robert Jiminez and we did JV for the year and then the next year they hired a new varsity coach for baseball, his name was Dan Parker, and Dan approached me. I'd never met him before, but it happened to be out at the baseball field and he said, hey, I need an assistant coach. Will you do it? I said okay. One year. I’ll do it for one year. Well that was two years.

Then Brandon Farrell took over the baseball program, and I need an assistant. Okay, I’ll do I'll do it a for a year, blah, blah, blah, blah. Brandon coached for three years, then he retired because his kids were young, then he could only coach football. He needed more attention to apply to give more attention to the kids.

So I got the head coaching job

I this for did for nine years and I retired after the 2021 season, and it was my birthday in 2021 after I gave Brandon my letter of resignation, he showed up here on my birthday with a visor in a coaching shirt and said, “How about being my assistant?” and I said, “I don’t know anything about softball or girls.” He said, “You’ll be fine.” I said, “Just one year.” So we did that, and her I am, four years later. So I’ve had 15 years of baseball at the high school and four years, this is my fourth season of softball and I've loved every minute of it. Let me tell you, coaching girls, having raised three boys, coaching girls is so refreshing.

ST: What has been your biggest accomplishment when it comes to coaching?

DQ: Gosh. I don't know, just the coach's biggest, you hope as a coach that you touch kids and sometime in their life they remember something you told them or something you did to guide them on their thing. I've coached some great teams. I've had some bad teams. Probably when I was.. what year was that? We didn't have a, we did not have a baseball field. We played our home games at the veterans home, but the new field was not ready out at Saint Helena, so we had every practice on the football field.

I didn't have an assistant coach that year

So it was just me and those kids responded and we had a really good year. I think that was 2016. I'm not sure on the date, but I'll have to look back, but those kids worked hard. We were in a little corner of the football field trying not to interrupt track practice and it was just, it was tough to not have a home field and a place to practice, but they did awesome. I mean, 2014, my first year, 2013 year, we went undefeated in the league, which hadn't happened in forever in Saint Helena baseball, so that was a big year, too, but just to see kids improve and maybe make a difference in their life, that's what coaching is about. You're not out here for pats on the back or anything.

You're just out here to hopefully make these kids better individuals

From whatever grade they're in learning to deal with success and failure and baseball, softball, as we know, is a game of failure, you know? Three out of ten times succeeding is really good. So it's a tough game and there's no hiding in baseball, softball. It's you and that ball, whether it's hit to you or somebody's pitching it to you, you cannot hide as a group and you, you got to be able to deal with those type of situations and helping kids deal with that, I think is really enjoyable to me.

ST: What was it like to see your sons go through Saint Helena sports programs like you did?

DQ: It was very rewarding. They all played their individual sports and it was just fun to sit back as a parent and watch them and actually not having to coach them at some levels is very rewarding. Just sit there as a spectator.

ST: What has been the most impactful team on you as a person? What team do you think you've impacted the most?

The year we didn’t have a field to practice on

DQ: I think it was that team, that team that year, where we did not have a field to practice on. And like I say, we just threw down bases on the corner football field and couldn't hit balls when track was running around because we didn't want to hurt anybody. But those guys all bought in and we had a really good years. So I think that as a coach was my best effort in terms of keeping things together and getting everything I could out of those guys, cause we could have said—we don’t have field so we can’t play. But they fought hard, practiced hard and had a good year.

ST: what are some of the differences between the St. Helena teams and the other teams we play?

DQ: Hm. Well, that's a really difficult question. I applaud you guys for this one. Obviously, when we look at some of the teams we play, there is economic diversity. Some of the teams we play aren't as fortunate as we are to have the facilities or all the nice things that we have. You know, I mean, when we played Lower Lake several years ago, we looked, and I forget how many of those kids were couch surfers, didn't even have a home. It was very, very disturbing to think that these kids, the life they were leading and we are blessed here in Saint Helena, let's be honest. We have it pretty good. So, you know, I think that's the biggest thing is the economic discrepancies sometimes that you see in these communities.

ST: What have you noticed about how kids have over time? What have you noticed about how kids have over the time you've coached?

DQ: You know what? In the big picture, there isn't much difference. Obviously, now we have cell phones, social media, which is probably the biggest change. But kids are still kids. You know what? And they are out there to play a sport, and you hope to make them better. And, I can't say there's a great difference between the girls I'm coaching now and the boys I was coaching in high school my first year, like, 2013. It's just they're just they're pretty much the same other than the pressure that gets put upon them by knowing everything.

We didn’t know much about what Clear Lake had. I mean, we maybe knew what their record was, but now we know everything about the team and who's pitching and what they're doing, what their record is. So it makes different in that regard, but kids are still kids and God bless them. Hopefully, it'll always be that way.

ST: How has local infrastructure changed since you've been here? Like road changing and signs? Growth changing. Yeah.

ST: What have you noticed about how that has been the biggest change from your childhood to now and how the Napa Valley functions?

DQ: It used to be a much more simplistic agricultural community. There were maybe eight or 10 wineries, and that was it. And the biggest traffic issue and you know how traffic gets around here. You know when we saw traffic? It was Friday evening because everybody was coming from San Francisco up to Lake County to go to the lake. And then Sunday afternoon, there would be cars coming back, everybody towing their boats. There wasn't bumper to bumper traffic anywhere because there was no reason to be here. The wineries weren't here. This was not the desirable place that it is now.

So it was much simpler there. It was based on agriculture more than wine and glamorous experiences of wine tasting, etcetera.

ST: How has the culture of the Napa Valley changed over time?

DQ: Exactly the same. It used to be prune orchards, apple orchards, vineyards. And vineyards were secondary for a long time, and now it's just become this, place where people pay a lot of money to visit- pay exorbitant amounts of money for a hotel. I still can't believe what people pay for hotels here and for tastings. It just blows my mind. But that's how desirable this place is, and God bless us and everybody that benefits from that. It's pretty incredible.

ST: Yeah. Have there been any culture culturally significant moments you can recall?

DQ: I'm struggling with that question, girls. What, what culturally significant in my whole life?

DQ: Well, one thing that pops up to me is the agricultural preserve. Have you guys heard of that, what that is? The agricultural preserve was passed, I believe, in 1968, and that is what keeps this whole valley from being turned into subdivisions.

And so there was a fight amongst people, and there were relationships that were strained because some people were for it, some people were against it because it took away the right to develop the agricultural land in this valley

And to allow now you can have one house per five acres, like, if it's zoned agricultural, etcetera. So that was a cultural that was, I think, the biggest cultural change. Otherwise, we would probably be here in not a valley like this, but we'd probably be in subdivisions extending from San Francisco to here.

ST: So you brought some photos. Right? Do you wanna get into some of them?

DQ: I don't think we got through all my kids. Alright. Let's start at the very beginning. Am I boring you guys?

ST: No. We're good.

DQ: No? Okay. This is my mother and my father at their wedding. This is my father, my mother.

ST: Uh-huh.

DQ: This is Milton Norberg, who was my father's best friend in the war. (Figure 1) And in 1949 alright. Let me let me go back to this. My dad graduated from Saint Helena High School in 1943.

And, like, in the midst of World War II actually, let me go back even further before that. My dad was orphaned. His mother died of tuberculosis in the he was born in 1925. In the early 1930s his mom died of TB. And so he and his brother, Fred, were living with their father who could no longer who just couldn't take care of him.

He didn't have the means or whatever, so he put them in an orphanage in Oakland where they lived. And then one of the ladies that worked in the orphanage, her name was Velma Eddington. The Eddington family was from here. And she took a liking to my dad. My uncle Fred had already had to go out on his own out of the orphanage.

So when my dad was 13 years old, he would come up here. Velma would bring him up here to visit her sister and brother, Violet Young and Harry Young. Excuse me. Elmer Young. Violet and Elmer Young. And, they took a liking to my dad, so they took him in as not a foster child, kind of a foster child. He lived with them. He got to move up here permanently in 1939 and then went to high I think one year at the Rutherford Schoolhouse, which is now what's the preschool down there? The Co-op. At the Rutherford Co-op.

At that school, he went to Rutherford School. And then four years of high school, 1943. He graduated in 1943, enlisted in the army, joined, became a paratrooper because that got a little more money, apparently, was his reasoning. So he was in the 101st Airborne trained at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was not there. His group was not quite ready for D Day on June 6th 1944, but in August of 1944, they were transported to England.

And then on September 17 1944, he and his group were in it's called Operation Market Garden. They jumped into Holland to liberate Holland from the Nazis. And he was there. And then on October 22nd of 1944, there was an incident with a landmine that exploded and ended up taking his left leg and other multiple injuries. So he was a 19 year old missing a leg.

So he, through recuperation efforts, whatever, and rehabilitation, he got an artificial leg and came back here, went to Santa Rosa JC. And then the army had some deal where he got, I believe it was a Pontiac or a Buick. I think it was a Pontiac. So he went back to Detroit, picked up his new car, and then stopped in Chicago to see his best buddy from the army, Milton Norberg. And Milton introduced him to his cousin who was like a sibling to him, Vera.

And that was my mom. And they got married on June 6th excuse me, December 16th 1950. And then moved out to California where he started working at first Basalt, which then became Kaiser Steel, where he worked for let's see. Started there in '51, and I think he worked there until 1984. So you guys do the math.

Fifty one. So, He worked at Kaiser Steel. So that's where my parents came from. This is my sister, Carolyn, who was the firstborn, November 9th 1951. (Figure 2) Oh, where are my pictures?

Here in there. That's like I was saying, I think that is my sister, Carolyn, and my brother, Ken, and this is them later. (Figure 3) Carolyn's the oldest. And that's Ken, who passed away in 2012. God rest his soul.

That is my brother, Russell, who was born in 1955. That’s Russell, Ken, and Carolyn. Russell who lives in Virginia. So that's the four of us. That's Carolyn, Ken, Russell, Daryl.(Figure 6) This is Russell and Daryl.(Figure 7) Probably, I look like I was four maybe. He is, now I was probably three. He was probably six because he's missing his front tooth. That was my sister, Caroline. That was another family friend's wedding. This is my parents 1995. Where is the picture I'm looking for? Is it not in here? Oh, well. That's me.

This was my father and he was in World War II. This is kind of an interesting picture. My father in Holland is with the 101st Airborne. Oh, this is in the middle of war. (Figure 8) That's my dad, and that's Milton Norberg who introduced my dad to my mom in Chicago when they went back there. They were walking on this infantry patrol in Holland.

ST: Where did you and your siblings end up?

DQ: Where did we end up in life? My well, I'll start with my sister. She went to the, UC Davis and then transferred to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where she graduated in 1972. Now she lives in Nevada, has three kids. My brother Ken, the one who passed away, he graduated Carolyn graduated in '69 from St. Helena High School, and my brother Ken's class of '71. And he worked for Kaiser Steel, then Basalt Precast, then Dave Pharmaceuticals in Napa, which is a drug company, until he got sick in December of 2008 with multiple myeloma and died in May of 2012.

My brother Russell graduated class of '74 from Saint Helena High School, went to the West Point, the army US military academy at West Point, and then served in the US Army. He graduated West Point in '78 and was in the army for, I think, 30, 32 years, and he retired as a full bird colonel. He was a colonel. And then he retired and went to work for the Department of Defense in Washington DC, and just recently retired two years ago and now and still lives in Virginia with his wife, and they have one son.

ST: Tell me a little bit more about your kids and what were what was it like to raise them here?

Greg, my oldest, was born on October 26th 1987. My middle son, Jeff, was born on November 30th 1990, and our baby Alex was born on January 25th 1994. So 1987, 1990, and 1994. It was great raising them here.

They're all three married. Greg has two children, a boy, Rusty, named after my dad and a daughter, Ava, who's gonna be two tomorrow. Jeff has Lucy or Luciana, and she is gonna be four in May. And their little boy, Tommy, is gonna be two on flag day, June 14th. And, Greg is married to Katie.

Jeff, my middle, is married to Gianna, and Alex, my youngest, is married to Sydney. They got married in October of 2023, so they're a year and a half into their marriage.

ST: Do they all live here?

DQ: Alex lives in Napa. He just moved to Napa from Sacramento. Greg lives here in St. Helena, and Jeff lives in our family home in Rutherford on Manly Lane where I grew up.

ST: So you said they all graduated from St. Helena High School.

DQ: They did

ST: Right? Did some of them decide to stay here, or did some of them go other places?

DQ: They're all here. They're all in the wine business. Greg graduated in 2005, Jeff in 2009, and Alex in 2012. They're all they're all in jobs related to the wine industry. None of them opted to be a dentist like me.

ST: (Laughter) Okay. Have you always lived here, or have you lived anywhere else in Saint Helena?

DQ: Yes. I lived at 1310 Mitchell Drive in Saint Helena on the corner of Oak Avenue in Mitchell. And then we moved here in 1986. My wife's mother passed away, and it was too much house for her dad. So he sold it to us in 1986. So we moved here in 1986, and then we remodeled the house in 1992, added the second floor.

ST: So you raised your kids in this house. Correct?

DQ: In yes. This house. Yes. All three. They're all three born here. Greg and Jeff lived through the remodel, but, yes, they were part of it.

ST: Can you tell us a bit more of your grandparents' trip here?

DQ: My grandparents' what? Trip here. Their trip here? Yeah. What I know of when they immigrated here?

ST: Mhmm. How they came out to the valley?

DQ: My grandparents were never here. My parents, my dad grew up in the orphanage in Oakland and then came up here he was born in Sacramento and then came up here, like I said, when the

Young family took him in. My mom grew up in Chicago. And then when she met my dad and they got married in December of 1950, then they moved out here. So she was here ever since. She was a transplant from Illinois.

ST: Yeah. Thank you for your time.

DQ: Alright. Listen. Thank you for spending your time. I learned some things about myself that I never really thought about. So this was kind of a neat experience.

Audio got cut off but the original question was repeated by Mr. Quirici

DQ: Do I have any parting words about the valley? No. It's always gonna be a beautiful place to live. The people come and go and, you know, it changes, but in its own way, it's still the same. And you know what? Hopefully, the future generations will be custodians of it. And that and that's the big thing about the Ag Preserve back in '68, how it divided people, but it made it the place it is. And hopefully, that won't change.

ST: Okay. Thank you.

EC: Thank you so much.