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Iliff

Maurice Iliff and Ella Gilbert first met at a settlers’ picnic in a grove at Young’s Landing, Gig Harbor on July 4th, 1890. Ella had come from Independence, Iowa to help settle her brother’s estate, which was near Point Evans. It was love at first sight. Ella returned briefly to Iowa, Maurice followed, and the two were married that October. After the birth of their daughter Mabel in 1892, the couple sought to return to Washington but it took six years to convince Ella’s parents, Hester and William Gilbert, to make the move. The family joined Maurice’s brother Ray back in Gig Harbor and soon purchased land of their own on the east shore of the bay. With Ray’s help, they built a ten-room house. GHPHS

Ivanovich

Mato Ivanovich immigrated to Washington as a teenaged boy from Janjina, Peljesac, Croatia in 1910. He worked at the Tacoma smelter, where he labored ten hours to earned $2 a day, seven days a week. His cousin and some Dalmatian friends from Tacoma were commercial fishermen out of Gig Harbor. Mato joined Pasco Dorotich’s crew as a greenhorn fisherman. He loved the work and envisioned that he too could skipper a boat one day. At first he ran a cannery-owned boat, but his sights were on a boat of his own, so he borrowed money from friends to build and operate his first vessel. Mato’s was so successful in his early days of fishing that he was able to repay his friends and begin a business building, operating, then selling fishing boats. During his years as a fisherman, he owned and operated more than a dozen commercial salmon and sardine boats, amongst them: The Forward, Silver Wave, Mayflower, Arizona, Southland, Frances and Maria Rose. His success allowed him to provide financial support to his siblings and the children of his late uncle, Ante Ivanovich. That support, in turn, enabled them to pursue professional careers in law, medicine, mathematics, academics, the priesthood and the maritime industry. In the 1920s, Mato returned to Janjina, Croatia where he married the village beauty, Maria Anticevic, and brought her to the new world via a wedding trip and shopping spree in Paris. Their first son Francis (Frank) was born in December 1926. Second son Peter was born in November 1928. Rosemarie, their only daughter, was born in April 1941. Frank and Peter traveled by ferry to Tacoma for high school at Bellarmine. Rosemarie commuted to Tacoma’s Aquinas Academy over the newly constructed Narrows Bridge. Both sons obtained their BS degrees at Seattle University and Rosemarie pursued a degree at Long Beach University. Throughout their school years, Mato’s sons spent summers fishing with their father. Frank began seine fishing at age 13. At 14, he was paid a half-share as crew. After a brief tour of duty in the Army at the end of World War II (1945-46), Frank went back to Seattle University. Mato gave both of his sons fishing boats to skipper while they were still quite young. As an adult, Frank assumed Mato’s fishing business and also pursued a career in real estate and insurance. Mato’s son Peter chose medicine and now lives in Chicago. Although Frank sold his father’s fishing boats after Mato’s death, he purchased the Equator in 1971 and resumed his own fishing life in Alaskan and Puget Sound waters until his retirement in 1992. Christopher, (Frank’s son), Matthew, Peter A., Francis (Peter’s sons), and Vincent Sareault (Rosemarie’s son) all fished with Frank during their school summer holidays. Before Mato built the family net shed, he kept his boats anchored in the harbor. Usually boats were anchored in the harbor because the sheds were too close to shore and subject to minus tides. Frank recalls that a vessel had to be moored at least 150-200 feet to access free waters. He also recalls that Spiro Babich’s docks were the only places where boats could be kept regardless of tide. He noted that people did not build shed docks further out into the harbor because they were frugal, and that most fishermen would either row out to anchored boats or moor their vessels at the Union Oil dock (no longer there) where one would often find at least ten boats rafted together. Mato stayed with purse seine fishing for the rest of his life until retirement. Rosemarie Sareault inherited the family net shed from her mother, and later bequeathed it to her son, Vincent. Frank recalls that the net shed and associated upland family home was a regular gathering place for local Croatian fishing families. The community would get together every Sunday to eat dinner and play cards at the homes of fishing families around town. Frank Ivanovich and his wife moved from Seattle to Treasure Island. Vincent, Rosemarie’s son, inherited the family netshed and sold it to the granddaughter of Peter Ancich (Kathy) and her husband Patrick Quigg in 2012. They restored the shed as private entertainment space adjacent to the reconstructed Ivanovich home. GHNSS