Vancouver Sun

Dad of 7 slain in row over mortgage

- JOHN MACKIE jmackie@postmedia.com

In 1914 Angelo Teti had a mortgage on a rooming house at 1374 Graveley St. But the owner fell behind in her payments, and Teti went to see her.

“My grandfathe­r said to her, ‘You’d better start paying on your mortgage or you’re going to lose your house,’ ” said Teti’s grandson Ramon Benedetti. “And (her boyfriend or husband) replied to my grandfathe­r, ‘I’ll pay you in bullets.’ ”

Teti ignored him. But shortly afterwards, Mario Montenaro showed up at Teti’s office and shot him in the back.

“Three shots rang out in the real estate office of H. Mackinnon & Co., 748 Main St., shortly before noon today,” the Vancouver World reported on Sept. 22, 1914. “Angelo Teti, a wealthy Italian contractor, fell back over the counter, probably mortally wounded. Two of the shots penetrated the kidneys of the victim of the shooting, while the other lodged in the counter.

“Mario walked into the office with another man, and seeing Teti talking to a friend, deliberate­ly shot him in the back without giving him the slightest chance to defend himself.”

Montenaro stood there with the smoking gun in his hand and “threatened to shoot any man who might interfere with him.” But a police constable “set upon the assassin and wrenched the revolver from his hands.”

Teti died the next day, at age 42. He left a widow and seven children.

When he went to trial in November 1914, Montenaro pleaded not guilty to murder, arguing he was temporaril­y insane after Teti had tried to collect on the $2,300 mortgage.

The Sept. 22 story said that the mortgage was two years behind in payments. Montenaro didn’t speak English, so an Italian-speaking police detective named Ricci gave his side of the story, stating that Montenaro thought the property was worth $15,000 and Teti was trying to get it for cheap. Ricci said Montenaro “appeared to be in his right mind” after he shot Teti, “and expressed himself as sorry he had not killed his victim instantly.”

Montenaro was convicted and sent to prison, but he wasn’t incarcerat­ed long.

“He escaped and they never did get him back,” said Benedetti. “They figured he was in Alaska, because his son used to go to Alaska once a year. He said he went there hunting, but nobody really knows.”

Teti’s murder was a sad end to an immigrant success story.

Born in Torricella Peligna in Abruzzo, a region in southern Italy, he came to Canada about 1890. He settled in the Ladysmith/Wellington/Nanaimo area on Vancouver Island, where he worked as a coal miner.

“When he was working in the coal mines he bought a little house and turned it into a rooming house,” said his granddaugh­ter, Johanna Ruocco. “Nana did all the cooking and they took in boarders, usually miners. He made enough money that he started buying real estate after that.”

Benedetti said his grandfathe­r moved to Vancouver after a tragedy in the coal mine he was working in.

“He asked this Black friend of his to take his shift (at the mine), because he had something to do,” said Benedetti. “That night there was an explosion in the mine, and his friend was killed. He said, ‘That’s it,’ and packed up and came to Vancouver.”

Teti first turns up in the Vancouver directorie­s in 1906, when “Angelo Tate” is listed as the proprietor of the Royal Hotel on Water Street. He had anglicized his name on Vancouver Island, but about 1910 reverted back to his Italian name.

“Somehow or other he got involved with a couple of Scotsmen in the real estate business,” said Benedetti. “Him being Italian, and immigrants coming in, they took him as a partner or salesperso­n.”

Family legend is that he owned a lot of real estate, including part of the Sylvia Hotel. But his widow Eusebia wasn’t able to hang on to it.

“She didn’t speak English,” said Ruocco. “The story goes that she was cheated out of a lot of money by unscrupulo­us lawyers and business associates.”

A century later, though, Angelo Teti’s legacy is still strong in Vancouver. Grandson John Teti has been a fixture on the nightclub and hospitalit­y scene since the 1960s in places like Puccini’s and the Shark Club, while Ramon Benedetti’s family has operated Benny’s grocery in Strathcona since 1919.

 ?? GERRY KAHRMANN ?? Photos of Angelo Teti and his wife Eusebia hang today in the backroom of Benny’s grocery, a Strathcona institutio­n since it opened in 1919.
GERRY KAHRMANN Photos of Angelo Teti and his wife Eusebia hang today in the backroom of Benny’s grocery, a Strathcona institutio­n since it opened in 1919.

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