One day Erminia Vanoni, her girlfriend, and her boyfriend went for a walk in the Maggia Valley near Aurigeno in her native Switzerland. It was a warm day, and they climbed on a large hay stack to rest. Erminia awoke to find her boyfriend, Antonio Gaggioni, making love to her girlfriend. Despondent over this soured love, Erminia came to the USA. She departed Le Havre, Seine-Inferior, France aboard the “La Touraine,” and when she arrived at Ellis Island on June 14, 1902, she stated that she was going to Valley Ford, California to see her brother. She took the train from New York to San Francisco. She slept or was ill for most of the trip, so she saw very little of the scenery. From San Francisco it is believed that she went to her uncle Carlo Pozzi’s (the husband of her mother’s twin sister, Giuditta Vanoni, deceased in 1894 ) home in Valley Ford. From there she moved to the Gaver Ranch in Occidental, located adjacent to the west edge of the Morelli farm, where she lived with Edoardo, one of her brothers. She met Joe Morelli, and they were married in September, 1902, only 4 months after her arrival in the USA.

Erminia had 3 brothers and 2 sisters. They all came to the USA, but one of the sisters (Margherita) returned to Switzerland where she married and lived in the old family home located in Aurigeno (N 46º13'53.46", E 8º42'43.61"), about 10 Kilometers from Locarno.

In 1951, at the age of 80, Erminia returned for a visit to her native Switzerland. There she wept at the grave of her unfaithful beau, Antonio Gaggioni, whom she continued to love until her death in 1964. Gaggioni married a Vanoni cousin, Paolina Bianchini. Both of their names are listed in this genealogy report.

Joe Morelli was born in Gordevio, Switzerland, a small alpine village about 6 miles from Locarno. Joe grew up in a small house that, in 2006, was owned by Dario Danillo Chiesa, a distant cousin (N 46º13'17.35", E 8º44'40.98"). When he became old enough, he would spend summers with his uncle in Lierna, Italy where he was learning the trade of a stone mason. As a youth, Joe was quite active in the Catholic Church. He was an altar boy who often assisted the priest during Mass. It is said that he attended Mass on the day he left for America. However, he did not participate much in church activities after his arrival in the USA.

At 18 years of age, Joe Morelli left Le Havre, France, for New York, arriving on October 7, 1884. He took the train from New York to San Francisco and then on to Healdsburg where he joined his father, working in the vineyards of the Morchand Estate, later known as the Ballard Ranch. Shortly thereafter, Joe and his father worked in the redwood lumber camps on the lower Russian River. At one time they lived at a mill encampment on Freezout Creek, about a mile from Duncan’s Mills, and Joe would walk from there to Occidental where they had saloons. Many years later, Joe told his family that during his lumberjack years he cut notches in the sides of large redwood trees so that a train loaded with logs could pass through the Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio. The Bohemian Club had purchased about 13 acres along the Russian River in about 1865, and they did not allow any logging on their property.

In 1885, one year after Joe’s arrival, his two brothers and his mother followed. On January 11, 1892 the family purchased an 80-acre parcel from Luigi Simoni for $3,100. The parcel, located about two miles north of Occidental, was described as “The West half of the South West quarter of Section Twenty Three (23) in Township Seven (7) North of Range Ten (10) West, Mount Diablo Base & Meridian, Containing Eighty (80) acres.” (N 38º25'50.4", W 122º56'33.42")

Joe became a US citizen on December 21, 1891 in Sonoma County. On January 26, 1893, Joe, together with his father and brother, Lee, founded and were very active in the Frederick Sieg Grove #94, a Druid organization. Their winery operation was very successful until the prohibition of alcohol in the 1930’s. Treasury agents knocked holes in the barrels of stored wine and allowed the wine to run out. Greatly saddened by this experience, Joe vowed that he would never again make any wine.

Until Joe’s death in 1951, Joe & Erminia lived on their 40-acre farm located on Morelli Lane about 2 miles north of the town of Occidental. Erminia continued to live on the ranch until her death.