Photos from the Vault

Remembering vaquero John Baptista Romo

I saw this photo spinning through the microfilm and had to stop to read it. We journalists enjoy spending time with colorful story tellers. Even in grainy black and white John Baptista Romo looks colorful.

COLORFUL FIGURE…Familiar to nearly everyone who frequented San Luis Obispo’s downtown area was John Baptista Romo, who “had fun” displaying his array of medals and trinkets. The ex-vaquero, seafarer and adventurer died Monday in a San Luis Obispo hospital at the age of 86.

Colorful County Resident Dies

January 29, 1963

By Walt Beesley

Life closed its doors on John Romo Monday.
But in the 86 years of his existence, John Romo had made what he thought was the best of life — as a vaquero in the rolling hills of San Luis Obispo county, as a seafarer hitting ports all over the world and more recently as a well-known figure on the city streets who “had more fun than people.”
John Baptista Romo, a man of certain distinction with a chest full of medals and trinkets which set him apart, died in a San Luis Obispo hospital Monday night and his death immediately recalled a statement he once made:
“We only die once…we don’t die twice…only once. We might as well have fun while we live.”
John Romo had fun even to the end. Once asked why he bedecked himself with a variety of medals and gadgets and he said simply:
“I wear them for looks. People ask questions and the more they ask the more I put on. When the last war started people began to say ‘Look at the medals,’ so I began to put on and put on.”
John Romo was born at San Bernardo creek about a mile and a half south of Morro Bay. Oct. 8, 1876. He said his father was English but he claimed himself to be “three-quarters Spanish.” And so, as a highly efficient vaquero, he spent his early years in the saddle and acquired the heavily tanned complexion he carried with him the rest of his life.
But John Romo was not bound to the land. He shipped out of San Francisco one time on a Catalina schooner and for six years sailed the seas. He returned to his native sector later and worked in Morro Bay, at one time hauling rock for a “water break” at the famed harbor.
In his younger days, Romo worked for William Randolph Hearst and became known throughout the state as the No. 1 enemy of squirrels.
His reference to dying once probably stemmed from the false report circulated at one time that he had been drowned near Red Bluff. At the time he was working 200-miles away. He said he had to hurry home to reassure his mother he was all right.
John Romo gave up working seriously years ago. He had been living in Edna on the Luke Tognazzini ranch, “just tinkering around.”
John Romo has died only once.
That was enough for him.