The streets that honor Sonoma’s WWII heroes

Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series that looks back on Sonoma during WWII, in honor of Veteran’s Day. Part two will run next Friday, Nov. 12.

How many of us know that Andrieux Street on the west side of Sonoma on which our hospital is located, was named after a local war hero? I didn’t, but I should have. Seven other streets near our hospital are named in honor of Sonomans who died in World War II.

I’m grateful to Jerry Biers, my friend and Sonoma Valley High School class of 1960 classmate, for informing me. She lived on one of those streets. The street names were memorialized in 1950 while our town was still recovering from the toll taken by the war.

Starting in 1942, more than 350 graduates of Sonoma Valley High School enlisted. Some remained in the military for the entire war and made it home safely. Some did not.

The City of Sonoma, at the urging of local veterans groups, decided that those Sonomans who had died during the war should be honored in some permanent and substantial way. Our Veterans Memorial Building on First Street West was built with that in mind.

In 1950 also, local vintner August Sebastiani was developing much-needed postwar housing on a tract of land west of Broadway. Not only did he work with the local hospital district so that it obtained a site for a new facility in the tract, he also offered to name the streets in memory of the war heroes selected by the City to be honored. A veterans committee eventually named the eight, which the City approved.

Before the war, these heroes were just “average Joes,” like most of their generation. One day they were going about their daily lives, trying to make a living, raising kids, looking ahead to a bright future, the next, the world was on fire and their lives would never be the same.

Many were just out of high school. Others were grocery clerks, mail carriers, cooks, carpenters, farmers and insurance salesmen. They didn’t wait to be drafted. They volunteered, leaving parents, wives, children, friends and jobs behind.

The pages of the Index-Tribune were filled each week with stories about local boys going away to military training beyond our beautiful Valley of the Moon. The I-T ran regular “honor rolls” documenting their service.

Their absence was felt, not only by their loved ones and friends, but also by local employers who no longer had the help they needed. The whole town went to war, not on the frontlines, but here at home, in support of the troops.

The sudden absence of so many of our young men was a harsh reality by itself, but the worst was yet to come.

By 1943, and increasing in 1944 and 1945, heartbreaking telegrams arrived at the homes of wives and parents across the Valley. “We regret to inform you…” Some of the notices were disturbing in their brevity and lack of information: “Your son is missing in action.”

The workers assigned to inform military families were not intentionally cruel. They didn’t have any details. During many battles, the fighting was so intense and the casualties so high, it took weeks and sometimes months to verify all those lost.

Bit by painful bit, families were informed that a son was missing, or lost, in action. Sometimes they received details, sometimes not. The weight of the loss, however it was delivered, was felt by the entire community. Almost everyone had at least one relative or dear friend in the war.

They grieved as one, and sought ways to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. That is how eight streets on the west side of Sonoma, – Andrieux, Perkins, Banchero, Barrachi, Bettencourt, Hayes, Robinson and Vigna – were named.

In Part II, we will learn more about those heroes: Mathew Andrieux, Charles Perkins, Robert Banchero, Raymond Barrachi, Sgt. Lawrence J. Bettencourt, Ross Hayes, Eugene Robinson and Joseph Vigna.