Vanoni family’s roots on Geyserville ranch run deep

Northeast of Geyserville, at the confluence of the Russian River on three original Spanish land grants, the Vanoni family has run cattle for more than a century. Six generations of Vanonis, beginning in 1902 with the first Mark Vanoni and his wife, Angelina, have ridden, walked and stewarded the land.

Pieces of each of the land grants come together to form the now 1,800 acres the Vanoni family holds, 1,500 acres in a trust and an additional 300 acres in a limited liability company. The original grants included Tzabaco, Casa la Mayome and Rancho Musalacon.

Mark Vanoni, grandfather to patriarch Ed Vanoni, was an Italian-Swiss immigrant who suffered through a California drought in 1898 that forced him to sell his San Luis Obispo cattle ranch to George Hearst. After traveling north, he found the land he would purchase just four years later. He and his wife had one son, Clement, who married Ann. Clement passed away in 1981, Ann in 2000. They spent summers on the ranch, Ed Vanoni remembers, while the school year was spent in the town of Geyserville.

While members of the family held outside jobs over the years, it was particularly during Ed Vanoni’s time on the ranch that ranching activities expanded. In the winter of 1946-47, he fenced the whole property by hand-setting 10-foot redwood posts and stringing heavy gauge wire. PG&E ran a line through the property around the same time.

He went off to college at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1950. He joined the Army, married Johanna in 1952, just before deploying to the Korean War in the same year. Just before leaving for college, he “got a bulldozer and put an end” to the grape vineyards and prunes on the ranch.

Johanna and Ed Vanoni raised their four children, Adriane, Mark, Yvonne and Cal, on the ranch. Mark continues to live on the ranch, with his wife, Chris, as does his daughter, Monika, and her daughter.

Ed Vanoni, now 85, sold off 70 cows and calves earlier this year because of the drought. It costs too much to feed the animals hay instead of having them on pasture, he said.

“The drought has monkey-wrenched our income,” Ed Vanoni said. “Money changes everything.” The family readily admits to being “land rich and cash poor.”

His herd is now a modest 30 cows and calves, though he has plans of bringing the herd back up in numbers once the drought breaks. He raises mostly Black Angus cattle. Originally, they ran a milking shorthorn herd, then Herefords. Through market demands, they transitioned to mainly Angus, though they sometimes get a throw-back to those earlier breeds.

The ranch continues to run a few horses for riding, and Ed Vanoni rides often. He still has four horses, son Mark has five and Mark’s daughter Monika has two on the ranch. They also have four “ranch-mix” McNab dogs.

“I can still cut a cow, through the old bones don’t bounce as well,” he said with a laugh. His wife Johanna, 82, stopped riding a few years ago because of health concerns.

All of them learned to ride and work the ranch. Their modest home was once a summer cabin where barrel coopers lived during Clement Vanoni’s time.

For more than 50 years, Ed and Johanna Vanoni also trained horses. Ed stopped training horses just two years ago. He stopped breeding them a few years before that.

“We rode together every day. We fixed post holes and built fences in the winter time,” said Ed of his routine with his wife.

Coyotes, mountain lions and invasive yellow star-thistle pose challenges to land management. Rustlers are not unheard of.

Hunting continues to be a family activity. Son Mark Vanoni, after 25 years with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department and seven years as a horse trainer, now hunts on the land, as well as maintaining the roads and water systems on the ranch. Monika helps Ed Vanoni with the cattle and horses.

“It’s a lot of work, same as it used to be,” Mark Vanoni said about life on the ranch. “We survive by being adaptable.”