Peter Messe was a young tailor who, in the early part of this century, immigrated from Italy to Chicago.  He worked on the railroads during the day, and did tailoring at night.  His wife, Jenny, was a seamstress.

One day they rode the train some 75 miles north and stopped in the resort town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.  This was the spring and summer resort town for such Chicagoans as the Wrigleys, the Maytags, and the Morgans, and there the young couple found an opportunity to start their own laundry and dry cleaning business -- the Pantorium Cleaners and Dyers.  It was 1919.

Peter and Jenny, had one child, Mary, who started helping in the family business at age 12 by doing counter and book work.  In 1935, she married Joseph Delgatto, a young man who was working in the railroad business in Chicago.  While the Depression hit cities hard, life in the rural areas was not as bleak.  The Messe family persuaded Joe to leave his railroad job and join their cleaning business.

By 1939, Joe and Mary and two sons, Peter and Joe Jr., and Joe Sr. had spent some four months at the dry cleaning school in Silver Spring, Maryland.  He was also active in the Wisconsin Dry Cleaning Association, and served as its secretary/treasurer.

In 1944, Pantorium Cleaners & Launderers celebrated its 25th anniversary and Peter and Jenny Messe retired, leaving the business to Joe Sr. and Mary.  Running a business and raising two boys provided plenty of work, but Joe and Mary found time on fall weekends to drive about an hour away to Madison to watch the University of Wisconsin play football.  When the Badgers won the Big 10 Conference in 1952, Joe Sr. told his family they were going with the Badgers to the January 1, 1953, Rose Bowl in California.

"When we left Chicago", reports Joe Jr. "it was snowing and cold. There were no automatic jet ways in those days and we had to walk out on the tarmac and up the ramp to the plane.  We weren't even sure the plane was going to get off the ground!"

But the plane did get off the ground and several hours later the Delgattos found themselves in Los Angeles--where it was 82 and sunny.

"It took my folks 18 months to sell our farm, home, and business, and to relocate to Sierra Madre, just a few miles east of Pasadena," says Joe Jr. "By 1955, we'd built a new Pantorium--a 1950s-style drive-in, for which we won a design award in the mid-1960s"

In 1960, while in college, Joe Jr. started working with his father and brother in the family business.  He attended IFI's dry cleaning school in 1966, returning in 1969 for the management series.

Joe Sr. retired in 1976 and today brother Peter owns dry cleaning stores in San Marino and Arcadia (both in Los Angeles County). Joe Jr.'s son Mike, who is also volunteer fireman/EMT, and who attended IFI's dry cleaning school in the early 1980's, works with his father at Pantorium.

Ever devoted to the community of Pasadena, aside from his business, Joe Jr. is an active "White Suiter"--one of the 935 volunteers who ensure the success of the Tournament of Roses Parade and all its concomitant activities.  For the past two years, he chaired the Membership Development and Diversity Committee.  "We used to be an organization of Caucasian males, but now almost 40 percent of our members are women, and we more closely reflect the make-up of the community--with Black, Asian, and Hispanic members.

"Derek Bedell, of Home Van Vechten Cleaners in Pasadena, and I clean probably two thirds of the 900+ white suites after the Tournament each year," estimates Joe Delgatto.  "I've been accused of shrinking a few of those suites, but I know for sure that some of these volunteers just change shapes from year to year!"

It has taken almost 80 years for Pantorium to be passed from Peter Messe to his daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Joseph Delgatto Sr. and now to Joe Jr. and his son Mike. In April, 2005, Mike purchased the establishment from his father and, even though he does not have any children himself, his nephew Vincent at age 13, having already made some career decisions, is thinking about being a dry cleaner himself, making it the only 5th generation business in the San Gabriel Valley if not any further in the Los Angeles area or beyond…

We figure another 80 years for Pantorium will be easy.