Veneto market gardeners 1927

The image above shows the wedding of Lea Griguol and Orlando Tonellato,
21 February 1953.

My father
My Dad, Orlando Luciano Tonellato or “Nano” as he was affectionately known, was born on 13 December 1927 in Caselle di Altivole, Treviso, Italy. His father, Secondo, had already emigrated to Australia and settled in Kidman Park, where he purchased a rail car previously used by King George V during his visit to Australia. This rail car became the family home when the rest of the family, including his mother, Elizabetta, and siblings Luigi, Rosina, Alberto, Lino, and Assunta, joined him in Australia in 1934.

Dad, then just seven years old, met his father for the first time in Australia, and spoke of him with great affection throughout his life. Secondo was a hardworking and kind man, qualities that my dad inherited. He also had a great sense of humour—always laughing, joking, and getting along well with everyone. Despite his roots in Italy, he seamlessly integrated into Australian culture, often using Aussie phrases.
One of his favourites, when he was hungry, was “I could eat a horse and chase the rider!”
Dad attended Flinders Park Primary School and St. Joseph’s in Hindmarsh before joining his father and brother, Lino, in market gardening. They grew tomatoes, beans, and potatoes, selling their produce at the East End markets.

My mother
My Mum, Lea Tonellato née Griguol, was born on October 14, 1932, in Meduna di Livenza, Italy, to Giuseppe and Rosa Griguol. She had five siblings: Tony, Maria, Lina, Mario, and Silvana. In February 1949, the Griguol family emigrated to Australia aboard the ship Toscana. They initially lived in New Residence, between Loxton and Kingston, where they worked in glasshouses and gardens. However, after a short time, Mum and two of her sisters moved to Fulham Gardens in Adelaide to find work.

According to the book, Polenta in Australia: The story of Giuseppe and Rosa Griguol and their Family, written by Rose Noble, Mum’s mother, Rosa, was unhappy in Australia, particularly when separated from her daughters. Giuseppe and Rosa planned to move the entire family to Adelaide to be together but Rosa fell ill and passed away before the move.* Her loss at the age of 18 was profoundly difficult for Mum and her family, but it forged a deep bond between the siblings and help make her the devoted and loving mother that she was.

Mum and Dad met through her brother Tony. There are many versions of how their relationship began, but what’s clear is that Dad who was popular with the ladies, was smitten with Mum from the moment they met. They married on February 21, 1953.

They initially shared a house with Dad’s brother Lino and his wife Rosanna, working together in the market gardens. It was hard work, but they loved it. Mum often told us how she would find Dad sleeping between the rows of tomatoes in the glasshouses. They didn’t have much but when they had a good day at the market, Dad would give Mum money to buy material for a new dress—a story she told many times, and one I only appreciated more as I got older, realising how special it must have been and how hard they worked for everything they had.

 

Our Tonellato family

They had five children: Pauline (1954), Susan (1955), Christine (1957), Paul (1962), and later on… me, Leanne (1974). They remained in Kidman Park on the land purchased by Nonno Secondo. My siblings have many fond memories of the glasshouses, but I was born after they were gone. I often found it hard to picture what the place looked like, where the wagon used to be, and what it was like working on the land.

I never had the chance to meet my grandparents which made it even more challenging to imagine.

In 1973, Mum and Dad took a holiday back to Italy with my brother, visiting family, but they were happy to return to Australia which they considered home. When they sold the land, they kept a block and built a home on Fergusson Avenue, where they would live for the rest of their lives. Dad worked as a storeman and packer at Associated Grocers on Findon Road until his retirement, and Mum worked at the Adelaide airport cafeteria.

Memories of my parents

My childhood differed from my sisters’, but all our memories are filled with love and joy. I remember Mum helping in my school’s canteen, joining my class excursions, and was always our netball team’s “transport.” I remember walking home from school with friends, knowing that if it rained, Dad would show up to pick us all up – every time. When I took the bus home from university, he was always waiting at the bus stop. I was very spoiled – not with material possessions, but with their time.

Our home was full of love and laughter, with visitors constantly dropping by for coffee, grappa, Mum’s frittole, and crostoli. Mum’s soup was a family favourite, especially among the grandchildren, who still enjoy it, though it’s never quite the same. Her gnocchi, baccala, and polenta were also beloved by her children. The house always smelled of methylated spirits or eucalyptus oil as Mum was a meticulous cleaner. Her house was always spotless, and even when she made me dust the house, the rag would barely get dirty! I still don’t know how she did it.

They didn’t have much and didn’t go on many vacations but they loved going for drives and spending time with family. Mum adored her grandchildren, welcoming her first grandchild in 1978 and her last in 2002. They had 10 grandchildren and now 11 great-grandchildren.

I am so glad my children got to know Mum and Dad. They have cherished memories of them and knew how deeply they were loved. It warms my heart to see so much of my parents in my children. My son has Dad’s humour and kind heart, while my daughter shares his gentle nature. She also inherited Mum’s caring and empathy, making her a wonderful nurse, as I always thought Mum should have been.

Changes in our family
Dad passed away in August 2009 at the age of 81. Life changed significantly for Mum after his passing but she still laughed and enjoyed having her family around. She spent a lot of time making coffee for the visitors who often dropped by. Thursdays were special, as Nillo and Angelina Piovesan, Assunta and Angelo Giovannini, Connie Legovich, and Sergio would come over.

Unfortunately, after Mum fell and broke her hip, she could no longer stay in her home and moved into a nursing home. Selling the house that she loved was devastating for her but her strength and positive attitude helped her through it. She continued to laugh, joke, and even made many friends at the nursing home. The most amazing thing was her ability to make others happy. When she first arrived, she was upset that the staff didn’t smile often. Eventually, they put a sign on her door reminding staff to smile! Many staff members would hide in her room to chat and seek advice which she loved. Although she wasn’t particularly fond of watching the cleaners work, she would still tell them what a good job they were doing before then smirking and rolling her eyes at me. Mum lived in the nursing home for seven years until she became unwell.

Mum passed away in August 2023 surrounded by her family. She was 90 years old.

Christine Basso, our beautiful and deeply loved sister, passed away three months later after a short but devastating illness. She was only 65 years old.  We are heartbroken that she didn’t get to enjoy her retirement and missed out on so many things. However, she was fortunate to have been married to her soulmate, Wally Basso, and they had a wonderful daughter, Deanna. Christine was cherished by so many friends and family for her humour, always making us laugh.

 

To me, she was a protective big sister, generous and always helping me with any computer issues I had while at school and university. I cherish the memories I have of her. I am grateful that Mum and Dad didn’t have to endure the pain of losing Christine. I take comfort in the belief they are together and we will be all be reunited one day.

Leanne Toscano nee Tonellato
22 September 2024

All photos supplied by Leanne.

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*Polenta in Australia: The Story of Giuseppe and Rosa Griguol and their Family was written and published by Rose Nobel in Adelaide in 1996

 

In the photo above, Lina and Gelindo Rossetto are seated with their children, Aldo, Romeo and Lena.
The photo was taken in Adelaide in about 1937.
It was supplied by Lena Moscheni nee Rossetto.

The experience of Gelindo Rossetto (one of the Veneto market gardeners who arrived in Adelaide in 1927) during the war differs from the rest of the Veneto market gardener group because he combined three roles: market gardener, mica miner and political activist.

When the war began, Gelindo had been in Adelaide for 12 years and he and his wife, Lina nee Bordin, had three children, Romeo, Lena and Aldo. (Silvano was born in 1943. Romeo died in 1938, aged 7 years and two other children died as infants)

 

The market gardener
Unlike others in the Veneto community, Gelindo and his wife and their three children had moved away from the Lockleys area. They lived in the west end of the City of Adelaide from about the mid-1930s. Gelindo cycled eight kilometres to work his market garden.

Gelindo had grown vegetables on leased land at Lockleys on the River Torren beside the bridge on Rowells Road for several years. He had about 20 glasshouses and with Lina’s assistance, grew tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers and other ‘outside’ vegetables. When his brother, Giuseppe Rossetto arrived in 1938, he  worked in the market garden when Gelindo was away.

The mica miner – and market gardener

In the mid 1930s, Gelindo bought a share in a mica mine at the same time as Angelo Piovesan, one of the other Veneto market gardeners. The ‘Spotted Tiger’ mine was in the Harts Ranges about 1,700 miles north of Adelaide. There had been a large presence of Italian mica miners in the Harts Ranges from the 1930s.  Working the mine gave Gelindo and Angelo the opportunity to increase their income as their families grew – and profits from the market gardens were not consistent.

 

Gelindo’s daughter, Lena Moscheni, was interviewed in 2014 and she remembered that it was not always possible for her parents to sell the vegetables in the 1930s:

During Depression time, they used to go to the market with their vegies, and couldn’t sell them because nobody had money, so they used to bring them all back and bury them into the garden, back into the garden. I remember that.

 Lena Moscheni nee Rossetto, OH 872/32, 28 August 2014, p 13

Both Gelindo and Angelo alternated work on the mine and the market garden. The financial return from mica mining became very lucrative during the war because mica was used in electronic equipment, insulation and airplane instruments.

Conscription to the civilian workforce
Gelindo, like the other market gardeners, was conscripted to the Australian Government civilian labour force to assist with the war effort by building infrastructure such as airstrips, roads, pipelines, stores etc. The manual work was undertaken in remote work camps with pay and conditions that were considered sub-standard.  In June 1943, Gelindo received instructions to travel to the Northern Territory where he was assigned work with the Civil Constructional Corps. Through a lawyer, he applied for an exemption because of the need to work his market garden. The lawyer explained that Gelindo had a tomato crop worth $500 and he supplied vegetables for the Army and Gelindo’s brother was not able to manage the market garden and sales alone. The lawyer also added that Lina was seven months pregnant. Gelindo’s exemption was rejected at first but he was granted periods of leave without pay to remain with his wife.

The political activist, miner, market gardener
Gelindo took liberties with instructions from the Civil Constructional Corps, was prosecuted and fined for absence without leave. During this time, in addition to being with his wife and children, Gelindo was an active member of the Italia Libera (or Free Italy) movement in South Australia.

Italia Libera had been founded in Melbourne in 1943 as an anti-fascist organisation that aimed to support the allied countries and restore democracy in Italy and it had links to groups of Italian migrants in other countries. Members of Italia Libera distributed political materials such as the fortnightly newspaper, Risveglio (or “Awakening”) to members in the civilian labour camps and campaigned for issues such as parity of pay for different kinds of work undertaken by conscripts. The Australian Government assumed that it was a radical organisation and the South Australian Investigation Branch identified Gelindo as one of five Italians involved in the movement.[1]

Gelindo’s son, Aldo,  remembered that his father was a strong opponent of fascism before he left Italy:

In the mid-1920s when Mussolini came to power and fascism was getting stronger, he disliked that intensely …. he wouldn’t stand for the fact that the fascists used to go around from village to village,
and if they didn’t convert you to fascism or you wouldn’t turn, they would beat you and make you drink castor oil as a result.

Aldo Rossetto OH 872/16, 4 July 2011, p 2.

About a year after serving with the Civil Constructional Corps, Gelindo was discharged in 1944. Although the reason for Gelindo’s discharge was because of his agricultural work, he began official duties as secretary with the State branch of Italia Libera in November 1944 when there was an estimated 60 members including men who were interned and conscripted civilians. Other Veneto market gardeners who remained on their land during the war were focused on their livelihoods and families. It seems that Gelindo was the only open political activist in the Veneto market gardener community during the war.

 

You can listen to interviews with Lena Moscheni nee Rossetto and Aldo Rossetto, daughter and son of Gelindo. Other Rossetto relatives also recorded interviews for the project and you can listen to them too. Use this link to access the interviews and some transcripts:

Click here to access the Rossetto family page

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Madeleine Regan
8 September

[1] National Archives of Australia: D1915: SA20480 – Investigation Branch, South Australia.

In 1943, Luigina Ballestrin married Eugenio Zalunardo in Adelaide.

In the image above, the large Ballestrin family is present for the portrait – Luigina’s mother and brothers and sisters-in-law and nephews. Eugenio did not have family in Adelaide. The bride and groom and attendants, (Rosina Tonellato for Luigina, and Luigi Santin for Eugenio), are all dressed in fine clothes which must have been a challenge to acquire during the war years when rationing extended to the purchase of fabric and clothing. It would have been a happy occasion for the couple and for members of the families – Tonellato and Santin – who were involved in the wedding party. While Luigina had a large family in Adelaide, Eugenio did not have relatives but he had the network of the Veneto market gardener community in the area they called Lockleys.

The challenges of the war years
The war years were difficult for Italian people (and others in Australia whose countries were fighting against the Allies) especially after Italy joined Germany against the Allies in June 1940. Italians were described officially as “enemy aliens” and were prevented from moving from their home suburb to another without written permission. They could not buy property and applications for naturalisation were brought to a standstill. Some of the Ballestrin relatives were fined for not obtaining written authority to travel away from their suburb. Several Veneto men, including some Ballestrin relatives in the wedding photo, were conscripted to work for the Australian civilian force (the Allied Works Council) that assisted the war effort in remote places. They had to leave their market gardens in the hands of their wives and children.

The Australian Government imposed strict regulations that restricted the choices (and dignity) of Italian people and other enemy aliens and strengthened racist attitudes in the  wider community. However,  most of the Veneto market gardeners had contracts with the Australian Army to grow vegetables during the war. In this way, they were involved in the war effort.

Luigina Ballestrin
Luigina who was from Vallà di Riese in the province of Treviso had arrived in Adelaide with her mother Santa Agata in April 1939. They were reunited with Luigina’s brothers and families, Antonio, Isidoro, Ermenegildo and Narcisio and their cousin Giuseppe and his wife, Cesira and family. Luigina and her mother lived with her Uncle Isidoro and Auntie Gina.  Before she married, Luigina would have worked in the market gardens for her uncle and aunt who had 15 acres and 17 glasshouses at Flinders Park.

Eugenio Zalunardo
Eugenio was born in Castelcucco in 1905 in the province of Treviso. Like most of the other Veneto market gardeners, he arrived in Adelaide in 1927. He was 22 years old and spent more than seven years in rural South Australia mostly as a farmhand. He worked for four years on Kangaroo Island, two years on Eyre Peninsula which was more than a day’s travel from Adelaide and fourteen months at Halidon, 140 kilometres east of Adelaide working for a fellow Veneto,  Tarcisio Bernardi who had a contract for building roads in the Mallee area of SA.

When he applied for naturalisation in 1933, Eugenio was unemployed and living in a boarding house in the city of Adelaide. By 1937 he had leased land on the southern side of Grange Road, St James Park for his market garden.[1]

Eugenio’s land was close to other veneti who were also settling there – it bordered the property of the Tonellato family. Eugenio grew tomatoes and beans in glasshouses and outside, he worked carrots, potatoes, lettuces and artichokes. When Eugenio married Luigina, she worked in the market garden too. In the early 1950s, they bought the land that they leased on Grange Road, Kidman Park.

Luigina and Eugenio

The couple had two children – Noemi was born in 1947 and Renato, in 1958. Noemi’s godparents were Luigi and Rosina (nee Tonellato) Santin who had been Luigina and Eugenio’s attendants for their wedding. This  close relationship of godparents created the comare and compare roles – a tradition in Veneto families.  Noemi worked in the market garden from a young age and also assisted her mother who was ill for several years before she died in 1965 at the age of 49 years.

 

In her interview Noemi remembered working in the market garden and refers to the task of observing the weather which was part of the role of looking after 25 glasshouses:

 

No homework. No homework. And did what had to be done at home, grading tomatoes, putting papers in half boxes … Well, depends what the weather was like. If it was nice weather, you’d leave them [glasshouses] open. If it was cold, you used to shut the doors, you went around the whole 25 of them
and closed all the doors.

(Noemi Campagnolo nee Zalunardo, OH 872/29, 20 March 2014)

When Noemi left school at 15 years, she worked with her father in the market garden until she married Tiziano Campagnolo in 1969.

Eugenio sold the land on Grange Road shortly after and lived in Findon. He died in 1972.

You can read a short biography of the Zalunardo family on the website:

The Zalunardo family

[1] Information gathered from Eugenio’s naturalisation papers in the National Archives of Australia – NAA: A446, 1955/50846.

All photos supplied by Noemi Campagnolo nee Zalunardo.

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Madeleine Regan
25 August 2024