Victoria Ibleto, Petaluma native who helped her husband build their Pasta King business, dies at 87

Victoria Ibleto was born in Petaluma in 1931, early on in the Great Depression. She learned the value of hard work while growing up on her family’s vegetable ranch, and became an integral and beloved behind-the-scenes force in local businesses that introduced Sonoma County to the splendors of a plate of pasta half in red sauce, half in green.

The former Victoria Eleanor Ghirardelli was employed as a Bank of America teller in Petaluma when she married Italian immigrant and future “Pasta King” Art Ibleto in 1951. A hands-on partner, she helped her well-known husband in their family’s custom butcher shop, their former Christmas tree farm and Ibleto’s Spaghetti Palace on the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, as well as the family’s vineyards and rental houses and the Pasta King catering and frozen foods businesses.

“Everybody who met her loved her,” said her daughter, Annette Ibleto Spohr, of Cotati.

Victoria Ibleto died peacefully on Good Friday surrounded by her family at the couple’s longtime home in Cotati. She was 87.

Until failing health due to heart trouble sidelined her in recent months, Ibleto worked daily with her husband, daughter and son, Mark Ibleto. Her grandsons, Ryan and Ben Spohr, lived nearby.

“She would move mountains for her family,” her daughter said.

Victoria Ibleto was born May 13, 1931, to Petaluma vegetable growers William and Matilde Ghirardelli. She was a senior at St. Vincent de Paul High School when newly arrived immigrant and World War II combat veteran Arturo Ibleto came to work for Ghirardelli Bros., the vegetable farming business run by her father and her uncle, Emilio.

Art Ibleto, now 92, recalled in his memoir, “I met Vicki in September 1949, during dinner at her house.”

Some time passed before the ambitious farm laborer, then 22, felt right about speaking to the 18-year-old who was the daughter of one of his bosses and the niece of the other.

“I was immigrant, you know,” he wrote, “and she went to high school. After a while I say to her, ‘Why don’t we see a movie?’?”

He said she asked her mother if it was OK. Her mother agreed, as long as she could come along, too. “So I have to go to the movie with her and her mom,” Art Ibleto wrote.

The couple married Sept. 30, 1951, at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Cotati.

Victoria Ibleto was doing well as a bank teller when, at age 23 in 1954, she fell suddenly ill. She’d contracted polio.

With the help of doctors at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and the iron-lung treatment she received at the former county hospital on Chanate Road, she fought the potentially fatal or debilitating disease and recovered without serious impairment.

She had given birth to her first child, Mark, in 1958 and to Annette in 1964. Julie Ann, another daughter born prior to Annette, died shortly after birth.

Willing to work and take risks, the Ibletos built themselves and their children a good life by creating a custom-butchering service. They tried growing potatoes, and when that didn’t work out they switched to Christmas trees. Later, they replaced the trees with premium wine grapes. The Ibletos also built and rented out duplexes and invested the proceeds in more rentals.

A pasta concession by the Sons of Italy led in the early 1970s to the creation of the Spaghetti Palace on the county fairgrounds in Santa Rosa. From there, the Ibletos founded Pasta King and began catering and selling their pesto and marinara sauces, minestrone and other foods to grocery stores.

Last fall, the couple celebrated 67 years of marriage.

“I’m a lucky man,” Art Ibleto declared in his memoir.

Leisure time was always a rare commodity for the Ibletos. For many years, they traveled annually to Italy to visit family.

When she could set aside the time, Victoria Ibleto savored going with her mother and daughter to a casino and playing the slots. And she liked to cook for her family.

Annette Spohr thought of something else that made her sweet-natured and good-humored mother happy: “She enjoyed sitting in the sun.”

In addition to her husband, son, daughter and grandsons, Vicki Ibleto is survived by her brother, Bill Ghirardelli, of Sebastopol, and “foster” son, Regile Fontenot, of Oroville.

Visitation is from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Parent-Sorensen Mortuary and Crematory in Petaluma.

A vigil service will be held at 7 that evening.

A funeral mass will be said at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Cotati. Entombment will follow at Petaluma’s Calvary Catholic Cemetery.

Ibleto’s family suggests memorial donations be made to Hospice of Petaluma, 439 College Ave., Santa Rosa, CA 95401, or www.stjoesonoma.org/foundations/donate-online.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.