Category: 2019

We are at the end of what has been a challenging year for everyone … here in Adelaide, Melbourne, in the Veneto region, France, Canada and other places where people read the blog – and throughout the world. The experience of the Covid-19 virus has affected our lives in so many ways and I know that it has been particularly difficult for people in Europe, Canada and America where relatives of the pioneer Veneto market gardeners live. I hope that the vaccine will reduce the impact of the virus in 2021 and that life might be a little easier.

Thank you to the following guests who have contributed blogs and provided different family stories in 2020:

• • Irene Zampin
  • Christine Rebellato nee Mattiazzo
  • Aida Innocente
  • Fran Bonato
  • Silvano Ballestrin
  • Anna Baronian nee Carniello
  • Cathy Crenna nee Fischbach
  • Angelo Piovesan.

It has been great that people have written blogs from their homes in Adelaide, Melbourne, Caselle di Altivole and Belleville Ontario. The blogs have been an important way of communicating different aspects of the history of the Veneto market gardener community and people connected to that group. Adding the eulogies of people who have died has also been another means of learning about the lives of individuals and their family experience of migration and settlement before and after the Second World War.

This year a number of members of the community in Adelaide have died and I extend condolences to the families.

2021 is nearly here!
There is a gathering for the Veneto market gardener community families planned for Saturday 16^th January. It will be held at Mater Christi hall from 2:00 to 4:00 pm. Please let others know about the occasion – it is always an enjoyable opportunity for people to catch up with each other. The photos of previous events show the groups who have attended.

I will be finishing my PhD studies in the next few months. It’s been a long process but I have been fortunate to have had the time to research the history of the Veneto market gardeners – from the pioneers who arrived in the late 1920s to the 1.5 generation who arrived as children and the second and third generations born in Adelaide. I have also appreciated the willingness of all the 58 people who agreed to be interviewed since 2008. When I first started the interviews, I had no idea where the project would lead me – and certainly I never thought I would begin a PhD.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for assistance
Thank you also to Michael Campbell who manages the website and keeps the design looking sharp. I am also very grateful to Graziella Ledda who helps with the Italian translations. And to Irene Zampin and Johnny Rebuli, I extend thanks for contributing to translations.

Ideas for 2021
I am very happy to discuss new concepts for the blog and  the website. If you have some ideas, please contact me – I’d love to hear from you.

 

With best wishes for 2021!

Madeleine Regan
28 December 2020

 

In Italy the nativity crib is called a presepio (presepe, plural) which represents the story of the birth of Jesus. The presepio is a three-dimensional scene of the stable with figurines that include Mary, Joseph, shepherds, people from everyday life and the three wise men. The size of the nativity scene can vary and may include buildings and features that create an entire village and rural landscape.

The presepe are usually displayed in Italian homes and churches from 8^th December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, to 6^th January, the feast of the Epiphany, when the wise men were added to the scene. Presepe are often displayed in piazzas, shops and other public areas. The figures can vary in scale from miniature to life size and in many families, preparations for the presepio begin a long time before it is displayed. In some villages, the local council holds competitions for the best presepio.

Memories of creating a presepio in Bigolino
Johnny Tormena, who was born in 1927, in Bigolino remembers the excitement of preparing the presepio as a child. He collected small amounts of money from selling clean bones to the rag and bone man in the village and used the proceed to buy figures during the year. Small shops in Bigolino sold the little statues and he started with just three: Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. Johnny set up the presepio in a corner of the kitchen and collected moss in the fields to make it look like grass and he used stalks of hay in the manger and made paths with fine gravel.

During the year, he asked family members to save shoe boxes which he cut up to make houses and castles and he found coloured paper and into the shapes he created, he placed candles that illuminated the colours. It was a considerable project for a young boy to create the presepio.

 

When the Tormena family migrated to Australia in 1939, the figurines were included in the luggage and Johnny constructed the presepio for many years in Adelaide.

The Griguol family from Meduna di Livenza – memories of presepio
In 1996, Rose Noble published a book about her grandparents, their lives in Meduna di Livenza in the province of Treviso in the Veneto region and their migration to South Australia. It was based on the memories of some older relatives. The book is called, “Polenta in Australia: The Story of Giuseppe and Rosa Griguol and their Family.”

Giuseppe married Rosa Samogin in 1925. They had six children, Maria, Antonio, Lina, Lea, Mario and Silvano. In March 1939, Giuseppe arrived in Adelaide and worked in the Riverland area. Rosa with five of their children joined him in March 1949. Rosa died suddenly in 1950, shortly before Antonio arrived. Giuseppe died in 1969.

In one chapter, Rose described life in Italy and highlighted the importance of the presepio in the Griguol family. She began by saying how the preparation for it was thrilling and contributed to the anticipation of Christmas in the Griguol household where 17 members of the extended family lived: …

… Preparations started weeks beforehand … The presepio took up a large area of the room. It was Toni [Antonio] who played a major part in its creation. He brought in barrels of dirt to make the ground and the rolling hills. Cotton wool was used for snow, sheep skin for the sheep, cardboard cut-outs for the figures and stable, and moss was used for the grass. It was an entertainment in itself to go afield with baskets to collect the moss from under the trees. A river and lake were represented by slabs of glass. A bridge was built. Candles were lit around the presepio. One Christmas, snail shells were filled with oil and lit. The stable was aglow …

(Rose Noble, “Polenta in Australia: The Story of Giuseppe and Rosa Griguol and their Family,” 1996, page 96).

With all good wishes for Christmas. Buon Natale.

Madeleine Regan
13 December 2020

 

Guest blogger, Angelo Piovesan, writes about the close connections between three generations of the Piovesan and Tonellato families.

The long relationship between the pioneering Piovesan and Tonellato families had its origins back in Italy, before they departed for Australia.

The Tonellato family were from Caselle di Altivole.  My nonna’s family also had lived in Altivole for a long time (her first two children were born in Altivole) before moving to Ponzano Veneto, so she knew the Tonellato family.  It no doubt explains how her son / my zio Angelo Piovesan (then 22 years old) decided to accompany, and was looked after, by Secondo Tonellato (later affectionately known to me as nonno della pipa) on the voyage to Australia in 1927.

Secondo was 20 years younger than our nonna and must have been around 35 years old at that time, when leaving behind his wife and 5 children – the youngest, “Nano”/Orlando was born after his father migrated. As part of my young adult life, I remember Mum telling me that my nonna Fortunata Virginia Merlo’s family had later sponsored or was guarantor for the Tonellato family to migrate to Australia in 1935.

Zio Angelo lived alongside Secondo Tonellato in a galvanised iron shed next to where the famed vagon/ railway carriage was later located and occupied by Elisabetta and her young Tonellato family, on their arrival on 14/06/35.  Zio Angelo lived there until he died in 1949, whilst zia Rosalia and his own young Piovesan family continued to live there until they moved into their new house on Frogmore Road in late 1951.  Based on my memories as a youngster, the railway carriage and shed were located just off a bamboo lined, dirt laneway running between Frogmore Rd and River / Findon Rd, located about where the bend is now in Fergusson Ave (off Frogmore Rd.)

It is easy to imagine how a 30 year old Angelo would therefore repay the kindness of Secondo by helping to look out for his recently arrived young family aged between 13 years to 8 years old, forming a close friendship with the children. The two wives would also have been very grateful for the company, becoming close friends. Zia Rosalia herself had arrived only months earlier on 8/09/34 and was just about to become a mother at the time of arrival of the Tonellato family, delivering her first child Nillo only days later in June 1935. The growth of the Piovesan family quickly followed, with the births of Dino in late 1936 and Bruno at the end of 1937.

Similarly, it is easy to see how the Tonellato children would have helped look after the young Piovesan children as they grew up alongside them for 16 years, developing their own close friendships – which lasted over their lifetimes. Over the latter years, this was particularly evident with the close ties between Albert Tonellato and Bruno Piovesan, then between Bruno and Albert’s son Ray, and now with Ray mentoring Bruno’s own children – following Bruno’s death in 2014.

Whilst our branch of the Piovesan family did not arrive until late January 1950, we received the same level of friendship and support from the Tonellato clan and developed our own close ties with Albert, Mary and their young family. Ray and I were born only months apart and were fellow classmates right through our schooling, together with Silvano Ballestrin and Robert Berno – both of whom lived close to Ray and his family. I spent quite a bit of time during school holidays with Ray at their home, either helping out in their market garden picking vegetables in the glasshouses, occasionally getting up very early and attending the East End Produce Market on East Terrace, or helping collect chicken manure at several poultry farms for the glasshouses – the closest being the poultry farm formerly located on the current Findon Shopping Centre site on the corner of Grange and Findon Roads.

Ray’s parents, Albert and Mary, became my Confirmation godparents, as did my parents for Ray’s younger sister Janet. Later on, both Ray and I were in each other’s bridal parties, with the close friendship between the two of us continuing to this day.

This was typical of the close relationships developed between families from the Veneto region who were close or near neighbours back in Italy before migrating to Adelaide.  It was certainly true of the Piovesan, Santin and Tonellato families, whose origins had started with the heads of those families migrating together in 1927 and then living alongside each other and purchasing farming land along Frogmore Road. All these migrating Veneto families shared and were united by very similar stories of struggles post WW1 and during WW2, which led to them developing strong family bonds and support networks – enabling them to grow their families and flourish in their adopted home. They all became part of one larger extended family in Adelaide.

Angelo Piovesan
29 November 2020