looking for information on anna tusa married jon picek settled near tyndall southdakota anna died at 45 years she had seven children her fathers name was charlie . any help would be great.

I happended across this article and thought it may be of some interest to you. The website is http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/business/1674021

Maceo family lays claim to first muffuletta
By DAVID KAPLAN
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
GALVESTON -- While making a muffuletta in the kitchen of Maceo Spice & Import Co., Rosario Maceo shared a few of his opinions on the sandwich.

It's ridiculous the things people put in them, Maceo said. They use the wrong meats and even put "cauliflower and that other crap" in the olive dressing.

Watching television recently, he saw a well-known chef create a muffuletta, and the finished product "looked so goofy I couldn't believe it," he said.

"He was using lettuce, Ronnie," Maceo said to his son in disbelief.

Oh, and Maceo also mentioned that the muffuletta was invented by his great-uncle, Tony Lavoi, in New Orleans, and only Maceo Spice & Import has the recipe.

"We make the original," Maceo said emphatically. "Don't give him the recipe," he instructed his son while pointing to a reporter.

Rosario and Ronnie Maceo, of the legendary Galveston Maceo family, are father-and-son proprietors of the Strand-area shop where their muffuletta is sold.

Maceo family lore is richer than their olive dressing. Their relatives ran the famous and wildly entertaining Balinese Room, a pier restaurant and illegal casino, which drew Hollywood's elite.

For decades the Maceos just about ran Galveston.

So when Rosario Maceo says an ancestor came up with the muffuletta, one stops to listen.

But while the 84-year-old Maceo claims to be the genealogical heir to the muffuletta of origin, he and his son don't seem to be trying very hard to capitalize on it.

"We just let the people find out for themselves," Rosario explained. "We don't advertise."

"This is Galveston," Ronnie said. "We don't work too hard."

But if it really is the original recipe, aren't they sitting on a gold mine?

The store's only visual reference to the owners' claim is a paper sign on the front window: "Contrary to popular belief -- Maceo is the originator of the muffuletta."

Shouldn't they be promoting it more?

It is always compelling when you can say your product is authentic and "the real thing," said Kevin Keller, professor of marketing at Dartmouth College.

Of course, you do have the challenge of making the claim believable, Keller said.

"You basically want to tell a good story. Branding is about storytelling, and the story is conveyed through advertising and marketing," Keller said.

Conventional wisdom has it that Central Grocery in New Orleans came up with the sandwich in 1906.

One of the current owners of Central Grocery, Frank Tusa, said by phone that the sandwich was indeed first put together at his grocery store. The Tusa family took over the grocery in 1953. Tusa credited his father, Charlie Tusa, and late uncle, Frank Tusa, with popularizing the muffuletta.

Dale Curry, food editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, has researched the muffuletta and said its history is "all a little bit foggy. I don't think anybody knows" who made the first one. It's debatable whether it was Central Grocery, she said.

The bread used in the muffuletta is native to Sicily, Curry noted, and it was Italian immigrants in New Orleans who adapted it as a sandwich bun.

A lot of people credit Central Grocery for inventing the sandwich, said Tom Weatherly, vice president of communications and research at the Louisiana Restaurant Association, but Weatherly couldn't find hard evidence.

If Maceo began to make more conspicuous claims to possess the original recipe, "I can't imagine that Central Grocery would go after them," Keller said.

Maceo might even welcome a challenge from Central Grocery, said Betsy Gelb, professor of marketing and entrepreneurship at the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston.

It's controversy that makes news, Gelb said, and having two possible claimants to the title would grab people's attention.

"I don't even think they should advertise," Gelb said. "I think they should just quietly tell everyone they know -- spread the rumor."

Rosario Maceo's version of the muffuletta's birth is that his great uncle, a native of Palermo, Sicily, came to New Orleans and created the sandwich around 1901.

As a boy of 7 or so, Rosario hung around his Uncle Tony and watched him make the sandwich. His kitchen was in a warehouse in the French Quarter, where he made the buns, too, Maceo said.

Lavoi sold muffulettas from a wooden pushcart at the corner of Royal and Dumain, Maceo said, and they were wrapped in pages of the New Orleans Picayune.

Maceo said his great-uncle supplied Central Grocery with six to eight muffulettas a day.

Maceo's ancestors moved from New Orleans to Galveston, where they would make their name in the entertainment business.

Asked about the Balinese Room, Rosario said, "I was a pit boss," then he stopped himself. He didn't want to talk about it.

"That's the only story I'm going to give you -- that sandwich stuff," he said.

But Rosario talking about the muffuletta and not the Balinese Room is like Romeo musing on spumoni and not Juliet.

Rosario Maceo is proud of his Balinese Room family history, and eventually he shared some anecdotes.

He recalled that Guy Lombardo wouldn't come to Galveston unless he knew he'd be served veal spiedini, a dish made by Rosario's mother, Katherine Maceo.

The late Sam and Rose Maceo were the best known owners of the Balinese Room, but Rosario said his father, Frank Maceo, had a stake in the business.

Rosario -- his friends call him "Rose" or "R.S." -- couldn't help but drop a few names of stars who performed there, such as Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and Dorothy Lamour.

The Balinese Room was Vegas before there was Vegas, only better, Rosario said.

Compared with decades past, the Galveston of today is "a big zero," Rosario lamented.

"It's coming back," his son said.

"Who told you that, Ronnie?" Maceo asked.

His son offered the opinion that their cousin, restaurateur Tilman Fertitta, is bringing Galveston back to life.

Their Maceo Spice & Imports is on the outskirts of Galveston's Strand district, not on one of its trendy streets. Several of the spaces around the import shop are empty. Across the street is an old furniture store.

Inside the charming little shop are aisles of olive oils, pastas, coffee, preserves and Italian cheeses. Scattered about are old bobble head dolls of Louis Armstrong, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante and Groucho Marx.

Decades ago, before he sold imported foods, Rosario Maceo owned a shrimping business and had a fleet of six boats. After shrimping faltered, he began importing spices and other goods.

In 1973, Ronnie opened the Turf Tap Room and Grill in Galveston and needed a sandwich to serve. His father recalled his great-uncle's recipe and began making the muffuletta.

Initially they imported their buns from a bakery in New Orleans, but it got to be too expensive, and they switched to Gino's Bakery in Galveston.

Gino's went under, and now they rely on Randalls.

Their muffulettas are made with salami, ham, provolone cheese, olive dressing and olive oil -- all of it imported.

Do they ever use turkey?

"No! Hell no!" Rosario said.

Some muffuletta aficionados believe the sandwich should only be eaten at room temperature, but Rosario insisted that a reporter bite into it immediately after it came out of the oven.

After the reporter complimented him on the sandwich, Maceo insisted that he include in the article how much he liked it.

"The secret is in the olive dressing, my friend," Rosario said.

The big, round sandwich weighs a pound and a half and sells for $8.95. They sell halves for $4.95.

The muffuletta is only a small part of their business. Maceo Spice & Import Co. is making a nice profit, Ronnie said.

Initially they were only wholesalers, selling imports to restaurants and hotels.

"We used to keep the doors locked," Ronnie said, because they didn't want retail traffic, but eventually they gave in.

A food import business seems appropriate for the Maceos: Their entire family is in love with Italian food.

"We could eat spaghetti every day," Ronnie said.

His father is the chief cook in the family and takes over on weekends.

He has to make some kind of macaroni or spaghetti with Italian sausage or meatballs, Rosario said: "If not, it's not Sunday."

Rosario and Ronnie Maceo often experiment in their kitchen.

"You hit one good one, and you start packaging it," Rosario said.

They will soon unveil their own tomato sauce, Maceo's Sicilian Style Tomato Gravy, and sell it at their store and other shops.

But there is one recipe Rosario doesn't share with his son: The one for muffuletta olive dressing.

He has told no one.

"It's probably gonna go with him," Ronnie said.

"Before I pass, I'll let him know," Rosario said.

It may not be soon. For a man of 84, Rosario Maceo is exceptionally robust. "No smoke, no drink," he explained.

He has worked almost every day of his adult life, with the exception of the time he had heart bypass surgery more than 30 years ago, performed by Dr. Michael DeBakey.

Standing outside his store, he bade farewell to a reporter who had to return to Houston to write the story.

Writing a newspaper article "must be a pain in the ass," he observed.

The muffuletta's birth may be a mystery, but one thing is certain: Rosario Maceo is an original.