1001 Main St History - Museum buildings

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Eliseo Jacoe was born in Grimaldi, province of Cosenza, region of Calabria, Italy in 1881 and came to the U.S. in about 1901. At least two brothers and a sister also came to Louisville. He married Ann Jordinelli in 1913. The following photo is their wedding photo. Ann Jordinelli had been born in 1891 in the Louisville area to Italian -born parents. (She grew up in the Jordinelli House that is now one of the buildings on the Museum campus when it was located at 1100 La Farge Ave.) She and Eliseo had one child, Pasqual. For about eight years, the store was known as being operated by "Jacoe & Son." However, Pasqual left the grocery business. Eliseo and Ann Jacoe made their home at 1101 Main, just one block from the Jacoe Store. Eliseo Jacoe was also a talented musician who played in brass bands in the Denver -Louisville - Boulder area. According to the news item about his retirement, he had performed for period of a few years at the Tabor Grand Opera House and for the Denver city band. He was known as "the Professor." Parents paid him to teach such instruments as the trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and accordion to their children. Richard La Salle, who later went on to have a career as the leader of an orchestra during WWII and in Hollywood as the composer of scores for movies and TV shows, took musical instrument lessons from Eliseo Jacoe in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Older Louisville residents remember the Jacoes selling Italian foods that Eliseo likely obtained in Denver, though the store also sold a more general selection of groceries that would have also appealed to non -Italians. Noboru Takemoto (1928-2013) grew up on a farm north of Louisville (and graduated from Louisville High School in 1946) and recalled that he would deliver flats of tomatoes to the Jacoe Store. Noboru's parents were Japanese -born and rented their farm at 287 & Isabelle Rd. He remembered each flat as weighing 18 lbs. and that the store bough flats for about 80 or 90 cents a flat. He would bring tomatoes to the Jacoe Store about twice a week 9