On August 3 , 2024 , the Miller Red Barn welcomed the Al Gagliardi family and friends to the dedication of Al ' s prune box collection . Sadly , Al could not be with us , as he passed away in March of this year , just shy of his 100th birthday .

More than three hundred boxes were collected by Al over a sixty year span . All the boxes were the standard size holding 40 pounds of prunes which when filled were destined for drying yards throughout the Gilroy Valley or sent to the commercial dryer at Sunsweet Plant No . 3 . Sunsweet was the brand name for the Prune and Apricot Growers Association . The Sunsweet Cooperative Dryer operated at the corner of Leavesley Road and Monterey Highway from 1917 until 1958 .

Ten years ago , Al Gagliardi and Phill Laursen , collaborated to organize all of the prune boxes and publish a booklet called " Preserving Gilroy ' s Prune Heritage ". The booklet is primarily a photographic retrospective of the widespread prevalence of prune orchards in the Gilroy area . So many families farmed prunes as a cash crop and many people still remember the annual calendar of prune harvests . The school district would not start its Fall term as children were employed to " pick prunes " - a very labor intensive , hot and dirty job back in the day . The money that the kids earned would allow them to buy new clothes for school and have a little bit of money in their pocket for a movie or an ice cream .

The booklet is available at the Gilroy Museum , and it includes

Enid Reeve Michael moved to Yosemite National Park in 1918 . She married Charles Michael , the assistant postmaster of Yosemite Valley , and lived in a tent by the Merced River . In total , Enid wrote 537 articles about Yosemite , the largest collection written about

a brief history of the Gagliardi family in Gilroy . Al ' s parents , Frank and Theresa , purchased two 5-acre parcels at the southwestern corner of Farrell Avenue and Monterey Highway in 1926 . The family would subsequently acquire another adjacent 10 acre plot just south of their home ranch . Prune orchards were everywhere in Gilroy then .

One aspect of Al ' s life is the family ' s tragic loss of his brother , Capitan Salver Gagliardi ( 1919-1945 ) who was killed in action by a sniper while serving in Germany during World War II . Another older brother , Michael Gagiliardi , served in the U . S . Navy as a Petty Officer in the Pacific , but he was killed shortly after his return home resulting from an automobile accident . Al served in Army the Pacific Theater seeing combat in both Iwo Jima and Okinawa . A family photo of the three brothers taken in 1943 shows the last time they were together .

The Gagliardi family was reeling from their losses and the prune orchards were becoming unprofitable when a decision was made to pull the trees in 1947 . The ranch was finally sold in the 1960 ' s when Al ' s career as a Deputy Sheriff was underway . Al and his younger sister , Eleanor

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