Attilio Felice Laraia

Parents: Rocco Mario Laraia and Maria Peretta

Middle name, date/place of birth from WWII draft registration. Date and place of death from California death index. Parents from 1900 and censuses, San Francisco, California, and daughter Aida's SS application.

Mr. Laraia was a violinist who played with the San Francisco Symphony and Opera. Between 1915-1920 and 1936-1955 he was a member of the San Francisco Symphony. Between about 1926 and 1936, he was a Hollywood recording studio musician for Paramount Pictures. He studied first with his father, Rocco Laraia. Later he went to Italy to study at the Bologna Conservatory, and then studied with Arrigo Serato in Berlin.

His father, Rocco Attilio, was a music teacher born 14 October 1863 in Laurenzana, Italy (and a member of the Musicans Union, Local No. 6). In March 1930, when he remarried to Donata Bionco (nee Santarcangelo), he gave his parents as Egidio Laraia and Rachela Ambrosa. He died 11 December 1933. His obituary [San Francisco Examiner, Wednesday, 13 December 1933] gives his children as Dr. E. A. [Egidio Anthony] Laraia [233692412], Mrs. A. Rovelli [Mrs. August; Anita] [233130100], William [134646672], Attilio, Aida, Julia, and Erminia Laraia. [Info from censuses, passport application, marriage record, obituary.]

His mother, Maria, died 19 December 1927 [San Francisco Examiner, Tuesday, 20 December 1927].

As of the 1930 census, Aida, Julia, and Erminia were living with their sister and brother-in-law, Anita and Augusto Rovelli. Augusto was a musician (a 1912 article has him a flutist, and faculty at the California Conservatory of Music), and Aida, Julia, and Erminia were all working as music teachers. Brother Egidio, shown as a dentist in some city directories, also the holder of a pharmacy license, died 1934 in San Mateo county. Brother William was also a violinist. Aida died 1974 in San Francisco. Erminia married C. C. Curtis in 1941 and died 1978 in San Francisco. Anita died 1941 in San Joaquin county.