Category: 2025

Egilberta (Bertina) Carraro was 20 years old when she waved goodbye to her father and  boarded the ship for Australia at Genova. She remembers saying the words, “Now, it’s on me.” It was 1953 and Bertina had made up her mind that she was responsible for her new life. She was leaving her parents and brothers behind and was on her way to meet her fiancée, Sante Buratto, who had arrived in 1951.

The image above, of Bertina and Sante Buratto, was taken in Adelaide
in 2020, on the occasion of Sante’s 90th birthday.

Early life
Bertina was born on 29^th July 1933 in Latina in the Lazio region, a city that was then called ‘Littoria’ which was founded by Mussolini in 1932. It was populated by settlers mostly from the Veneto and Friuli regions. Bertina’s parents returned to live in Biadene in about 1934. (Biadene is about 65 kms NorthWest of Venice.) Bertina had two older brothers, Armando and Bruno.

The Carraro house held an important role in Biadene. Bertina’s father worked at the Mulino, a factory that ground wheat for flour and ran 24 hours. Bertina’s father managed the operations and  ran  generators from the family home. The generators provided heat that enabled local families to dry their washing  during the winter months. Bertina’s mother cared for the items of clothing and made sure that they were returned to each family.

After three years of education, Bertina stayed home because the village school was closed because of the war and was given over to accommodation for refugees who came from the south of Italy. She learned sewing and helped with cooking and housework. When she was 14 years old, Bertina  went to work in a factory that made silk fabric.

A young woman in Biadene
Bertina remembers that she had limited freedom as a young woman in Biadene. There were few social activities and the parish priest opposedyoung girls having a social life outside the family home and refused to give them communion if they attended dances. Once a year there was a sagra or a festival in Ciano del Montello, a town about five kilometres north of Biadene. Bertina went with three friends on their pushbikes and it was there that she saw Sante Buratto for the first time. After about four months, Sante found out where Bertina lived and went to see her. She thought she was too young to get involved but he was keen and when he decided to migrate in 1951, he told her that he would wait for her in Australia.

She received Sante’s letters for about six months but she did not reply. After about six months, he found a way to get Bertina’s attention – he enclosed a £1 note in a letter and said that if her mother didn’t give her the money for a stamp then she could use his money. This strategy worked and they made arrangements for Bertina to marry him when she arrived in Australia.

To Australia…
Bertina remembered that her departure was very difficult for her parents. Her mother was very sad and asked how could her only daughter leave her. Her father accompanied her on the 400-kilometre trip to Genova.

From the moment she boarded the ship, Bertina had a strong sense that she was determined to make her life anew. She recalls thinking to herself, “I know the good and the bad, and I will do my best.” She had felt constrained by the village and she wanted to learn different things. For a young woman who had had a protected upbringing, the experience of being on the ship was a big adventure.

 

Arrival in Australia
Bertina had three aunts who had migrated to Melbourne between the wars and she stayed with one of them for three months after she arrived and before she and Sante married. She worked in a factory making women’s clothes and earned £140.00, and Bertina was able to pay for the costs of the wedding. Sante arrived in Melbourne a few days before the wedding.

Just the week before the wedding, Sante had bought a large old house on Park Terrace [now Greenhill Road] near the Adelaide showgrounds and the young couple began their married life there.

Life in Adelaide

In Adelaide, Sante took Bertina to meet the Veneti who were his close friends and they welcomed her and friendships were made for Bertina’s future. The house on Park Terrace was in poor condition because it had been empty for many years. The floors were rotten and everything needed to be fixed. Because Sante was a carpenter, he was able to work on the house after finishing his day job.

Bertina remembers, “I was happy. I was young and I pulled up my sleeves and cleaned everything.”

Family life in Rostrevor

Diana was born in 1955, and in 1957, the Buratto family moved to Rostrevor (known as Oldfield at that time) where Sante had built their house. It was a new suburb with few roads and not many other houses nearby. In 1958, Denis was born, and Roger, in 1966. Over the years, the family enjoyed celebrations and the company of good friends from the Veneto region.

The Buratto family life became fuller when Bertina’s parents came for a visit in 1969. They had thought they might stay in Adelaide but after some time, Bertina could see her parents were homesick and she organised for them to return to Montebelluna.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Involvement in the Veneto Club
Before the Veneto Club Inc., Adelaide was built in 1974, Sante was involved in meetings and he became a Foundation Member. It was an important place for the Veneti to gather and speak Italian and build community. One of the most important social gatherings in the early years were the Sunday night dinner dances and Bertina attended these with Sante and the family.

 Gradually, Bertina became involved in the Women’s Committee at the Veneto Club where she assisted with the functions on Saturday nights. She used to catch the bus just outside the family home at 1:00 pm and it took her to Beverley about 15 kms across the city.

With a team of other women, Bertina prepared for the functions setting up tables and serving meals for up to 400 people at times. The women  enjoyed providing hospitality at the Club. Bertina said, “I would take the last bus at night and was home around midnight. I was a strong person, not scared of anyone.”

She was one of the cooks for Tuesday bocce games at the Club and also for school groups that were invited by the Club for an Italian experience. She has taught groups how to make crostoli and frittole.

Bertina was a member of the Veneto Club Committee for a number of terms. In acknowledgement of her long years of service, she was made a Life Member of the Veneto Club.

 A rich life
Bertina arrived as a young woman in Australia and  built their family life with Sante. She developed and maintained friendships, actively contributed to the Veneto Club and has visited relatives in Italy several times. Today she enjoys spending time with her children, five grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

She looks after her garden, sees her friends and attends events at the Veneto Club. Bertina has created a rich and rewarding life in her 72 years in Australia.

All photos supplied by Bertina and Diana Buratto.

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Bertina Buratto, Diana Buratto and Madeleine Regan
29 June 2025

 

 

In the late 1920s and early 1930s the Veneto market gardeners would never have imagined the possibility of roller skating from Lockleys to St James Park!

In the image above, Albert Tonellato skates over the Keele Bridge, c 1945. Courtesy, Mary Tonellato.

Before the river widening works commenced in 1935 the Torrens River in the St. James Park/Lockleys was a relatively deep channel with steep sides. The river regularly flooded in winter and was reduced to disconnected pools most summers.  It represented a significant barrier between communities north and south of the river.

In the period following World War 1 broad acre farming in the area began to decline, land was subdivided and leased or sold. Better access across the river was required as the population increased and foot, bike and horse travel was being replaced by motor vehicles.

There was a wooden bridge on Tapley’s Hill Road from the 1880’s and a stone arch bridge was built on Holbrook’s Road in 1867 (Hardy, M, History of Woodville South Australia, 1875-1960, Part 2).

Attempts to get a bridge over the River Torrens
In 1911 residents in St James Park and Lockleys petitioned Woodville City Council to build a bridge and with assistance of the State Government, a simple wooden bridge was constructed at Frogmore Road/Torrens Ave in 1924 but this was subsequently removed during the river clearing and widening which commenced in 1935.

Further east nearer River Road (now Findon Road) rudimentary pedestrian access was provided by Mr Ballantyne in the form of a large plank 12 – 18 inches wide (300 – 450mm) which had to be removed whenever the river flooded. The Ballantyne family owned land on River Road abutting the Torrens.

Memories – before the Keele Bridge

In her interview, Barbara Haynes nee Ballantyne recalled:

I was only a baby. I think our mum was – used to carry me. I think dad carried the pusher and Rae (Barbara’s brother) across the plank so that mum could walk down to Henley Beach Road.

…Dad had some olive trees and we used … to climb them and looked down and it seemed to be all bicycles, like men going to Holden’s factory or something like that.

OH 872/23, 1 September, 2021, pp 19-20).

Frankie Ballestrin recalled in his interview (OH 872/7, 12 December 2008, p 17):

 

… Before that [my] parents were telling me, there was a board going across the river and when the water was real high, they used to crawl across there, they had to crawl on all fours, you know, hands and knees, to get across the river, even when it was almost touching the bottom of the board.

 

 

 

Lina Rismondo (nee Marchioro) recalled going with her parents from the city to work at their market garden in Frogmore Road:

Well, a tram went to Torrens Road, Torrens Avenue, Henley Beach Road, and weused to walk from Henley Beach Road down to Frogmore Road and we had to cross the river. A narrow plank (laughs).  Across the Torrens and then when it was floating on top of the water we’d have to go back to Henley Beach Road and come around Rowell’s Road and…

(Lina Rismondo nee Marchioro, OH 872/9, 9 June 2010, p 4).

 

The community calls for a bridge
The Adelaide newspaper, ‘The Advertiser,’ Tuesday 9^th April 1935, reported the necessity for a bridge:

“The need for a bridge or other means for crossing the Torrens River in the vicinity of St. James’s Park was suggested to the Woodville Council last night bv Mr. E.J. Keele, who said that there was danger to children and others in crossing by means of an aqueduct at Rowell’s Road.”

The clearing and widening of the river in the western suburbs commenced in 1935 and was completed in 1938.  Around the same time construction commenced on a new bridge connecting River Road and Rowell’s Road.

Opening of the bridge – 12 June 1937*

The new bridge was officially opened by Minister for Local Government, Mr Blesing and Miss Adelaide Keele on 12^thJune 1937 and named Keele Bridge in honour of E J Keele who had been a significant land owner in the district.  At that time, it was a two-lane bridge.

The bridge was widened to its current four-lane configuration in 1967. In a recent conversation  Mirjana Marchioro mentioned that her husband, Romano (Ray) Marchioro, worked on the bridge as a young carpenter at that time.

Until relatively recently, plaques mounted on the north western corner of the bridge commemorated the initial construction in 1937 and the widening in 1967, unfortunately these have been removed or stolen.

The life of the Keele Bridge 

In recent years, significant consolidation work has been required to stabilise the river bank to the east and west of the Keele Bridge.

The Linear Park initiative commenced in the early 1980s included further rework to the shape of the river valley and significant planting of indigenous trees and shrubs as well as play spaces and BBQ areas.  The Linear Park these days attracts huge numbers of walkers, cyclists and others – most would be oblivious to the wonderful history of life along the river.

*On the 12th June, it was 88 years since the Keele bridge was opened.

Alex Bennett
15 June 2025

I began my oral history project in 2007 and recorded first interviews in 2008. I began the project because Johnny Marchioro gave me lots of information about the community of Veneto market gardeners who settled in Lockleys in the 1930s. After I interviewed Bruno Piovesan, Mary and Albert Tonellato and Frankie Ballestrin. I was interested to learn about the group of Veneto market gardeners and how they lived and worked at Lockleys. Since 2008 I have gathered 65 interviews, including some recorded in the Veneto region. The recordings are held in the State Library of South Australia – and you can listen to most of them on this website.

As many of you know, I have written a book about the Veneto market gardeners in Lockleys. It has finally been published by Australian National University (ANU) Press.

The title is “’I buy this piece of ground of here’: An Italian market-gardener community in Adelaide 1920s – 1970s.”

The words were spoken by Vittorio Marchioro who had arrived from Malo in 1927. He was interviewed with his wife, Angelina, in the 1980s and Vittorio proudly stated that he had been able to buy the land and that he had security and a settled life in Lockleys as a market gardener.

The cover

On the cover are Costantina and Giovanni Santin in front of their truck and the house they lived in with their three sons and a daughter. Giovanni was the eldest of the Veneto men who arrived in the 1920s. Costantina and Lui, Vito, Romildo and Virginia joined him in 1935.

The photo on the cover of the book was taken in the mid 1940s on Valetta Road where the family sub-leased land from the Berno brothers. In 1950 the Santins, including Lui and his wife Rosina Tonellato and Vito and his wife, Anna Mattiazzo, moved to Frogmore Road in 1950 where the family had bought land with an old house.

What’s the book about?

‘I buy this piece of ground here’ is a group biography that examines the lives and work of Veneto families whose members first arrived in Australia in the 1920s. They formed a new community and identity as market gardeners in what was then the outer suburbs in the west of Adelaide.

The book investigates the settlement of the group of Veneti in a period of Australian migration history that is often overlooked in favour of post-World War II studies of mass migration and multiculturalism.

Nine chapters

In each of the nine chapters, there are excerpts from the oral history interviews. These extracts give fascinating information about the experience of different families and help build the history of the Veneto community of market gardeners.

 Chapter one: Building a group biography – the focus is on the formation of the community of Veneto market gardeners, how I approached the study and used oral history interviews to record the memories of the sons and daughters of the first generation and other relatives.

Chapter two: Beginnings in Adelaide – explores the challenges that the first generation experienced before they could lease land at ‘Lockleys’, the marriages and settling down to achieve ‘sistemazione’ with family.

Chapter three: Attachment to land – examines the contadino (peasant farmer) motivation to work the land and how this translated to Lockleys where they became land owners.

Chapter four: Family life and labour – outlines the involvement of the whole family in the work on the market gardeners” husbands, wives and children.

Chapter five: Life within the community – focuses on how the Veneto market gardener families supported each other and built a strong community or a paese, the role of the Catholic Church in the lives of families.

Chapter six: Community in times of crisis – describes the challenges of the war years, the experience of being ‘enemy aliens’ and the difficulties that Italian people faced in Australia after Italy joined with Germany.

Chapter seven: Pathways – 1.5 and second generation – provides details about the employment choices the men and women who had either arrived as children with their parents or who were born in Australia – and differences in the two younger generations.

Chapter eight: Transforming the paese- spells out the changes as families sold their market gardens; ageing of the first generation and the arrival of post Second World Veneti.

Chapter nine: Continuity of the paese – explains how members of the second and third generations have maintained their identity as part of the Veneto market gardener community, the website and connections with relatives in the Veneto region.

Thanks to the people interviewed

I am grateful to all the people who gave their time to be interviewed and who told the stories of their parents and grandparents’ migration and settlement. I am also thankful to the families who have given permission for me to use the beautiful photos that are used in the book. We are fortunate that it was possible to document the history of the Veneto market gardener community at Lockleys from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Book launch

I have organised a book launch for 19th July at Mater Christi hall, Seaton – you’ll see the details on the invitation.  Books will not be sold at the launch.

How to access the book – online

The book will not be available in bookshops. It has been published by ANU Press as an e-book. It can be downloaded for free and read on a computer or a tablet. You can click on this link to download the book: http://doi.org/10.22459/IBPGH.2025

When you open the page, you’ll see that there are various formats you can select to download the document. One option with the pdf format is to download each chapter.

If you download the book, you’ll find sound files that you can access at the beginning of each chapter. The sound files are brief extracts from oral history interviews that I have recorded with sons and daughters of the first generation of market gardeners or the next generation or other relatives. The brief sound files introduce the themes of the chapters. I wanted to include sound files in the online version of the book so that people who read the book would get the idea that oral history was a vital part of my writing the history of the Veneto market gardener community.

Purchasing the book

Scanning the QR code on the flyer provided by ANU Press will entitle purchasers to a 20% discount. (If you hold your phone close enough to the code, you will activate it.) Orders will be delivered within two weeks.

Please contact me if you would like to have your own flyer with the QR code.

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Madeleine Regan
1 June 2025