There were several mighty milestones celebrated Sunday inside Our Lady of Grace Church in Johnston. First and foremost, the Pannese Society – which dates back to 1909 and was founded on Providence’s Federal Hill by an Italian immigrant named Giuseppe Anzevino – held its annual Mass and Breakfast Buffet in honor of La Madonna del Bosco, the patroness saint of Panni, Italy.

Anzevino, as Italian lore has it, left his the tiny village of Panni back in 1894 to escape poverty and, after a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, arrived in the United State and later set up residency in Johnston. So Sunday, in what Pannese secretary Lou Mansolillo called “a special gathering,” over 80 Pannese Society members observed the Feast Day of the Blessed Mother, which originated in the Panni woods.