Schonsberg's Grocery and Saloon
In 1891, Swiss-Italian immigrant Peter Schonsberg established his residence and grocery store in a one-story wood-frame building built in 1884. Peter, wife Pacifica, and six children lived in the western third while the store occupied the eastern two-thirds. In 1900, contractors jacked up the building and placed a full-story stone foundation under it. They also built up the stone house to the west and attached the false-front stone building on the east, where Peter opened a saloon. Peter died in 1915 at age fifty-nine and Pacifica died at age forty-two in 1916. Their married daughter Adeline Rodoni raised her five younger siblings (and her children), while husband Julius and partner Felix Tatti ran the store and saloon. Prohibition closed the saloon, but by 1920, Schonsberg’s oldest son Valerio, his wife Lizzie, and sister Linda were operating the grocery store, while the extended family lived upstairs. Valerio reopened the saloon after 1933, running it until he retired in 1971. Lizzie and daughter Valerie established The Alpine Bar in Meaderville in the mid-1940s. After Lizzie died in 1969, Valerie kept The Alpine until her death in 2010.
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