Veneto market gardeners 1927

This is the second of a two-part story about  Nives and Duilio Caon. Part 2 covers the life of Nives Caon nee Cescato, beginning life in her mother’s boarding house and balancing family with the building business in partnership with Duilio and enjoying opportunities to experience life.

The image above shows the Cescato family, Clorinda seated between Nives and Guido, and Angelo standing on the right. The others are a group of friends and this was taken at the Cescato boarding house about 1938.

Nives Cescato was born on the first floor of a house in the west end of Adelaide on 7th March 1932, the daughter of Angelo Cescato and Clorinda Balestrin. An older brother, Guido, was four years older, and a sister, Linda, was born 15 years after Nives.

Arrival of Nives’ parents 1928
Angelo Cescato (1905 – 1985) was born in San Vito di Altivole and Clorinda (1907 – 1986) had been born in Spineda, about a kilometre away.

Angelo and Clorinda had migrated to Adelaide in January 1928 and Nives thinks it was partly as a result of the sadness of her mother’s loss of twin daughters – one had been born dead and the other lived for a short time. There was also the incentive of family reunion because Clorinda’s father, Federico Balestrin, a widower, was already living in Adelaide with his four daughters and two sons who had migrated after Clorinda and Angelo’s wedding in 1927. A third son joined the family in 1928.

For a time, Nives’ father worked for Chinese market gardeners at Richmond, not far from the City and this gave him skills to start his own garden with the help of Clorinda after Nives was born. However, the Depression years were tough for market gardeners and the venture was not successful. Angelo returned to work for the Chinese gardeners and Clorinda helped her sister, Elena, in a boarding house she was running with their father, Federico, in Waymouth Street. Later Angelo worked in a factory and during the Second World War, was employed in a munitions factory.

The vision of the future
In the 1930s, Clorinda and Angelo were young migrants who wanted to create a better life at a particularly challenging economic period. Clorinda had a vision of developing a business that would enable her to work and assist the family financially. She also wanted to provide opportunities for her children in secondary schooling which she had not been able to access in Italy. The experience of assisting her sister in the boarding house prompted Clorinda to start her own sometime in the late 1930s.

The boarding house at  Waymouth Street
In a document that Nives wrote for her grandchildren so that they would know more about her early life, she explained her mother’s role in the boarding house:

She was like a mother to them. She did all the work herself, making the beds, cleaning, washing, ironing and of course, cooking for them… It was nothing for her to be still up at 1am and then up again at 5:30 am to get breakfast for her husband and boarders… One thing I remember well. We lived in a multicultural pocket. We had Australian, Greek, Lebanese, Aboriginal, Maltese, Arab, and of course, Italian families as neighbours and I do not remember any racist remarks thrown around. Everyone got on with everyone.

Approximately 13 men lived in the boarding house in six bedrooms  spread over two buildings. While the majority were Italian, Nives remembered Hungarian and men from Baltic countries. The men became like members of the Cescato family and everyone ate the evening meal together. The children served the meals and washed up.

Nives and Guido had their allocated jobs before school – Nives cleaned the bathrooms and helped making cut lunches for the men. Guido made beds and also assisted with lunches. Both of them washed breakfast dishes.

On the property, Nives’ father had a vegetable garden and raised chickens and Nives’ mother grew flowers which were always in the boarding house. The men who lived in the boarding house became like family members. Clorinda and Angelo cared for the boarders and demonstrated kindness and respect and their children had opportunities to understand difference and what it meant to be inclusive of others. Nives remembered that she and Guido helped the men with taxation and sponsorship forms when they wanted to bring members of their family to Australia.

Surgery at 8 years and a difficult outcome

When she was 8 years old, Nives had an operation on her mastoid in her inner ear and as she said, “the surgery went horribly wrong … a facial nerve was cut resulting in total deafness in the right ear, and my face slipped to one side.” The surgeon removed her right eardrum as a life-saving intervention. Nives remembered her mother stayed with her all day and night for the whole time she was in hospital. It was a challenge for a young girl to experience the change in her appearance and one of her teachers made sure that her classmates understood the circumstances.

Schooling
Nives loved school at St Marys Dominican Convent in Franklin Street – a couple of streets away. Her parents were involved with the school and particularly on Sports Days. After completing primary school her father thought it was time for Nives to get a job because in the Italian tradition, education for daughters beyond primary years was not considered important since they would marry and there would be no need for schooling. Her mother understood the value of education for her children and made sure that Nives completed four years of secondary school.

Nives was popular at school, involved in sport, was captain of the netball (now basketball) team and became Head Prefect. The friendships she made at school have continued through the years and Nives has organised regular gatherings of the ‘St Marys’ girls’ which sometimes included the nuns who had taught them.

 

When Nives was still at school, she met Duilio Caon who was boarding with his uncle in the next street. The two families spent time together and although Nives was 16 and Duilio was 20, they developed a friendship.

 

 

Teaching career
Nives had always wanted to be a teacher but when she left school, was just a few days too young to enrol in Teachers College. Fortunately, there was a junior teaching program which meant that she could teach in one-teacher school in the country.

 

She was 17 when she became a junior teacher at Jervois about 100 kilometres south-east of Adelaide. At this time, Linda was just two years old.

 

It was most unusual in 1949 for Italian parents to allow their daughter to leave home but they would have been comforted a little because Nives lived with a Veneto family who came from the same village as her father, San Vito d’Altivole.

 

 

Nives reflected on her time at Jervois: “This year also helped me to mature and mix with all types of people and children. I am sure that my love of teaching stemmed from that practical year of junior teaching.”

Marriage and teaching
At the beginning of 1950, Nives enrolled at Teachers College and completed the two-year course in December 1951. Nives and Duilio married in January 1952 and instead of having a honeymoon, they decided their money would be better spent on buying a lounge suite in their house in Torrensville!

They began married life as two energetic young people who worked hard in their respective jobs located quite near their house at Torrensville; Nives as a teacher and Duilio was working at the new airport at West Beach.

Nives’ first teaching job was at Lockleys Primary School and she thrived as a young teacher and involved herself in activities. For example, she became Sports Mistress and she sometimes brought migrant children home to help them with their English. Nives also taught English to adult migrants at night time twice a week.

Balancing family life with business
Nives balanced family life with assisting Duilio after he started his business in 1953. David was born in 1956, Anne in 1958 and Sandra in 1961. Alan lived for a short time after he was born in 1967.

Nives undertook the administrative work while Duilio did the physical work. At first, she did the books and learned on the job. As more houses were built by Danny Caon Pty Ltd, Nives chose interior fittings like tiles and white goods. The business was recognised with numerous awards for excellence in building.

Activities threaded through Nives’ life
Throughout her life, Nives has enjoyed opportunities to spend time with other people whether it was through sports – netball and basketball and bocce – or through social gatherings. She and Duilio have travelled widely and spent extended periods of time in Italy.

Nives has enjoyed the company of the ‘St Marys’ girls’ and the get togethers which sometimes included the Dominican sisters.

In 2023, Nives attended a gathering for past students and teachers at St Marys College from the 1940s to the 1980s. Nives was the oldest past student to share  memories of her school days.

Nives has enjoyed adventures such as jumping out of a plane for her 66^th birthday and climbing the Sydney Harbour bridge when she was 85. She was acknowledged for giving her last blood donation (104)  when she was 80 years old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lessons that Nives learned from her parents and the experience of living as a family in the boarding house provided a strong foundation for appreciating and respecting other people – and creating opportunities for widening her understanding and knowledge throughout her life.

 

Nives and Duilio love spending time with their children, their six grandchildren and the newest addition to the family, Olearia, their great-granddaughter who arrived in June 2024.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

Madeleine Regan and Nives Caon nee Cescato
1 December 2024

All photos, apart from one provided by Maria Rosa Tormena, were supplied by Nives.

This is the first of two blogs that give glimpses into the lives of Duilio and Nives nee Cescato Caon over nine decades. Their experience contributes to the bigger context of Veneto migrant history in Adelaide. This blog focuses on Duilio’s life and the next one distils Nives’ experience.

The image above shows the Caon family
who were reunited in Adelaide in 1955.
Duilio stands beside his father, third from the right.

In 11 days time, it will be 76 years since Duilio Caon and his brother Galdino arrived in Adelaide. Duilio, who was 20 years old and Galdino, three years younger, went against their parents’ wishes and contacted their uncle Giacinto Caon and made arrangements to travel to Australia. Their uncle met them when they disembarked in Melbourne on 28^th November 1948.

A family attraction to Australia
Giacinto Caon initiated the family tradition of migration to Australia.

He had arrived in 1926 and went back to Italy in 1933 to marry Giuseppina Campagnaro. The couple returned to Adelaide in 1934 and lived in Franklin Street where they had a butcher shop. A second uncle, Angelo, migrated in 1937.

Duilio’s father did not want his sons to come to Australia because he had had a bad experience of life in Adelaide. He had migrated in February 1928, sponsored by his brother, Giacinto. Because of the Depression, employment was difficult to find and the only work he could find was clearing land 400 kms north west of Adelaide at Iron Knob. The conditions must have been difficult to endure and like many migrants at that difficult economic time, he returned to his own country. In 1930 he met his 2 year-old son, Duilio, for the first time.

Duilio – the eldest in the Caon family
Duilio was born at Ramon di Loria in May 1928, the first of 12 children born to Maddalena Luigia Sabbadin and Leandro Caon.  His father had left for Australia several months before Duilio’s birth – in the hope of finding opportunities to make money for the future of his wife and family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life in Ramon di Loria
Duilio remembers the poverty in Ramon as he was growing up. His parents leased land and lived in a large farmhouse with two other Caon families and there were 25 people to feed. There were few facilities in the house and family members walked half a kilometre to get water from a well.

 Duilio attended school for five years until he was 12 years old and then worked with his father and two uncles on the farm that had crops such as wheat and corn. The equivalent of about ten blocks of land in Australia, the property was rented at first, then the brothers were able to buy it.

The war years
In 1944 when he was 16 years old, Duilio was taken by German soldiers with other young boys to San Donà di Piave, a town on the River Piave about 70 kilometres from Ramon di Loria. They were removed from their families and loaded onto carriages used to transport animals and when they arrived, they found that their job was to dig trenches to protect the German Army from bombardments. In 1945, when the Americans made progress and the Germans retreated, Duilio ran away and joined the partisans. He remembers being able to take a gun, a horse and a bike from the German Army.

He eventually returned home to Ramon and found ways to earn money and one initiative was to sell the skins of rats which were sold for making gloves. The consequences of the war were felt deeply in areas like Loria where food was scarce and people were existing on very little.

 The dream grows
Duilio remembered those years as a “desperate” time. He kept his goal in mind, could see no future in Italy and the urge to migrate to Australia grew stronger.

 Dulio was fixed on his dream of living in Australia even when his parents encouraged him to think about going to Uruguay where they had relatives. He was independent and wrote to his uncle in Adelaide who lent his nephew the fares. (It took Duilio and Galdino a year to pay back the money .)

The voyage

When he left, Duilio remembered that his mother was very sad. His father took him and Galdino to Castelfranco Veneto to catch the train to the port of Genova. The voyage on the ‘Toscana’ took 42 days and Duilio recalled that this was one of the best times in his life – a young man suspended between the difficult life in Ramon and the dream of living in Australia. On the ship there was plentiful food and large numbers of young people who were also looking for a better future.

 

The dream is realised
The dream became a reality – and Duilio and Galdino settled in Adelaide assisted by their uncles, Giacinto and Angelo. Duilio had very positive first impressions and perhaps the biggest impact was that he could eat three meals a day. He stayed in Franklin Street in the west end of the City with his aunt and uncle. His aunt ran a boarding house where he lived for two years.

 Settling in Adelaide
Albert Del Fabbro, an Italian from Friuli had arrived in Australia in 1915 and by the time Duilio and Galdino arrived in 1948, he owned a successful mosaic and terrazzo business and over the years had employed many young Italian men. Duilio worked for Albert for about four years. See entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography – Biography – Umberto Primo (Albert) Del Fabbro – Australian Dictionary of Biography)

Duilio worked hard as his son, David explained at Dulio’s 70^th birthday –

When Dad first arrived, he worked very hard as a concrete and terrazzo worker, six days a week because he was determined to make good.

Sometimes it was necessary to work seven days.

 

Duilio attended night school in Grote Street in the City and learned English.

Extending the dream
The two brothers sent money back to their family in Italy who continued to experience the misery of poverty. Two more children were born after they left for Adelaide.  In late 1951, Duilio sponsored another 2  brothers, Terzo and Luigi, to migrate to Australia. Duilio realised that his dream of settling in Australia could extend to his whole family and he promised his parents that he could find a home and a job for everyone if they migrated. Duilio’s father sold his share of the land in Loria to pay for the passage for the rest of the family to migrate to Australia. In 1955, his parents and six siblings, Prima, Sisto, Bruno, Liliana, Graziano, Pio and Margherita arrived in Adelaide.  His parents were in their early 50s when they arrived.

Duilio’s father worked at Holden’s Woodville and Duilio spent a day showing his father what to do on the production line. Two brothers became carpenters, two others worked in the building industry as a bricklayer and with concrete and Luigi worked with Duilio. The family lived in a house that Galdino, Terzo and Luigi had bought at Maylands and the block was large enough to subdivide which enabled Duilio  to build a new house for his parents later on.

Meeting Nives and building a business

In 1948 through his uncle Giacinto who was a friend to Clorinda and Angelo Cescato Duilio met their daughter, Nives, who was 16 years old. Nives and Duilio became friends and three years later they married in January 1952.

In 1953, Duilio decided to try and work for himself and with Nives, took the first steps placing advertisements in newspapers. Duilio began taking on jobs in the cement paving and terrazzo industry. The dream of owning a business began with Duilio and Nives making cement bricks on the vacant block next door. The bricks were for the first house that Duilio built in Adelaide. Over the years, the business, Danny Caon Pty Ltd became well known – Duilio managing all the physical work and Nives was responsible for the office and administrative work and later, for  the internal features of the houses.

Their son David summarised their partnership:

… In 1968 Dad moved from building only a couple of houses a year to full-time building. He had found his calling and his future. He loved his work and worked tirelessly. He worked out in the building field on the job while Mum did the books and chose internal fittings … they worked well as a team … They did well and built houses all over the metropolitan area.

Danny Caon Pty Ltd won awards including Home of the Year Award in 1982 and was recognised for its quality work.

 The potential of a dream
A young man’s dream of having a better future, his sense of independence and confidence in his own resources all combined for Duilio to embark on a journey to leave his family in Ramon after the second World War and begin life in Australia. His dream created the possibility for his parents and brothers and sisters to migrate and enjoy the opportunities of employment, schooling and the more comfortable life possible in Adelaide after the war.

 

Duilio and Nives raised their family and built a successful business partnership, enjoyed travel and made many trips to Italy. They take opportunities now to reflect on their long and productive lives. Their three children, six grandchildren and now, their first great grandchild, Olearia, who was born in June 2024,  bring them great joy.

 

 

 

---

Madeleine Regan, Duilio and Nives Caon
17 November 2024

All photos supplied by Duilio and Nives.

 

 

 

Anna Santin nee Mattiazzo died on Saturday 26^th 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 11^th 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