NBTRAIN7-c-21OCT02-NF-SS --- The owner of the Napa Valley Wine Train, Vincent DeDomenico (CQ!) and his wife Mildred. SF CHRONICLE PHOTO BY SCOTT SOMMERDORF CAT
SCOTT SOMMERDORFVincent DeDomenico, the son of Italian immigrants who took a family recipe and turned it into Rice-A-Roni - "the San Francisco treat" - and later built and ran the Napa Valley Wine Train, died Thursday in his sleep at home in Napa.
He was 92 and had worked happily until the night he died, his family said. His wife of nearly 60 years was at his side.
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"He was a dreamer," Mildred DeDomenico, 87, said of her husband. "He always had all these plans. He'd write them down on pieces of paper. He was a man who could never retire."
Mr. DeDomenico, born in San Francisco in 1915, was raised in the Mission District, where he attended public schools and graduated from Mission High. The family ran a pasta company called Gragnano Macaroni Factory and didn't have the money to send all six children to college. Vincent, the fourth in line, went to work selling the dry pasta.
He took accounting and business classes at Golden Gate College, but never earned a degree. When his father died, Vincent and brothers Tom and Paskey took over the business, which had been renamed the Golden Grain Macaroni Co. in 1933.
By the early 1960s, Rice-A-Roni - a mix of rice and macaroni - became indelibly linked to San Francisco with the jingle, "Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat; Rice-A-Roni, the flavor can't be beat." Around the same time, Golden Grain purchased what would become another San Francisco icon, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Co. The brothers sold Golden Grain and Ghirardelli to Quaker Oats in 1986 for a reported $300 million.
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Mr. DeDomenico started his second career in 1987, when he was 72.
"I had thought he would retire, but that didn't last long," Mildred DeDomenico said with a laugh. "He couldn't sit still."
His next venture would prove to be more of a challenge. Mr. DeDomenico envisioned creating a bustling Wine Train that would run through the valley, making stops in towns and at vineyards along the way. He acquired deteriorating tracks and restored dining cars.
Then the political battles began over land use and bringing even more tourists to the inundated valley. "He had visions of it going from Calistoga down to the Ferry Building in San Francisco," Mildred DeDomenico said. "It didn't go over well here, but he hung on to his idea. He asked me once if we should give up. I said, 'Well, when you walk halfway across a muddy pond, do you go back the way you came or through to the other side?' He said, 'We'll go to the other side.' It was a hard time."
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"He stuck by his vision," Mildred DeDomenico said.
While he loved his work, he also cherished time with his family, dining out and drinking good red wine. He had a glass or two a day.
"He was a very private man, but he was always a gentleman and always had a big smile on his face," Mildred DeDomenico said. "I'm so happy we had all that time to spend together. I just can't believe how fast the years went."
The family took at least one long vacation a year together.
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"We had these great trips," said daughter Marla Bleecher. "We'd go for a month or six weeks around the country or to Europe or Africa. Dad wanted to make sure we understood that the world was full of lots of different people and lots of different ways of living."
She said her father would not even call in to the office during those vacations.
"That was his time with his family," she said.
In recent years, he enjoyed spending time at his cattle ranch in the Sacramento Valley.
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"We would always laugh because he would ride around the ranch in his Cadillac," Bleecher said. "He drove that car like it was a Jeep. You wouldn't want to be in the car with him."
She said her father was robust until the end. He worked until around 6 p.m. on Wednesday.
"Work was his play," she said. "He was out there every single day, either reading papers, going over flood-control issues, walking tracks to check on problems, going into the kitchen to talk to the staff. He was very, very active."
In addition to his wife, Mildred, Mr. DeDomenico is survived by their children, Michael DeDomenico, Vicki McManus, Marla Bleecher and Vincent DeDomenico Jr., and seven grandchildren.
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The family asks that donations be made in Mr. DeDomenico's memory to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Napa Valley, the Napa Valley Opera House, Queen of the Valley Hospital, or St. Helena Hospital.
A public celebration of his life will be held at 4 p.m. Thursday at the Napa Valley Wine Train station, 1275 McKinstry St., Napa.
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