SUNSET BEACH – Sam Perricone, the patriarch of the family that ran the Citrus House on Main Street at Disneyland for about two decades and who owned thousands of acres of avocado, lemon and orange groves from Arizona to California's Central Valley, has died. He was 91.
The citrus industry giant, whose primary residence was in Sunset Beach, died of heart failure at 12:02 a.m. Friday, 15 years to the day after his wife Mary passed away, family members said.
He worked until the end and worried about his family until the last day, they said.
After working at his Perricone Farms office in the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market on Wednesday, he went grocery shopping and filled up his Chevy van with food for the family and told the driver he would not be seeing him again, his daughter said by telephone Saturday.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Orange County Register
