Are you interested in learning about your Italian Heritage?

Here is a short story about a very special person. We hope you will enjoy reading it.

Amadeo Pietro Giannini also known as A.P. Giannini was the son of Italian immigrants. His father Luigi Giovanni was originally from a small agricultural town called Favale di Malvaro located in the Val Fontanabuona not far from Genoa. Luigi’s father Carlo, his grandfather Stefano and his great-grandfather Giuseppe had settled in Favale for generations to farm the land. A few months before Amadeo’s birth (May 6, 1870) Luigi and his wife Maria Virginia De Martini migrated to San Jose, California. With the little money they had collected from relatives, they rented a house with a few rooms. After six months of renovations, they transformed it into a functioning inn with over twenty rooms. Eventually it became a hotel and Luigi successfully sold it after a few years; with the proceeds from the sale he bought some land. His American dream came abruptly to an end when he died tragically leaving his wife age 22 and three young children.

Virginia later remarried to Lorenzo Scatena, who was the owner of a small produce grocery business. Together they moved to San Francisco in 1882 in an effort to expand the produce business and be nearer to the port. When Amadeo was 12 years old, he left school and went to work full time for his stepfather.

He then went on his own and started a successful business as a produce broker, commission merchant and produce dealer for farms in the Santa Clara Valley.

In 1892 he married Florinda Agnes Cuneo who was also the daughter of Italian immigrants from the Genoa area and whose father Giuseppe, now a wealthy citizen of San Francisco owned a large stake in Columbus Savings & Loan.

Amadeo became a director of the Columbus Savings & Loan at a time where banks were run for the benefit of the wealthy. He saw a real opportunity to service the increasing immigrant population who could not easily bank. Not understood by the other directors, Amadeo was forced to quit the board and on October 17, 1904 he founded with the help of other 143 shareholders the Bank of Italy.

The bank was housed in a converted saloon directly across the street from the Columbus Savings & Loan as an institution for the "little fellow". It was a new bank for the hardworking immigrants other banks would not serve. He offered those ignored customers mostly from North Beach savings accounts and loans, judging them not by how much money they already had, but by their character.

On 18 April 1906 San Francisco was hit by a devastating earthquake and fire; before the bank building burned down, Amadeo Giannini was able to move the vault’s money and records to his home in San Mateo, some 18 miles away. The wagon used to transport the money was actually a garbage wagon in an effort to disguise the cargo and protect it from theft.

While all other local banks could not access the contents of their overheated vaults for weeks, Amadeo immediately opened a makeshift bank on the Washington Street wharf and lent money to all those interested in rebuilding San Francisco. The loans were granted with no more than a handshake and every single loan was later repaid.

The bank’s post-earthquake success encouraged him to expand to other cities in California. Amadeo Giannini financed numerous industries through his now renamed Bank of America; from motion picture by loaning Walt Disney the funds to produce Snow White, to the California wine industry and major construction works such as the Golden Gate Bridge. Among his ventures was also the start-up HP (Hewlett-Packard) which at the time made oscilloscopes. He never really forgot his roots and after WWII he arranged for loans to help rebuild the damaged Fiat factories in Italy.

Amadeo Peter Giannini died in 1949 and is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, in Colma, CA. Among the many obituaries there is one worth mentioning:

"Death Calls A.P. Giannini, Bank of America Head - San Mateo, June 3 - Amadeo Peter Giannini, boy produce peddler who fought his way up to become the world’s biggest banker, died today of a heart ailment. He was 78, and had been ill with a cold for a month."
- 1949 - 3 June - The Modesto Bee

In Favale di Malvaro, the rural home of Amedeo’s parents located in the hamlet of Acereto was renovated by the town and is open to the public.

Learning about our origins can be an important legacy to our children, after all memories are not used to remember the lost time, but to start again, knowing that losing our roots inevitably leads to a loss in our identity as people who live, think and love.

If you are interested in authorizing a research project in your Ancestral town, go to: http://www.myitalianfamily.com/research/home_research.htm or call us direct at 1-888-472-0171 If you are interested in traveling to your Ancestral town, go to: http://www.myitalianfamily.com/trips/ or call us direct at 1-888-472-0171. Send this e-mail to a Friend!