Anna Santin nee Mattiazzo died on Saturday 26th October 2024. Anna was 97 years old and the last of the second generation in the Santin families who worked market gardens on Frogmore Road in the area the Veneti called, ‘Lockleys.’ The following information comes from two oral history interviews that Anna recorded in 2013 for the Veneto market gardeners’ project.
The photo above is a family portrait, Vito, Anna and Dean Santin, late 1960s.
Photo supplied by Christine Rebellato nee Mattiazzo.
The Mattiazzo family
Anna was born on 11th July 1927 in Bigolino, a small village in the province of Treviso.
Anna’s father, Emilio, migrated to Australia in 1928. Anna arrived in Australia in 1936 with her mother, Livia Vettoretti, and her sister Augusta who was 11 years old. Anna was 9 years old. Two more children, Rita and David, were born in Australia.
Throughout her life, Anna maintained a strong relationship with her two sisters Gusta (Augusta) and Rita, and her brother David.
Anna’s father was a butcher in the west end of the City, and was well known in the Veneto community in Adelaide. The shop was in a large building with upstairs accommodation where Livia had made space for boarders.
Memories of the war
Anna was 12 years old when the war began. The situation became challenging for Italians in Australia when Italy allied itself with Germany in 1940. Anna remembered the sense of fear that was part of everyday life:
You were always frightened because they interned a few people around, and Dad was always frightened they were going to pick him up, but he was never questioned or anything, so we just lived it out till the end of the War, it was the same thing… always somebody around to be frightened of, calling ‘dirty dago’ and all that, though my Dad never had any trouble with anybody. (OH 872/24, 3 April, 2013, p 8)
Early working life
After Anna went to school for a few years, her first job was at a factory next door to her parents’ house. It was called Harmony where she packed custard and jelly packets. She worked there until about 1947 when she took a job at Holdens at Woodville. As a machinist, she sewed the upholstery for the interior of the first car that came off the line in 1948. Anna said:
I was just lucky I suppose. I was on the machine, on the floor where all the machines were, and I was just lucky I think they’d pick me out to build, to sew the first Holden. (OH 872/24, 3 April, 2013, p 4).
Meeting the Santin family and marriage
Sometimes Anna delivered the meat for her father and this included cycling to the Lockleys area and she got to know some of the market gardener families like the Santins.
There were three sons and a daughter in the Santin family who had a large market garden that they leased from the Berno family on Valetta Road in the mid to late 1940s. All the family was involved in growing vegetables.
Anna went out with Vito, the second Santin son, for five years before they married in 1949 when she was 22 years old. In the interview when Anna was asked if she had a honeymoon, she laughed at the very idea of a market gardener having time off for a honeymoon – Got married on the Saturday, on the Monday I went to cut celery (OH 872/24, 3 April 2013, p 14).
When they first married, Anna and Vito had a bedroom in the big old house that all the Santins shared with the Berno family.
In 1950, Dean was born and two years later in 1952, the Santins bought land on Frogmore Road and the whole extended family moved there. The large old house on the property was divided in half and Anna, Vito and Dean lived in one half. Romildo, Vito’s younger brother, and his wife, Clara and family shared the other half with Vito’s parents, Giovanni and Costantina Santin.
Working the market garden
Anna worked in the Santin market garden with her husband and two brothers-in-law and alongside her two sisters-in-law, Rosina and Clara, for about 40 years. They grew celery, cauliflowers, cabbages, carrots, potatoes and artichokes – and they also had glasshouses where they cultivated tomatoes, cucumbers and beans. She reflected on her experience of working the market garden:
Oh well, you just picked it up. They gave you a knife in your hand, and go down with your backside up and cut celery… We all, the six of us, all, three brothers and three sisters-in-law, all worked the garden. Seven days a week. Celery, you used to have to cut it on a Saturday and [pack it] Sunday for the market on the Monday. Oh yeah, it was pretty busy doing all different things. (OH 872/24, 3 April, p 16, 17).
Anna’s parents-in-law helped out and her mother-in-law, Costantina, cooked lunch for the families and looked after the young children in each of the families as they arrived.
Family connections
In her interview, Anna remembered visiting her own parents once a week:
I used to go and see Mum and Dad while they were still on Currie Street. I used to go up every Friday … we had a motorbike, and we used to sit Dean on the tank in front. [Laughs] You couldn’t do that nowadays.
Anna enjoyed the closeness of family and she had a strong bond with her sister-in-law, Virginia who married Oscar Mattiazzo. They had been bridesmaids at each other’s weddings. Virginia chose Anna to be godmother to her first-born daughter, Christine, and confirmation sponsor to her second-born daughter, Helen.
Anna loved her nieces and nephews and their families and she delighted in her grandchildren and her two great-granddaughters.
As land was being developed in the western suburbs, and market gardens were sold, the Santins bought a property at Bolivar about 30 kilometres from Lockleys and the family transferred their market garden there. It meant a longer working day but there were benefits because the property was larger and different crops were added.
At both Kidman Park and Bolivar, the Santins experienced challenges when the respective Councils wanted to acquire their land for developments.
Moving into a new home
In 1972, the three families excised house blocks and built their own houses. Anna recalled the thrill of having her own home:
I think it was everybody’s dream those days to buy, to build a house that you liked. I remember we never took any of the old furniture from the old house, we bought everything new, so I was in my glory! (OH 872/24, 3 April, p 32).
Trip to Italy
Anna remembered a six-month trip to Italy in 1968 and she enjoyed the experience of spending time with her relatives in Bigolino with Vito and her mother who accompanied them on her first visit to Italy after more than 30 years. Anna also met the large group of Vito’s relations in Caselle di Altivole. It was the only visit she made to Italy.
Identity
Although Anna spent 88 years of her life in Australia, she felt a strong affinity with Italy. In her interview she said, your Italian heritage is always on your mind. I think when you get older you think more … back to your Italian heritage in what you do, not the Australian … I’m an Italian. OH 872/24, 3 April, p 36).
Changes in the Santin family
Vito died in 2011 aged 88 years. Anna and Vito’s son, Dean died in 2019 when he was 68 years. When I interviewed Anna in 2013, she stated that she was “the only one left of the old generation of the Santins.” Anna reflected that she had had a good life and she quietly accepted many of life’s challenges. Anna felt the loss of Vito and Dean deeply. At 97, when taken to hospital, Anna was in command. She wanted to return to her home at St Hilarion to die in peace, to be reunited with her loved ones – and this she did.
Anna is survived by her daughter-in-law, Desma, her three grandchildren, Aaron, Matthew and Sarah, her great-grandchildren, Lyla and Amelia.
Family was everything to Anna.
Madeleine Regan and Christine Rebellato nee Mattiazzo
3 November 2024