Recently one of the descendants of a Veneto market gardener was talking about her grandfather and reflected that he had arrived nearly 100 years ago. It is true, the group of Veneto men who arrived alone (apart from the one married couple, Francesco and Margherita Marchioro and their baby daughter, Mary) and who are the focus of my research, arrived in Adelaide between 1926 and 1928 – nearly 100 years ago.
The image above is of the Rossetto family in Bigolino, taken about 1920.
Photo supplied by Maria Rosa Tormena.
Arrival – July 1927
I looked at the list of arrivals of the group and realised that in July 1927, three Rossetto brothers, Gelindo, Adeodato and Angelo arrived in Adelaide with their brother-in-law, Brunone Rebuli. They had all left from the village of Bigolino and were sponsored by Domenico Rossetto who had arrived a year earlier.

The story of the Rossetto family has been the subject of other blogs and it is an example of the challenges faced by a family who opposed fascism and who were living in an area that had been devastated by the military campaigns of the First World War. Eight of nine siblings had migrated to Australia by the time World War II had begun. They took the risk to make a new life at a time of economic difficulties in Australia.
A family reunited

After four years, Brunone Rebuli was reunited with his wife Giovanna (nee Rossetto) and their eldest three children, Dorina, 8 years, Albino, 7 years and Elvio, 6 years. When he sponsored his family, Brunone was working on a farm in Kingscote, Kangaroo Island. The fourth member of the family, Guido, was born in Adelaide in 1938.
The histories of Veneto market gardeners
The histories of the group of Veneti who made the decision to migrate to Adelaide in the 1920s are the subject of my book, “‘I buy this piece of ground here’: An Italian market-gardener community in Adelaide 1920s – 1970s.” The book covers the motivation of the Veneti to migrate, their early difficult years during the Depression, the coincidence of the families leasing land within 3 kilometres of each other, the importance of building family life along with the development of market gardens using new methods of cultivation including growing tomatoes in glasshouses which were not used in the Veneto region.

The paese or the village-like community that grew in the area of Lockleys – or Kidman Park and Flinders Park created security for the families who were dislocated from their own kin in the Veneto region.
The community negotiated the impacts of the Depression in Australia, the impact of fascism and the racist environment experienced by Italians during World War II, the influence of the White Australia Policy that created a culture of exclusion before the Australian Government introduce new legislation in the 1960s and the Whitlam Government established a policy of multiculturalism in 1973.
The cover of the book

The couple featured on the cover of the book are Costantina (nee Visentin) and Giovanni Santin. He had arrived in August 1927. The photo was taken in the mid 1940s on land that the Santin family was subleasing from another Veneto market gardener, Gino Berno.

The family were reunited in 1935 when Costantina and the four children, Lui, Vito, Romildo and Virginia, migrated from Caselle di Altivole. At the time his family arrived, Giovanni was working for a Bulgarian farmer at Jervois, about 100 miles south east of Adelaide . The family lived there together until they moved to Adelaide in the early 1940s. (Giovanni’s eldest child, Angelina, arrived in Australia later with her children to join her husband, Pietro Compostella.)

The launch
As I prepare for my book launch next Saturday 19th July, I am keeping in mind the families whose migration stories are featured in the book and on the website. I look at this image that was designed a few years ago with the 11 family names and outline map that situates the location of the market gardens between Grange Road and the River Torrens that the group of Veneti established during the 1930s.

Celebration of the first generation – and continuity
The launch will an opportunity for the descendants and their children (and others) to gather and reflect on the decisions made by their Veneto forebears nearly 100 years ago.
Madeleine Regan
13 July 2025