Pia Caterina Franscioni

Pia Caterina FranscioniNovember 5, 1925-November 5, 1925

Our beloved Pia Franscioni, 100, has “gone with God” (as she would put it) on October 28, 2026 at her home in Soledad, California. Her loving family and caregiver were at her side. Pia was born on November 5, 1925, in the small town of Moghegno in Valle Maggia, Switzerland.

Pia would recall that as a child, she attended the local school where she learned not just reading, writing and math, but also handiwork for the home and farm, as well as all kinds of sewing. She was proud to say that during her childhood years and throughout her teens, she would match the hard work of any boy her age. In the summers, her parents would send her and her brother by themselves with the cows, starting since she was just 8 years old, way up into the Alps Mountains for weeks at a time, for purposes of grazing the cows. “Everybody did it!” she explained. The animals would sleep downstairs in the rock cabins at night while the children would sleep up in the cabin lofts, as parents would stay down in the valley below in order to keep up the farm operations and raise the younger children.

Pia would harvest chestnuts from the Alpine Forests and sell them in the city of Locarno ten miles away so that her family became the first in Moghegno to purchase a radio! One day in the 1930s, she was amongst all the townspeople who gathered around the central plaza to witness the first automobile ever to be driven into town!

After finishing school, Pia did what all the other teenage girls of that valley did: cooking, cleaning, washing, constant farm work, tend to the farm animals, clean out manure from the stalls, spread it to the fields, fix things, make things, reaping the fields of hay with hand tools, gathering the hay by pitchfork onto the wagons and forking it into the barns before winter, sewing and stitching clothes, sunup to sundown; such was the daily life of youngwomen in the small remote valleys of Switzerland in those days. It was hard work all spring, summer and fall; including the blustery, snow-chilled icy winters. Never in any year was there ever a “vacation time” and the only time off was church on Sundays, which everyone looked forward to. There were no opportunities for the poor, (such as were mostly all families in that valley), not for a young woman, to ever move forward to a high school or college after age 15.

Eventually though, on a rare chance one day, Pia met her future husband Henry Franscioni (originally from Switzerland himself) while he was visiting from California, as he was just happening to stop by a friend’s house in Moghegno at the time. Two years later, in 1952, they were married and decided to live in California. They had two children, Henry Jr. and Doris. Pia had to learn English and learn to drive a car in order to get her first job at the Bigiogni carrot shed in Soledad. She worked there for many years. But her ultimate job, the one she was most proud of, was working later as state grape inspector at the Gonzales Winery for 17 years until her retirement by age 70. Upon retirement, she helped with her grandchildren whenever needed but also kept handy with building and fixing just about anything.

Despite the death of her husband, Henry, in 1987, Pia still built two homes on each side of their home on Main Street. She was always busy in a construction or remodeling job for herself or her children. Having learned masonry while at her father’s masonry jobs in Switzerland, she was not intimidated by construction work; including going up to re-roof her home with the roofers! She would commonly carry two sacks of cement at a time as she built concrete sidewalks. She took a course at Hartnell College in order to learn to build stained glass windows and hope chests; one of each are displayed at Doris & Wayne’s home to this day.

Pia was very proud to have five grandchildren. More than anything, her family meant most to her as she yearned to be with all her family whenever possible. There was never a holiday or special event that she wasn’t with Doris and her family and she always enjoyed going to her grandchildren’s sporting events throughout the years.

Being the last remaining Soledad resident born from Switzerland, when asked how she had lived so many years, she said, “Get up at 6:00 every day, do something and never stop working!”

Pia was a member of the Grand Westeria Circle UAOD Druids of California, the Monterey County Swiss-American Club, the Alter-Society of our Lady of Solitude Church of Soledad, Pro-Ticino of California, and was a volunteer for Soledad Mission fundraisers for many years.

Pia is survived by her son, Henry Jr. (Mary Ann); daughter, Doris (Wayne); five grandchildren, Jynel (Greg), Henry “Hank” (Kelly), Lukas, Aidan and Theresa; as well as one great-grandson, Henry IV; and many relatives both in the USA and in Switzerland.

She is preceded in death by her husband, Henry Franscioni Sr; her parents, Florindo and Maria Ramelli of Switzerland; two brothers, Angelo and Fridolino; and also two sisters, Myriam and Romilda.

The family gives thanks for the years of support received from Pia’s caregivers and from her daughter Doris, that allowed for Pia to be able to live at home through her final years.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in memoriam of Pia to Our Lady of Solitude Church of Soledad or to the Soledad Mission general fund.

Funeral services are arranged by Woodyard Funeral Home of Soledad, California. On Tuesday,November 24, a rosary will be held at the Our Lady of Solitude Church, 235 Main Street, Soledad, at 10:30am, a full Catholic mass at 11am with a burial service immediately following. A reception will follow at the Our Lady of Solitude Church Hall after the burial.