Author: MMR

Just a brief blog this time because I am fortunate enough to be on holidays with my husband, Alex Bennett, in Castelfranco Veneto which is about 65 kilometres north west of Venice in the Veneto region. I’m also completing some research for the Veneto market gardeners’ oral history project.

The snapshots are photos of places, some old and some new images of the people who have assisted with the Veneto market gardeners’ oral history project and interesting ideas relating to the Veneto region. In the past weeks, we have been to most of the villages from where the 17 men, one woman and an infant migrated to Adelaide between 1926 and 1928.

Castelfranco Veneto

The feature photo is the clock tower at the entrance of the historic centre of Castelfranco Veneto.

Staying in Castelfranco Veneto is great because it is so central to the villages that are significant in the story of the Veneto market gardeners. Several people told me that they remember it was important as a market town for local villages.

Castelfranco Veneto still has two big market days a week where all sorts of items including fruit, vegetables, cheese, meat and clothing are sold.

It is an elegant town with a population of about 33,250 people and is in the province of Treviso where most of the Veneto market gardeners had originated.

In this blog I am listing the villages and their approximate distance and location from Castelfranco Veneto.

Valla’ – 7 kilometres north

Three Ballestrin men left their large family household in Valla’ in September 1927: brothers Antonio, 25 years, and Isidoro, 23 years and their first cousin, Giuseppe, 17 years, the youngest of all the men who arrived in Adelaide in the 1920s. Over the years, other family members, including the mother of Antonio and Isidoro, migrated to Adelaide.

Riese Pio X – about 7 kms north

Two families originated from here – the Bernos and the Zampins. However, after the Second World War, large numbers of young people, mainly men, migrated from Riese Pio X to Adelaide. Diana Berno helped out with archival research in Riese Pio X in 2018 in  the parish archives.

Caselle di Altivole – about 9.5 kms north-east

Two men left their families in Caselle di Altivole and arrived in Adelaide on 27 August 1927. Secondo Tonellato and Giovanni Santin, the eldest of the Veneto market gardener men. They were reunited with their wives and families in Adelaide after several years.

 

In 2018 I spent time in Caselle with Irene Zampin who helped with recording oral history interviews in Italian and research in the comune of Altivole. I also worked with her husband, Giuliano Berdusco who assisted with research in the parish archives. It has been lovely to reconnect with them and continue some research activities.

Castelcucco – about 25 kms north-west

Eugenio Zalunardo was born in this village in 1907. It is elevated and in a very beautiful location. Renzo Bianco helped with research in the parish archives and in the comune in 2018. We met again in April and enjoyed an afternoon including tasting some excellent gelati!

Bigolino – 31 kms north-east

One of the most dramatic family stories in the Veneto market gardener history is that of the Rossetto family – eight of nine children of Modesto Rossetto and Elena Vettoretto  migrated from Bigolino to Australia between the wars. Just one son remained in the village.

In addition to the Rossettos, Brunone Rebuli also migrated and he was married to one of the Rossetto daughters.

Two distant cousins, Johnny Rebuli and Stefania Rossetto learned for the first time that they were relatives when we spent an afternoon in Valdobbiadene together in April. Valdobbiadene, is of course, famous for Prosecco and is about 5 kms from Bigolino.

 

Brunone Rebuli, a brother of Johnny’s grandfather, travelled on the same ship to Adelaide with 3 of his Rossetto brothers-in-law, Gelindo, Adeodato and Angelo, arriving in July 1927. Brunone’s wife, Giovanna Rossetto and 3 children, Dorina, Vito and Elvio arrived in 1931 and a fourth child, Guido, was born in 1938. The Rossetto brothers and sisters are great uncles and great aunts to Stefania whose grandfather, Eugenio, was the one son who remained in Bigolino.

Ponzano Veneto – 28 kms east

Angelo Piovesan migrated from Ponzano Veneto on the same ship as Secondo Tonellato and Giovanni Santin in 1927. Angelo and his wife Rosalia had three sons, Nillo, Dino and Bruno. Angelo died suddenly in 1949.

 

 

 

Relatives of the Piovesan family, Gusto and Armida Mattiazzo migrated to Adelaide after the war and spent time on the mica fields in the Harts Range in the Northern Territory. Their daughter, Adelina, lives in Ponzano Veneto.

 

Province of Vicenza

 

We have yet to visit relatives of Johnny and Eleonora Marchioro in the Malo district of the province of Vicenza – about 55 kms north-west of Castelfranco Veneto.

 

 

 

Johnny Marchioro’s father, Vittorio arrived in Adelaide in December 1927 called by his brother Francesco who had disembarked in Adelaide in March 1926 with  his wife Margherita and infant Mary.

 

 

 

Other images from the Veneto

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The people you meet…

Life is strange! We travelled to the Veneto region and met up with  the President of the Veneto Club,  Adelaide in April!

It was a pleasure to have lunch with Piero Fioretti and his wife Mary and their friend, Sonia Berra who was born in Adelaide and now lives near Bigolino.

 

 

 

 

 

We have been warmly welcomed by the families we have spent time with here. We really enjoy being in the Veneto region and feel very comfortable here because of the connections we have made over the years.

Biographies and interviews

A reminder that on this website you can read biographies of the Veneto families who made their lives in Adelaide as market gardeners between the wars. You can read stories of other families and also listen to recordings of oral history interviews and read transcripts of most of the interviews.  The search function is very helpful.

 

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I’d like to acknowledge two Veneto men who have been supporters of the Veneto market gardener oral history project and who have recently died in Adelaide – Vittorio De Marchi and Mario Rodato.

Madeleine Regan
16 May 2026

 

This blog outlines the story of Luigi Campagnaro, another older  member of the Veneto community in Adelaide, who migrated after the war.

In the photo above Luigi checks the early progress of his new wine with Lina, 16 March 2026. (Photo by Madeleine Regan)

Luigi Massimo Campagnaro was born on 12 August 1940 in Bassano del Grappa to Rachele Perotelli and Romano Campagnaro.

He was the youngest of nine children including a half sister who was the child of Romano and his first wife who died unexpectedly young. By the time Luigi was born, his older siblings were in their 20s and some had left home.

Luigi grew up in Cusinati di Rosà, a small village about 6 kilometres south of Bassano del Grappa which is about 50 kilometres north-west of Venice. The Campagnaro family lived in a large household with three other families in the same building. They were a poor family, and Luigi remembers the shortages of food, and that his mother had to forage sometimes for wild vegetables because they did not grow their own.

Luigi’s father was a carrier and was not able to make much money. He carted goods to and from villages and towns in the north of the Veneto region and the Trentino Alto Adige area about 80 kilometres away. Luigi was about 7 or 8 years when he accompanied his father on one of the trips and remembered his excitement sleeping a night in an osteria on the way.

The Campagnaro family was close, and more so because no grandparents or other extended family members were alive when Luigi was growing up. Throughout his life he has maintained tight relationships with his brothers and sisters in Italy and a sister in France.

Luigi’s story

Luigi went to school for five years and when he left at the age of about 11 years, he was employed by a tailor to sew. At the time in Australia, the legal age for leaving school was 14 years. He was the youngest of 8 employees and they worked in a room in a house in the village. The main business was making men’s and women’s suits. It was a hard life for a young boy working 6 days a week. The working day started at 6:00 am and finished at 7:00 pm although there was a break of about two hours in the afternoon. During that break time, Luigi learned to iron and he worked to gain some extra money, some of which he gave to his parents and some, he kept “to have a few bob in the pocket.” He worked for the tailor for about 9 years.

In his limited spare time, Luigi met up with other young boys in Cusinati di Rosa’ and they gathered at the local bar to have soft drinks and talk. Soccer was appealing but it had not been possible to play competitively because there was not enough money to buy shoes. He attended sagras or fairs in the village and in other locations nearby because you did not have to have money to walk around and look at activities. When he was 16 or 17, he had a group of friends and on Sundays the gathered to play records and they bought a cake and shared that.

He also remembers going to the pictures in Bassano del Grappa. Mostly he recalls the constant hard work in the tailor’s room and the limited opportunities for other options.

 Decision to migrate to Australia

One of the young boys who was also employed by the tailor in Cusinati di Rosa’ had migrated to Australia a year before, and Luigi and 3 friends decided to also go there. They agreed it would be a good idea to also migrate because there were no opportunities for advancement and earning more than a small wage if they stayed in the village. Luigi was 19 years old and had a sense of adventure. At the time his parents were very disappointed that he was leaving, and when his father died a year later, Luigi was extremely sad, being so far from his family.

Luigi was sponsored by his friend who, at the time, was working in Wallaroo about 160 kms northwest of Adelaide. He remembered, “I left Italy without a cent.” The voyage by ship was exciting and at Port Said, he wanted to buy a few small items including some bananas and a friend loaned him £5 which was a large amount to repay. (Today the equivalent value would be about $175.)

He disembarked in Melbourne and remembered arriving in Adelaide and he saw some women cleaning the train and Luigi was shocked to see them independent of their families. Luigi began his life in Adelaide in Flinders Park where he stayed for about 18 months with a relative. “Adelaide felt like a big city to me, but it was very quiet.”

Working life in Australia

Within a short time, he was fortunate to get work in an engineering construction company, McMillan. He had not been able to find work as a tailor. He was dressed very formally when he applied for the job at McMillan, and when the employer asked about his previous experience, Luigi admitted that he had been a tailor. The boss was impressed that he had told the truth, shook Luigi’s hand and gave him the labouring job on building sites. He recalled, “It was very hard for me to make the change. I didn’t know anything about labouring, but I always tried to learn, and I was working with good people who helped me.” It was a surprise when he received his first pay of £16 – “Oh, it was a lot of money.”

Luigi worked five days a week and on Sundays, he went to Isidoro Ballestrin’s shed in Flinders Park. Isidoro opened up his packing shed on Sundays with a keg of beer, and it was mainly the older Veneto men who attended although families were involved sometimes.  More young men who migrated after the war also went along for the company and the opportunity to talk in Veneto dialect which was very important for them.

After some time, Luigi went to Echuca/Moama, about 250 kms north of Melbourne on the River Murray with two other Italians, and went to work on tobacco farms – “we hoped to find our fortune.” They stayed about 6 months until the season finished.

While he was in Echuca, he turned 21 years of age. Luigi and his friends played the juke box in a hotel at Moama and when people discovered that it was his 21^st birthday, they made a fuss and lit candles. He remembered one of the songs on the juke box was “Save the last dance for me,” which is still a significant memory for him.

Reflecting on his time in Echuca, Luigi said, “I became a man in Echuca because I had to learn how to be independent.”

One of his brothers and a sister-in-law lived in Adelaide for a couple of years and it was good to have a sense of family but they went back to live in Italy in 1964. Luigi kept himself busy with work and social life with friends and was not homesick but there were times when he felt sad and thought about his parents and brothers and sisters.

Return to Adelaide

When he returned to Adelaide, Luigi lived with four young Veneto men on the property of Narciso and Maria Ballestrin off Findon Road. He was employed by Primo Ballestrin who had a concreting business and Luigi worked seven days a week because he was keen to earn money and establish himself in Adelaide. After about six months he worked for himself and formed a partnership with a friend, Rocco Calabro’ and they worked very hard. Luigi remembers, “All the time I was thinking of buying a house.” Although he wanted to buy an MG sports car, he bought a block of land instead.

Meeting Lina and getting married

Luigi had come to know Lina Ballestrin over a few years – he had seen her at church and through the Veneto network at Flinders Park. They began going to dances together at Glenelg and the Norwood Town Hall. When Lui decided to make their relationship more formal, he contacted his sister, Clara, in Cusinati di Rosa’ and asked her to choose a ring for him to give Lina.

At the time, Luigi’s mother was concerned and did not want him to marry because she thought he was too young and he was so far away. Luigi was 22 years and Lina, 18 and a half when they got engaged. Lina also bought a ring for Luigi and in the photo above left, both rings are visible.

Luigi and Lina went to Italy for their honeymoon and spent time in Cusinati di Rosa’ with his mother who was pleased to see Luigi again and to meet Lina. They had opportunities to be with his brothers and sisters and their families. Luigi and Lina also travelled to other places. Luigi was able to enjoy the time in Italy because “I had a little bit of money in my hand which was different from when I left home and travelled to Australia.”

They returned to Adelaide and began preparing for the birth of their first-born, Lia. Life for Luigi and Lina was busy as they raised their family of eight children in Adelaide.

 Connections to the Veneto region

Luigi feels strongly about his Veneto roots. To speak Veneto is such an important part of his life – and was especially in the early years when he was settling in Australia. He has been involved with the Veneto Club since 1972 when he became a Foundation member and he contributed his time when the building was being constructed by volunteers on weekends.  He loved the opportunity to connect with Veneto people when the Club opened its doors in Adelaide in 1974 and he was there several times a week and took Lina and the family to the Sunday night dances.

 The passion for bocce

Luigi’s passion for bocce began in 1961 when he first played at the Fogolar Furlan Club and also at the Italian Club in the City of Adelaide and at the Campania Club.

He represented the Veneto Club in many interstate bocce competitions over about 40 years. In 1974, Luigi was selected as one of six players from Australia who competed in the World Bocce Competition in Vals-Les-Bain, France.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luigi finished playing bocce about 10 years ago after some physical limitations made it a challenge. “I was very disappointed when I stopped because I loved playing and moving around to different places to compete.”

Visits to Italy

Luigi loves visiting his family in Italy. He estimates that he has returned 11 times and the last time was in 2025 when he stayed with his brother, Romano, the last of the Campagnaro family in Cusinati di Rosa’. He arranged to meet three of his grandsons in Bassano del Grappa and proudly showed them the village of his birth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retirement

Luigi retired from the workforce in about 1998 although he continued to take on small jobs. He leads a very full life – growing seasonal vegetables and fruit which he and Lina preserve. They make sauce and every year Luigi makes wine and kills the pig and makes salami that he cures in the cellar.

One of his favourite rituals is taking a morning walk on the beach and he likes fishing at Rapid Bay and Second Valley about 90 kms south of Adelaide. He has maintained relationships with many Veneti in Adelaide and he and Lina enjoy their social life with friends.

Luigi and Lina love spending time with their eight children and their families – 14 grandchildren and a great-grandchild. Luigi is delighted that nearly all his grandchildren have been to Italy and visited Cusinati di Rosa’ and Bassano del Grappa.

Luigi’s story is of a young man leaving his family and the poverty in the Veneto region that made life a constant challenge. It is a story about Luigi’s 66 years in Australia and the opportunities he took to work, settle and marry Lina, and raise a large family, and to enjoy bocce and his membership of the Veneto Club and the Vicentini nel Mondo. It is also a story of the strong connections to his relatives and roots which he passes onto the next generations in his family. Luigi says, “I was born in Italy, and the pull is there to go back, to remember and feel the place where I was raised in my big family.”

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Luigi Campagnaro, Lina Campagnaro nee Ballestrin, Madeleine Regan
12 April 2026

Family photos provided by the Lina and Luigi Campagnaro.

In this blog you will read about Luigina Montin nee Rech who was born in Adelaide to parents who migrated from the Veneto region between the wars.

Luigina is pictured in the image above with her parents, Bernardo and Maria Rech and her older sister, Luciana, Adelaide, c 1947.

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When Luigina Montin nee Rech thought about her life in preparation for this blog, she said she was half Italian and half Australian. Reflecting more deeply, she acknowledged that her Italian heritage had had a huge impact during her life through her parents, relatives and friends. Luigina says she is proud of her family history and always wanted her children and grandchildren to value their inheritance as Italian Australians.

But – there is one thing that Luigina says gives her a sense of being Australian and that is her passion for sports, especially tennis. Luigina has played competitive tennis since she was 18 years old and even now, participates at a local club every week. Luigina proudly told us she has been to every Grand Slam – the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open.

 Family background

Luigina was born in Adelaide in 1942. Her father Bernardo was from Seren del Grappa in Belluno in 1904 and migrated to Australia in 1926. After working in the mines of central Australia, he settled in Adelaide and befriended Gelindo Rossetto and Lina Rossetto nee Bordin. At Lina Rossetto’s suggestion, when Bernardo went back to Italy in 1937, he called on Lina’s sister Maria Bordin, 9 years his junior, in Biadene near Montebelluna in Treviso. They fell for each other and as Maria had no family left in Italy she decided to come to Australia with Bernardo.

Lina and Gelindo Rossetto were part of the small network of Veneti who had settled in Adelaide between the wars. They provided support for Bernardo as he had no other relatives in Australia at the time. Lina continued to be involved in the life of the Rech family, and she was like a grandmother to Luigina’s children. [See three blogs about the life of Lina Rossetto]:

https://venetimarketgardeners1927.net/a-proxy-marriage-1930/

https://venetimarketgardeners1927.net/significant-elders-adele-rossetto-1904-1997/ and

https://venetimarketgardeners1927.net/significant-elder-lina-rossetto-nee-bordin-part-2/)

 A future in Australia – and a family

Within a week of arriving in Australia, Bernardo and Maria had married at the Registry Office and went to live with Lina and Gelindo in the west end of the City of Adelaide.

After he first arrived in Adelaide, Bernardo had worked in the mica mines at Harts Range, like many other young Veneto migrants. Maria and Luciana lived with him on the mica fields for a couple of years.

 

Mica was used widely in World War II for navigation equipment and in insulation in electrical items such as irons and toasters. Bernardo also worked for concrete contractors in the building industry in Adelaide.

 

On 8^thAugust 1938 Maria and Bernardo welcomed their first daughter, Luciana, and Luigina was born four years later, on 1^st April 1942. The family lived in Crowther Street in the City of Adelaide at the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By 1945 Bernardo and Maria purchased a house at Rose Park which also became a first home to Bernardo’s brothers and other young single Italian men who migrated after the war, several of whom he sponsored.

Later Bernardo bought a truck and carted grapes from the Riverland to Penfolds Winery at Magill. He became chronically ill early in his 50s and died at the age of 56 years in 1960.

 

Until that time, Maria had been a homemaker and looked after boarders at Rose Park. After Bernardo died, she went to work in a factory that produced cotton and other fabrics.

Luigina – growing up

Before she went to school at Loreto College, at 5 years old, Luigina did not speak English because Veneto dialect was the family language.  Although she loved sport, she did not like school and left when she was 14 years. She enjoyed spending time with her father and sometimes went with him to the Riverland when he collected grapes. Luigina remembers that “he was a loving and attentive father and joked a lot with children. I didn’t have enough time with him.”

 

 

Luigina’s first job lasted 12 years. She worked for her brother-in-law Giordano Rossetto at the European Grocery and Wine shop in the City of Adelaide. She enjoyed the work and the opportunity to meet customers. Part of her role was to assist with catering for weddings – work that included setting up tables at the venues, preparing and serving food and cleaning up the following day.

 

 

Luigina acquired strong organisational skills which were in use when, at the age of 18 years, she organised her father’s funeral as her sister and brother-in-law and family were in Italy.

 Social life as a young woman

Growing up, Luigina remembers that her social life was centred around mixing with Veneti – through her parents and her own friends. Reflecting on her teenage and young adult years, Luigina stated that she did not have an extensive social life. She accompanied her parents and aunt to watch Juventus soccer matches. After her father died, she went to see movies with her mother and sister and gradually began attending dances at the Norwood Town Hall and the Fogolar Furlan Club.

Luigina liked her independence and gained her Driver’s Licence at the minimum age of 16 years.

She thinks that she was about 18 years old when she began playing tennis for a club. Before then she had enjoyed hitting balls against the wall of the house.  It was not long before Luigina was winning competitions.

 

From 1960 to 1965, the house on Norwood Parade became a busy three-generational household when Luigina’s sister, Luciana, her husband, Giordano, and their eldest daughter, Julie also lived there.

The steps to marriage

Looking back, Luigina considers that she was quite brave when, a week after she met him, she asked Mario Montin to accompany her to the 21^st birthday party of her cousin Silvano Rossetto (son of Lina and Gelindo Rossetto) in October 1964. She’d met Mario at a dance at the Fogolar Furlan Club and liked the look of him.

 

Luigina knew that Mario was doing concreting at a house near her home and went there to invite him to the party. Theirs was a whirlwind courtship – engagement in December 1964 and marriage on 5^th June 1965.

Luigina recalls that her mother was very pleased that Mario had come from the village of Caselle, only about 6 kilometres from Maria’s village, Biadene. “It was a big, big plus because they could talk about Italy. My mother really liked him and had more of a connection to Italy than I did and this did not change until we travelled there later.”

Mario had been in Adelaide for five years and although he had friends, his circle was not nearly as large as Luigina’s who had an extensive group of close relatives and Veneto family friends. They decided to invite the same number of guests and on Mario’s list, migrants from Caselle made up a large group.

Luigina chose close relatives for her attendants – her first cousin, Rita Rech, and the flower girls were her niece Julie and a cousin, Margaret Rech, from Melbourne.

 

 Raising the family

 After Luigina and Mario married, they lived in the Rech house at Rose Park that had become the base for so many newly arrived Italian migrants since 1945. They moved to the family home on The Parade at Magill in 1972 when their first child Anita was 5 years old.

Anita was born in 1967 and Peter, in 1972.

The Montins enjoyed social life with the extended Rech family and spent time with a group of Veneto families who often got together and whose children grew up with Anita and Peter.

Summer holidays in ‘Via Veneto’

For about 35 years, Luigina and Mario and their group of Veneto friends spent three weeks at the Kingston Park caravan park south of Adelaide. At the beginning, in 1969, there were about 20 families who enjoyed summer holidays together.

 

Adults played cards and bocce games. Children had fun on the beach and swam, and everyone relaxed together in the location in the caravan park that they called ‘Via Veneto.’

 Visits to Italy

When Luigina and Mario went to Italy in 1969 with Anita who was nearly 2 years old, Luigina felt as though “I knew where I was going.” She had heard so much about Caselle, and also Biadene where her mother came from. She felt as if it was all an adventure that first time and enjoyed being included in the Montin family and their daily life. They spent time with Mario’s many cousins. At that time, there was running water only in the kitchen and baths were once a week.

The passion for tennis

Luigina has played tennis for 60+ years – evidence of her passion for the sport. She had a break after she was married and returned when Peter went to school in 1977. Playing tennis, she has felt ‘Australian.’ She has always loved to compete and until a few years ago, played three days a week.

 

 

In 2022, in a local newspaper it was reported that Luigina had bought herself a new tennis racquet for her 80^th birthday and that she was oldest woman player in the Tranmere Tuesday Ladies’ Tennis Competition. Today, Luigina plays twice a week.

 

Life in 2026

Luigina states that family is the most important part of her life. She enjoys preparing dinner once a fortnight for the family – her daughter and partner, Anita and Maria, son, Peter and wife, Tania, and their four adult children, Xavier, Oliver, Zachary and Ava.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The Italian influence is strong”, Luigina says, “There has to be brodo in the house or else there’s something wrong.” Mostly she speaks dialect with Mario and Veneto friends. The family keeps traditions at Easter and Christmas. Relatives and friends are very important, and Luigina keeps in contact with cousins in Melbourne and recently went to visit them. She plays cards once a month.

“Sport is a good piece of my life. I never miss a Crows [Australian Rules Football] home game and for many years I went with my good friends Norma Camozzzato nee Ballestrin and Rita Rech nee Mattiazzo until their deaths. Now I usually go with Anita. I always go to Adelaide United soccer matches. And of course, there is tennis!” Luigina also enjoys going to a monthly school friends’ lunch.

Looking back, Luigina says that as a young person she felt different and a bit out of place especially at school because she was Italian. For over 60 years she and Mario have built a life together, raised their children with the support of a close family and the company of caring friends and have enjoyed a lively social life. She liked the opportunities to visit Mario’s family and her Bordin relatives in Italy and enjoyed other international travel. All the while she has maintained her passion for tennis.

 

“I’ve had some sadnesses in my life with the deaths of my parents and dear friends, but the greatest sorrow was the loss of my sister and two of her children on Christmas Eve, 1986.”

Luigina is very proud of her Italian roots, her Italian identity and has passed on that pride to her children and grandchildren.

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Luigina Montin nee Rech, Mario Montin, Anita Montin, Peter Montin, Amanda Rossetto, Madeleine Regan

12 March 2026

All family photos supplied by the Montins.