Matos Petrinja Salami for the Emperor and Ban

Born in 1836, Mathias Mato begins learning the meat trade at a very young age, under the guidance of his uncle Ivec. Mato’s father was too preoccupied with the expansion and remodeling of the meat shops to teach young Mato the trade. Mato often paid visits to his aunt and uncle who had no children of their own and thus uncle Ivek took Mato under his wing as an apprentice. After successfully learning the trade, Mato was officially “freed”, as was the tradition, and set off for a two-year cooperative where he learned the trade from various meat masters across the Austro-Hungarian Empire (like apprentice Hlapić from the popular children’s story). Upon his return to Petrinja, he entered the Meat Guild and ran his uncle’s meat shop, while helping his father run his own as well. During that time, he married the daughter of a well-known and affluent merchant from Sisak. She was four years his junior and named Marija Radoćaj. Due to his reputation, wealth, and model behaviour, Mato received a free-citizen decree from the military community of Petrinja. He thus became the tenth member of the Gavrilović family to receive a citizenship decree from the magistrate and was given privileges like the other citizens from military communities across the Croatian-Slavonian military border.

Besides the meat trade, Mato Gavrilović managed other business and retail projects as well, thus was the first in his family to take on the role of a modern-day private entrepreneur. Mato was quite the businessman at home as well, having three sons with his wife, Marija Radočaj Gavrilović, in a short span of years. The first son was Stephanus (Stjepan); the second Mate, named after his father, as it was meant to be; and the third, Georg (Gjuro) – a name that will come to signify the Gavrilović family and Company to this day. Unfortunately, the three Gavrilović sons will soon end up without a mother, who dies at the early age of 29. The grandparents of the children will go on to take over the boys’ upbringing.

The death of his beloved wife was a terrible loss for Mato. A secret part of their love story reveals Mato’s fascination with Marija’s beautiful hair. Aunt Vesna recounts: “Grandfather Mato loved his wife very dearly and was literally obsessed with her long, abundant hair. Marija Radočaj (her family continued to call her by her maiden name) was said to use petroleum on her scalp and brush her hair with a fine comb made of bone. Grandfather Mato loved his wife so, that he had a portrait prepared in honour of his wife, made out of her own hair. I never asked how the illustrious hair was set on the canvas, but my mother just used to say: ‘Radočaj’s portrait, made out of her very own hair.”

After the death of his wife, Mato turned to new business ventures, which he deemed most beneficial in those insecure times for the whole military border region. Besides his meat trade, Mato owned a modern convenience store, a large mill, and a warehouse for flour. From 1879 onward, his three sons – Stjepan, Mato and Gjuro – assisted him with his businesses. In 1879, their grandfather, Josip, still energetic at 66 years of age, leased a tavern in town, for a pricey 120 forints per year. On the daily menu one could obviously expect to find “Gavrilović Specialties”.