About

There is no wealth but life. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, over the lives of others.

−john ruskin

vegetable peddler, pasquale “Charles” Loprinzi of Portland, Oregon (originally hailing from Trabia, Sicily) although inadvertently, was living his life true to these words by Ruskin. In turn, his children, and their children, would grow to do the same.

In the mid 1930s, he was trying to raise five kids without the help and support of a wife. Sadly, his wife, Rosa Formosa (also hailing from Trabia) had been hospitalized due to a bout of diphtheria, which eventually left her struggling with dementia. In her thirties, she was committed to the Oregon State Hospital and would live out the rest of her years away from her husband and children.

With his eldest daughter’s help he was able to raise his children and being in the produce business, he was also able to nourish them well. In 1946 when the Loprinzi’s were dubbed, “The Strongest

Family in America,” Charles declared that it was all the spinach he fed his sons that helped make them so strong. Between his sons (and a few cousins), they could lift a total of two and a half tons. As the story goes it all started when Charles’ young sons, Joe and Sam witnessed a strongman act at Portland’s Hippodrome Theater. They were so impressed with what they saw, (namely one of the great strength showmen of the time, Clevio Massimo) that they came home and started building their own weights.

“We decided to make some weights out of cement, so we would take some cans and pour cement into them and put a pipe in between,” states Joe, from the article, A Man Ahead of His Time, by Jennifer Brown. He continues stating, “We couldn’t afford to buy weights in those days.”