Willow Glen Resident

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Photograph by Vicki Thompson

Still Growing: Dominic 'Doc' Danna and his daughter, Dee, are part of the valley's farming pioneers. At one time the Danna family owned 575 acres that included portions of Willow Glen, Edenvale and South San Jose.

Danna family has thrived on growing

By Mayra Flores De Marcotte

Before San Jose was known as the Heart of Silicon Valley, it was known as the Valley of the Heart's Delight.

Growing up in the midst of cherries and apricots, Willow Glen resident Dominic "Doc" Danna helped solidify his family as innovators and entrepreneurs in the area's agricultural community.

"We were growing the business of growing," Danna says.

After 70 years in business, Danna became "the man to call" about crops and agricultural when it came to packaging, growing and shipping in Santa Clara County.

He is viewed as a farmer who was at the forefront of the industry when it came to applying new technologies such as high-tech tractors to increase production, and he generously shared his knowledge with others.

"He was always looking for the best way to get the best-quality product produced efficiently without raping the land or the trees," says his daughter Dee Danna.

His daughter has been working with Danna & Danna, the family business, for the last seven years.

"We would get excited about new techniques, new ways to plant, harvest, package and market the produce," she says.

But their biggest accomplishment was not in the planting, harvesting or marketing; it was in shipping, Dee Danna says.

"The biggest innovation for us was not just developing new products like our orange-flesh honeydews, but in shortening the time it takes to get the product to the consumer so that they could eat it as fresh as possible," Dee Danna says.

The community at large has now recognized this forward-thinking approach.

In 2005, Danna received the Western Growers Association's Award of Honor, and most recently, on May 9, San Jose City Councilman Ken Yeager, along with the city of San Jose, recognized Danna, 95, his family and his life work with a commendation.

Yeager wrote that "Doc" is a living testament to the ingenuity and diversity that has made the Santa Clara Valley an example of business excellence.

His daughter shares those sentiments.

"I have always admired his work ethic and team spirit," Dee Danna says. "He has always put his money back into farming. He has an absolute passion about quality food."

Doc Danna was born April 12, 1911, to Angelo and Antonina, immigrants who traveled from Sicily. He is the second of six sons.

His father was a fruit broker, who purchased the fruit from a grower and either sold it in bulk or packaged it for sale.

A year later, the family bought their first property, the Cottle Avenue Ranch, now home to Willow Glen Middle and High schools and Wallenberg Park.

The Dannas purchased 33 acres, a fruit bowl of orchards, with cherry, apricot, pear, apple and prune trees. The prunes were harvested and dried in the sun until 1928.

During those years Doc Danna attended Willow Glen Grammar School and then Campbell High School. Willow Glen High School was not built until 1951.

While at Willow Glen Grammar School, Doc Danna was assigned the prestigious role of garden monitor, where he tended the vegetables in the community "war garden." Families during World War I shared the bounty.

"I was the only kid who could handle a hoe and a shovel," he says.

While he was in school, he tended to the family business, which included taking care of the horses that were used to work the land until 1925. His skill and affinity for animal care got him the nickname "Doc."

In 1928, Danna's father and his father's cousin Peter Danna purchased another orchard on the corner of Meridian and Hamilton avenues, known as the "Fairfield Ranch."

While their father worked, the Danna boys stayed home and helped with the family business as best they could. Being as large a family as they were, not all the Danna sons would be able to further their education, so while Doc's older brother, Leonard, went on to college, Doc graduated from high school and stayed on in the family business.

From the time he was 15, Doc was the designated driver for his Uncle Pete. The pair took daily trips to the wholesale produce market on Washington Street in San Francisco. The 2 1/2 hour drive along El Camino Real, along with doing business at the market, sharpened Doc's merchant skills as well as his Italian, the language spoken by the majority of the buyers.

As the business grew, Doc Danna enlisted the help of his cousin Leonard Danna to start a packaging and shipping company. In 1933, Danna & Danna was founded.

"I was a young punk of 22 when I applied for the license," Doc Danna says. His cousin was six years older but, Danna says, "I was the boss, and he didn't mind."

Leonard Danna left the business in 1935 and eventually, Doc's four younger brothers--Tony, Pete, Frank and Angelo--joined the business.

Danna & Danna Produce began shipping nationwide, as well internationally to countries such as Canada, Hong Kong and Japan. Today, the company still does business with Canada and Japan.

More than farming

In November 1938, Danna met a woman who shared his love for producing quality produce.

Marian Orlando, Danna's cousin, made a visit from Colorado and brought a visitor. Rose Spano captivated everyone that day, including Danna.

She had been chatting with the women who worked in the packing shop at one of Danna's properties during production, when Danna interrupted their conversation to remind the women that the loaders were waiting.

"Can you talk and work at the same time?" Danna asked his crew.

Spano turned to Danna and responded, "I'd like to have you for my boss--I'd show you."

Danna become much more than Spano's employer. In1940 the two were married.

During the next 10 years, the company changed from a brokerage operation to a grower-shipper business. At its peak in 1972, the family had 575 acres of orchards and row crops in San Jose.

They grew plums, dried prunes, cherries, walnuts, and tomatoes.

Along with their Cottle Avenue and Meridian and Hamilton avenue ranches, the family had ranches where Santa Teresa and Gunderson high schools now sit and another ranch where Edenvale Fire Station off of Monterey Road is located. The family also bought land in Yuba City and Marysville.

The family shared their success with the people that took care of them, Doc Danna says. "We would never give anything but the best to our friends, teachers and associates."

Kay Linquist, a longtime friend of Spano, can attest to this.

She met the Dannas in the 1950s at St. Christopher's Church.

"He was all business," Linquist says. "He really didn't look very social, but he liked my husband and me. He became a very good friend to us."

In the late spring early summer, Danna would start his days by walking the orchards and would call Linquist between 7 and 8 a.m. to say, "Check your back doorstep."

She would go out and there would be a basket, six fresh peaches for breakfast. He would always make sure she would get the ripest, best fruit.

"He brought me all kinds of fruits and vegetables from his Cottle Avenue property," Linquist says.

She, in turn, would make sure to get the baskets back to Spano so that she would continue to find fresh fruit and vegetables at her back doorstep.

Progress moves in

All that family land began giving way to the push toward urban sprawl in 1960s and 1970s.

"Our family never pursued the sale of our properties," Dee Danna says. She blames the loss of family land on the school district's "condemnations of the ranches," which enabled them to purchase the property.

Aside from the sale of most of their San Jose properties, the business is still a family affair. "We always worked fulltime in farming," Dee Danna says. "It was an opportunity to work together."

Danna's brothers, Tony and Pete, lived in San Jose but worked in the honeydew ranches in Yuba City and Marysville until each died. Frank worked in San Jose at the last cherry and prune orchards on Cottle until he died. Angelo, the only surviving brother, is a field supervisor. He moved to Yuba City in 1972.

In 2003, after the death of four of his five brothers, Danna stepped down as president and chairman of the company and handed the reins of the family's company over to his grandson, Steve Danna Jr. and his nephew Angelo Danna.

"Dad could have taken the money and slowed down and retired, but no one ever considered this an option," Dee Danna says.

Five years shy of his 100th birthday, Danna still drives to the San Jose office on Hamilton Avenue six days a week and "cracks the whip."

Currently, the Danna family farms 5,000 acres in Yuba City and has three generations of family members actively involved with the business.

"It's wonderful to see your family continue to be interested," his daughter says.