Veneto market gardeners 1927

In the last blog you would have read about Margherita and Francesco Marchioro, the first of the Veneto market gardeners to arrive in Adelaide. This time, the story of the Marchioro family continues through the memories of Frank Rismondo, grandson of Margherita and Francesco.

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The image above features the Marchioro family on Lina’s wedding day L-R:  Mary, Margherita, Ruggero Rismondo and Lina and Connie Marchioro,
1 March 1952.

Frank Rismondo was born in Adelaide in 1953, the eldest of three sons of Lina nee Marchioro and Ruggero Rismondo. Ricky was born in 1956 and Michael in 1958.

The Marchioro family

As outlined in the previous blog, Lina was born in Adelaide in 1927 and her parents were peasant farmer families in Vicenza, Italy. Her father worked as a terrazzo labourer in Adelaide and Margherita worked market gardens which she owned with her brother-in-law, Vittorio Marchioro. Later, she owned her own glasshouses in Lockleys which she worked for many years with her daughter, Mary. Lina was the second of three daughters; Mary was born in Italy before her parents migrated, and Connie was born in Adelaide, 11 years after Lina. Their father, Francesco died in 1945 aged 44 years, and Margherita raised her three daughters and worked hard as a market gardener to keep her family.

 

By 1950, Lina was working with a friend in their own fashion design shop on Prospect Road, Prospect. They had met when they worked together in factory that made dresses for Myers. They took the risk and opened up their shop and Lina explained in her oral history interview that they did very well, “We had lots of nurses from the Children’s Hospital and doctors’ wives that lived in the area. It was quite a wealthy suburb. We only got the rich ones.” (Lina Rismondo nee Marchioro OH 872/9, 2010, p 29). Later, Lina worked at the Adelaide airport.

The Rismondo family

Lina’s husband, Ruggero Rismondo was born in 1928 in Rovigno in Istria which then was an Italian territory. His family were wine merchants and owned a picture theatre in Rovigno. Ruggero was the youngest of ten siblings, all of whom had been educated in Trieste and Austria. Ruggero’s education had been disrupted by World War II and the German occupation.

After the war ended, the Paris Peace Treaty incorporated Rovigno into Yugoslavia. The times were difficult for families who considered themselves Italians and Frank recalls what his father told him about the situation – “my grandfather and father went to a refugee camp. My grandfather died and my grandmother paid a bribe for him to leave. So, my dad and three friends took five days to row to Venice and were sent to a Displaced Persons camp and given the choice of going to Canada or Australia and they chose Australia.” Ruggero was the only member of his family to migrate to Australia.

Ruggero, not quite 22 years, arrived in Australia with more than 1,300 other refugees in April 1950. The Government assigned him a work contract at the Australian Sheet Metal Works in George Street, Thebarton. He remained working there for many years as a metal spinner. He also worked at home and in later life, worked as a security guard at Underdale College of Advanced Education.

 

 

 Marriage of Lina Marchioro and Ruggero Rismondo

A friend of Lina’s who had an Italian boyfriend, introduced her to Ruggero who lived in a boarding house in Prospect. They met at a wedding and Ruggero took her home to her mother’s home on his motor bike.

Lina made her own wedding dress for the marriage which took place on 1^st March 1952. At first, the couple lived in accommodation in Torrensville but after a motorbike accident in which they both got injured, Lina and Ruggero went to live with her mother and two sisters and Frank was born there in 1953. They lived there until they built a house of their own in 1958 at Henley Beach Road, Brooklyn Park.

 

Nonna’s house at Lasscock Ave, Lockleys

Because of her hard work and the assistance from Lina and Mary, Margherita accumulated enough capital to build her own house on a block she purchased within walking distance of her market garden at 19 Lasscock Ave, Lockleys. She built the house about 1950 and her daughter Connie remembered that she was one of the first in the Veneto community to build a brick home. She also remembered that Lina, who had an eye for style, decorated the house and chose the furnishings.

In her oral history interview, Lina recalled her mother’s achievement of being able to pay to have her own house built:

She built a lovely house and I suppose she had that satisfaction that she’d got what she wanted, a lovely house, furnished it nicely, so … after living all those years in a wooden/iron place, you can imagine. A joy to have it!

Lina Rismondo nee Marchioro, OH 872/9, 2010: 50.

Frank remembered his nonna’s house with great affection. It was a gathering place. He said, “After Dad got married, other friends from Istria were still single.

On a Sunday evening the young men would go to Margherita’s house and she cooked for them. She cooked pasta, sometimes the men roasted chestnuts and there was always singing. Nonna was a rock.”

Neighbours in Lasscock Avenue, the Vieceli family, became very close friends with Margherita and her family including her grandchildren. Rosie was bridesmaid to Lina. Frank and his brothers played in Lasscock Avenue with the Vieceli children.

Cousins and other relatives

Margherita’s third daughter Connie married in 1957 and she and her husband Tony Legovich  lived with her mother and her two children, Paul and Amanda were born there. Lina’s sons and Connie’s son, Paul, born in 1957 and daughter, Amanda, born in 1962 were very close. Frank said that their cousins were more like siblings to him and his brother – “Amanda was like our little sister.” Paul died in 2015.

The extended family

The Marchioro families lived close to each other in Lockleys. Vittorio hadimportant role to play because he was the brother of Francesco. He accompanied both Lina and Connie at the church when they married. Although they were older, Frank remembered Vittorio and Angelina’s sons, Johnny and Romano. They were part of the extended family in Adelaide.

Margherita continued to grow vegetables on the land on the southern side of the River Torrens until the late 1950s. She enjoyed bringing her family together on Sundays. She cooked for her family – one week she made gnocchi and the next, it was ravioli. Mary loved her nieces and nephews. The extended family was close and loved spending time together at 19 Lasscock Avenue. Mary died in 1986 and Margherita died in 2001 aged 97 years. Ruggero died in 2008 and Lina died in 2022.

The close ties: Marchioro – Rismondo families

The strong family bonds formed in the Marchioro families continue into the generations. When Lina was living in a nursing home, Connie and Frank with his wife Marie and their grandson Logan visited her together every week. After Lina died, Frank and Marie and Logan have continued the  tradition and have coffee with zia Connie and her partner, Sergio, every Monday morning. Frank calls Connie, his seconda mamma or second mother.

Frank also keeps in  regular contact with relatives  on his father’s side of the family in Italy.

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Frank Rismondo, Connie Legovich and Madeleine Regan
9 March 2025

All photos supplied by Frank.

On Monday 1^st March 1926 the steamer ship Regina d’Italia arrived at Port Adelaide after the 60+ day voyage from Genova. It was 30 degrees that day with a northerly wind.

The ship could carry up to 500 passengers. A total of 40 people disembarked at Port Adelaide – 35 men, 4 women and a “female infant.” One of the men was Francesco Marchioro, who was accompanied by his wife, Margherita, and their five-month-old daughter, Mary. Francesco was 24 years old and Margherita was just 20 years old.

The Marchioro family
The image above shows the Marchioro family,
Margherita, Francesco, Lina and Mary, c 1927.

The family was sponsored by Margherita’s brother, Florindo Marchioro who had been in Australia since 1922. He was living in Adelaide in 1926 and assisted his sister and family to get lodging in a boarding house in Hindley Street in the city. Florindo was a terrazzo contractor and he employed his brother-in-law, Francesco as a labourer.

Margherita and Francesco’s second daughter, Lina, was born in March 1927 and a third daughter, Connie was born 11 years later.

Francesco applied to be naturalised in 1931 – meeting the requirements of residing for a minimum of five years in Australia. The police report stated; “The applicant is in good health. Has no intention of going back to Italy. Desires to become a British subject.”

Up until Francesco’s naturalisation, the Marchioro lived in three different boarding houses in the City of Adelaide – 3 years in Hindley Street, 18 months in Gilbert Street and the family had spent nine months in Waymouth Street at the time of his application.

During the 1930s, the family moved to Frogmore Road where Margherita and her brother-in-law, Vittorio Marchioro, worked a market garden. Francesco continued to work in the terrazzo business. Vittorio was sponsored by his brother, Francesco. When Francesco died in 1945, Margherita worked market gardens on the other side of the River Torrens in Lockleys for many years. She died in 2001.

South Australia – 1926
When the Marchioro family arrived in 1926, Adelaide had a population of about 316,000 people and in South Australia there were nearly 567,000. The 1921 census recorded 344 people who were born in Italy. By 1933, the number had risen to 1,489. (Italians in South Australia – SA History Hub: https://sahistoryhub.history.sa.gov.au/subjects/italians-in-south-australia/ )

In the South Australian newspapers, such as “The Advertiser” and “The Register,” there were news pages that carried small and large stories. The Commonwealth Parliament still met in Melbourne and there were reports about legislation relating to a Crime Bill, tariffs, issues relating to the retention of nationality of women who were not British subjects when they married British subjects and other matters. International issues such as trade, post-World War I peace initiatives and small articles about various European countries. There was an article about the ill health of Benito Mussolini who was identified as a “dictator.” He had lost weight because of a medical condition that required him to be on a special diet.

The papers devoted large columns to information about the candidates for the State elections that were to be held on 26^th March. A bushfire relief fund reported donations to assist people who had lost properties in the Adelaide Hills. Unemployment statistics were given at 300 for the month of February. The range of classified advertisements was vast and made up the first six or so pages. One interesting advertisement from Harris Scarfe’s department store was for electrical appliances – that suggests that not all households had the luxury of electricity.

Social notes were in the Women’s Pages and highlighted gatherings mainly of well-to-do people who attended functions and parties and the names of some first-class passengers were identified on steamer voyages to London.

There were lots of advertisements for entertainment in Adelaide. On the night of 1^st March 1926, citizens could have attended a performance of Hamlet or Aladdin. During the first week of March they could have gone ballroom dancing – either in beginners or advanced classes – in different places around the suburbs including town halls at St Peter, Port Adelaide, Norwood and Thebarton. There were pictures being shown in a few theatres including a film with Gloria Swanson and another about ‘Rin Tin Tin’.

One of the tallest buildings in Adelaide at the time, the Kelvin building on North Terrace ,was six stories high. Advertisements gave details of used cars and on offer were Dodges, Buicks, Chevrolets, Ford and Overlands. Sporting news items publicised large numbers of country race meetings, mostly men’s sports such as cricket, Australian Rules, rowing and bowling.

 

 

 

Harris Scarfe’s and John Martin’s department stores were advertising the last week of summer sale fashions. Women could buy silk coats for “dusty and dry days.”

 

 

 

For the Italian migrants who arrived on 1^st March 1926, the newspapers would have provided little information of interest. The main goal of the newly arrived was to have accommodation, and since they were mostly men, the priority was the need for employment in a country that was very obviously Anglo-Saxon and part of the British Empire. The migrants were hopeful that their new home would offer them opportunities that would provide them with a better future than they could have expected in Italy at that time.

In the 99 years since the arrival of Francesco and Margherita, their family has expanded into four more generations. Mary did not have children but Lina and her husband Ruggero Rismondo had three sons and Connie and her husband had a son and a daughter. In the fourth generation, there are 14 sons and daughters and the family has extended further with another 14 sons and daughters who are the great-great grandchildren of Francesco and  Margherita.

Thousands upon thousands of Italian migrants have arrived and settled since that time, and have contributed in diverse ways to the cultural, economic, social and political life in Australia.

Madeleine Regan – with thanks to Frank Rismondo for the family details.
23 February 2025

The image above shows a consignment of tomatoes that Isidoro, Ermenegildo, and Giuseppe  Ballestrin sent to Melbourne in the early 1950s. Usually the tomatoes were sent by train but in this case, they were on the truck because of a train drivers’ strike. Image supplied by Frank Ballestrin.

Summer … In Adelaide at the moment we are in the first weeks of February and there are some extremely hot days – and nights. Of course, there are the benefits of summer – the harvests of fresh vegetables and it is the wonderful season of stone fruits. We are also fortunate to have air conditioning.

The older generations of the Veneto market gardeners worked very hard in summer on their land – harvesting and selling tomatoes and other vegetables , maybe shifting the glasshouses and there was also time to leave work and be with the family at the beach cooling off and enjoying some leisure.

The following excerpts include the memories of some of the people I interviewed for the Veneto market gardeners oral history project. They tell a story of the challenges  of work in summer,  the heat – and  the escape to the beach with the family.

Dino Piovesan, OH 872/17, 23 September 2011
Dino spoke about the work he and his brothers did in the market garden in summer:

… in the early years growing up, we would come home from school, and there was no such thing as doing your homework straight after you got home, especially in the summer months. It would be our job as kids to carry out the prunings, the leaves, of what Mum and Dad had pruned in the glasshouses, and once my older brother and I, because my younger brother was still a bit too young to do that, my older brother, Nillo, and myself, would be the ones to carry out the leaves. And eventually it was only after tea, as we call it, or after dinner as they say now, that we would have time to do our homework.

Bruno Piovesan OH 872/5, 4 October 2008

Bruno remembered that he and his brothers worked with their uncle to shift glasshouses in summer after their father died suddenly:

[My uncle] come down to Adelaide when my father had passed away and he virtually went into partnership with my mother with glasshouses, and they worked virtually together on the land.  In those years, apparently you could earn a pretty good living with glasshouses, because there weren’t fumigations in those years.  And I mean every year one chore in the summertime was shifting glasshouses and we used to hate it all the time.  You used to get two crops a year out of a glasshouse and after that they’d get disease, you couldn’t grow any more plants in there, they’d all wilt away and die before the crop ripened; so you had to shift glasshouses, and that was a chore… Oh!  Big job.  (laughs) And hot!

Johnny Marchioro, OH 872/1, 21 July 2008

Johnny remembered what his father used to do when the tomato crops had finished in summer:

At the end of the season, we would clean up inside the glasshouses, cut down the tomato plants and take the ends off the glasshouses. My Dad would put a very long rope on the horse and rip the soil with a small plough and also dig by hand. It had to be level to be ready for planting. The seeds had been planted in January and the seedlings were ready to plant in mid-February.

Mary Tonellato nee Zoanetti, OH 872/3,  3 October 2008

Mary remembered that she enjoyed the summers – even in the glasshouses:

Well, I used to like my summers. I don’t like the cold weather that much.  (laughs) … It was not scorching in the glasshouses, but outside it would have been, but not scorching; it was more steamy in the glasshouses.

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

Noemi recalls the variety of vegetables her parents grew on Grange Road and refers to the jobs in their market garden in summer:

Well, they had 25 glasshouses. They used to grow tomatoes and when it was sort of summer time, the tomatoes came off and beans, they used to put in there. And some glasshouses had capsicums and that’s an about it I think, inside.  And then they had carrots, lettuce outside, potatoes, a lot of potatoes… Yeah, they had a fair few people helping them sometimes. Depended on the weather. If it was summer time, it was always early in the mornings – you have to do the things early in the morning.

 

Sandra Semola, OH 872/44, 27 April 2017

Sandra describes the need to start working early  and getting the watering done on the very hot days in summer:

Depending on the weather, if it was hot, we used to get up very early, about 3:00, 3:30 or 4:00 o’clock sometimes, depending what we were doing, you know. If it was going to be a hot day, we used to get the water, start getting the water, watering the glasshouses or whatever was outside. And then … we did as much as we could and when it got too hot, we had to stop because the water was sinking away, and as soon as it started cooling down, we used to start watering again. So, I’d be watering till late at night.

Anna Santin nee Mattiazzo, OH 872/24, 17 April 2013

Anna recalled the trips to the beach in summer:

 

We used to take the kids there – there was no air-conditioning in the house those days – we used to take the children when it was really hot, for the kids to … otherwise, you know, they used to enjoy the beach. We used to go under the jetty.

 

 

 

 

Frankie Ballestrin OH 872/7, 12 December 2008, p 15

Frankie remembered the relief of going to the beach when it was hot – after the tomatoes had finished in the glasshouses:

And in summer when the season was over, tomato season – it used to be very hot in those years, a lot hotter than what it is now; in longer periods, too – and we used to go to the beach all the time.  They’d sit under the jetty, all the women, with us kids and Dad used to come, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madeleine Regan
9 February 2025