January 17, 2024
On the second day of my trip to the Bognanco Valley, I met up with a man and his wife with whom I’d been in contact for several months. This man was raised in the Bognanco Valley as a kid in the 1940s and 50s before immigrating to the US in 1956. After retirement, he returned to the Bognanco Valley hamlet of Pioi to restore an old family home, which is likely well over 400 years old! He and his wife now spend a little over half of his time in the United States and the rest at their restored home in Pioi. Interestingly enough, this man and I have a few things in common; we both have great-great-grandparents who belonged to both the Mottini and Morganti families. Another commonality between us is that our families both had close ties to Giovanni Pietro “John Peter” Pianezzi (1866-1955), also known as William Ramm or John Delano, a man with quite an interesting story. Pianezzi was married to the aunt of the man I met in Bognanco. John Peter Pianezzi was born in Bognanco, the youngest child of Giovanni Pianezzi and his wife Anna Maria Mottini, and the youngest sibling of Joseph and Lawrence Pianezzi (refer to my last two articles for more information about the Pianezzi family). Like his nephew, Pete Pianezzi, in California, John Peter Pianezzi didn’t live the most upstanding life. Passenger records show that it was my great-great-grandfather Joseph Mottini who accompanied John Peter Pianezzi from Bognanco to the United States. They traveled on a ship named Devonia, which loaded passengers from Glasgow, Scotland, and Moville, Ireland, before arriving in New York City on March 29, 1881. The two then made their way to the Ramm Ranch (now Pendola Ranch) near Camptonville, where my great-great-grandfather and several other immigrants from the Bognanco Valley had established themselves as workers. However, it seems that after some time, John Peter Pianezzi established himself in another career - that of a con man. The great-granddaughter of John’s brother Lawrence told me that John “was referred to as ‘The Medicine Man.’ He would wear a top hat and opera coat and stand on a platform that he erected and sold his tincture that cured all aches and pains. He sold his medicine for 50 cents a small bottle and one dollar for a large bottle… in reality this medicine consisted of brown sugar, some alcohol, and some flavoring. It made people feel good. John was a traveling medicine man and a con man.” Apparently, John Peter Pianezzi got into “some kind of beef” with the Weinstock, Lubin, and Co. department store chain in Sacramento and was likely also being investigated for tax fraud. Lawrence Pianezzi’s great-granddaughter told me, “One morning, John was sitting on his horse outside of the house talking to his brother Lawrence, and then he left. Several days later, his clothes and his horse were found on the banks of the Yuba River. It was the time of year when the snow was melting and the river was high. He wanted to leave the impression, which he did, that he had jumped into the river and committed suicide… Some 25 years later, when John’s sister and brother were living in San Francisco, a young woman came to see them and told them that her father was the brother of Lawrence, and was married with several children. He had gone to Seattle, Washington, and went into business there, becoming a wealthy businessman. Since John Pianezzi knew and worked on the Ramm Ranch, he changed his name to Ramm and hid out in Seattle and started a new life.” Of interest, John Ramm, the owner of the Ramm Ranch, got into trouble with the revenue as well several years before the “disappearance” of John Peter Pianezzi, and thereafter shot and killed himself because of financial worries. Perhaps Pianezzi was inspired by Ramm’s demise when faking his own death? William Ramm was not the only name that Pianezzi used. He traveled all across the United States, even residing in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Montana for some time. He married Angelina Croppi, a native of Bognanco in Massachusetts, under the name “John Delano.” Oddly enough, before the marriage, Angelina’s immigration records state Pianezzi was her uncle, though this was not the case; it was likely another cover for Pianezzi, who also variously stated his place of birth as Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, and California. Of interest, one of John Peter Pianezzi’s sons took a life path quite different from his father’s career choice. This son, Bernard L. Ramm (1916-1992), was a famous Baptist theologian and apologist who was regarded as one of the leading evangelical theologians in the United States in the 1970s and whose works are still included in Religious Studies courses at universities. Part 14 of this series, coming next week, will tell the heartwarming story of my meeting an elderly Italian woman, born at Bognanco, whose grandparents (my great-great-grandfather’s brother and his wife) once resided in Sierra County.