[1] After five years as a bricklayer and plasterer in the United States, Joseph sent for his sweetheart, Theresa Wangler, the daughter of the burgomeister of Baden-Baden, Germany, and they were married in New Jersey.

At the age of eleven or twelve, young Joseph began working on the railroad as "train butcher", selling newspapers, candy and other notions.

[3] He excelled at Cornell, earning high grades, running the baseball team, competing in swimming championships, starting a new college newspaper and organizing dances, musical programs and social outings.

[7] Struble, meanwhile, was elected to Congress, and Sartori then worked for lawyer Peter S. Rishel, a new arrival in Le Mars.

On March 4, 1887, Sartori arrived in Los Angeles and traveled to Monrovia, California in the San Gabriel Valley, where the climate and country had impressed him on his last visit.

A man named James Ganlon approached him, asking if he was the fellow who owned the option on the Daugherty Ranch, and purchased it for $8,500.

In Le Mars, Sartori had been a director and member of the loan committee of the Plymouth County Savings Bank and Trust Company.

A national charter for the bank was secured after he sent a telegram to his former partner Isaac S. Struble in Washington, D.C., who helped arrange for permission.

First National weathered the subsequent depression, but Sartori saw that opportunities in Los Angeles would be greater than those in Monrovia.

[19] In January, 1894, in a proxy battle, Meyers gained control, formed own board and changed management, leaving Sartori and his friends out.

[20] During the year he was no longer a part of the bank, Sartori formed a partnership with Maurice S. Hellman, with offices located in the Bradbury Building, to deal in municipal bonds and other securities.

In the January 1895 meeting, through the purchase of Myers' nephews stock, Sartori and his friends were able to take back control of the firm.

Sartori became interested in golf when, out bicycling one day with a friend, golfer Ed Tufts invited the pair to try the game at a local course.

In October 1905, the Realty Company, the organization formed to purchase and hold the land, proposed to sell the club 145 acres for $22,300 and to use the balance of the property to finance the course and the clubhouse.

[29] Sartori also owned stock in the San Joaquin Light and Power Company, and eventually sold a controlling interest to Kerckhoff.

[32] This land deal would later be controversial, as the terminus of the Owens Valley aqueduct would be located near the Porter ranch lands, making them more valuable, and there was a suggestion that General Moses Sherman, a member of the Board of Water Commissioners, had advance knowledge of the project, which he may have passed on to some of the men who were part of the syndicate.

He made substantial contributions to the efforts of the Commission, drawing from in-depth research into the banking laws of other states, and adding his own ideas.

[40] Sartori took Giannini to court and prevailed, but the Bank of Italy chief did not give up easily and continued litigation.

The controversy ended when, after a series of new acquisitions, Giannini decided to name his entire organization The Bank of America.

[41] As part of the fallout from the Julian Petroleum Corporation Stock scandal, the First National Bank was significantly weakened.

[33] After Westwood was selected as the site for the new campus of the University of California, Sartori accepted the responsibility for raising the $1.4 million purchase price.

The idea was that a bank in the community would serve as trustee for donated funds, the annual income of which could be distributed according to the benefactor's wishes.

[47] After World War I, as people poured into Southern California and a new wave of speculation in real estate and stocks began, Sartori, remembering the fallout from the 1887 boom, was critical of these Roaring '20s.

De Mille, Henry M. Robinson, Moses Sherman, Marco Hellman, Ben R. Meyer, Andrew M. Chaffey, Charles H. Toll, and George I. Cochran.

The group voted to acquire land at the southwest corner of Fifth and Olive Streets, which would be near the railway terminals and on main traffic avenues.

[49] John McEntee Bowman was engaged to run the hotel, and he in turn suggested Shulze and Weaver as architects.

[52] As a member and President of the Central Business District Association, he was also instrumental in developing Los Angeles Civic Center and the Subway Terminal Building.

Sartori was interested in the project partly as a means for stabilizing the central business district, the center of which had shifted over the years.

[53][54] During World War I, he was a factor in organizing the Los Angeles Steamship and Dry Dock Company, and was later a director in that firm.

[44] Sartori and his wife had a single foster daughter, Juliette Boileau, who married George Wallace, President of Security-First National Bank.