The feature photo shows Joyce Muscara’s wedding c 1951. Lina Campagnaro is the flower girl on the right and Pam Zerella is the one on the right.
A surprise and a memory
In May 2024, Lina, Campagnaro nee Ballestrin and two friends attended an exhibition at the Woodville Town Hall during History Month that featured glory boxes that Italian women had owned before they married. Apart from the glory boxes there was a wedding dress displayed on a model and an explanation that the dress had been loaned to seven women who married as proxy brides in Adelaide. There was just one photo of a wedding group – and it featured the dress. Lina hesitated in front of the photo and realised that she was one of the flower girls in the wedding party.
Lina remembered that her parents, Maria and Narcisio Ballestrin, would have agreed for her to be flower girl for Joyce Muscara whose family were neighbours on a market garden. Lina thinks she was about 7 years old and she remembered that her dress was pink. It was a great surprise for her o see the photo as part of the exhibition.
However, it was not the only time that Lina was flower girl in wedding parties and she was also bridesmaid for at least five weddings.
Lina’s story
Lina’s parents, Narcisio Ballestrin and Maria nee Dotto, had arrived in Adelaide before the war. Lina was born in Adelaide in 1944 while her father, Narcisio, was in the Northern Territory conscripted to the civilian work corps during the war. Lina’s brother, Jimmy was five years old when she was born. Silvano was born five years later and the fourth member of the family, Norina, was born after another four years.
Lina grew up on the family market garden and remembers working with her Dad on tasks like tying up strings for the tomatoes in the glasshouse. In her oral history interview Lina remembered one of her tasks:
I had the job of the low rows … and I always remember doing French knots on those tomato plants. It was very interesting because I’ve never forgotten that knot to this day. That was one of the jobs and that was done after school or in the holidays or weekends. Never on a Sunday because Dad never worked on Sunday. (OH 872/28, 13 March 2014, p 9)
Lina treasures her close relationships with her brothers, Jimmy and Silvano and her sister, Norina. She is in regular contact with all of them – frequent calls with Jimmy and Silvano and her sister visits from Melbourne a few times a year.
All the siblings are interested in family history.
From school student to teacher – in a hurdle
Lina finished three years of secondary school at St Joseph’s Hindmarsh and went to work. She was not so happy in the role as the only girl in the office and when one of the Sisters rang her up and invited her to teach a Year 3 class at the school, Lina took up the challenge. She had some help from one of the nuns but mostly taught from the text books and she remembered in her oral history interview they’d listen to you and … so it was relatively easy for me. (p13) The next year was more demanding because the nun asked Lina to take the Year 8 class while she taught the Year 9 and Year 10 girls.
Lina taught for nearly four years until she got married. There were about 25 students in the class and she taught all the subjects except typing. Lina remembers that she taught herself as she went along and continued to teach with textbooks. While she was teaching, Lina also went to school on Saturday mornings and Sister Maria Anne taught what was then called Leaving and Leaving Honours (or Year 11 and Year 12) so she completed five years of secondary education. She looks back and thinks that it was not such a difficult thing to have become a teacher so quickly. She loved the opportunity. In her interview, Lina stated:
[Sister Maria Anne] must have known that I could impart my knowledge and that’s what it is. It’s not how good you are, it’s the way you can teach people to do things and that’s what I think I had the ability to do. (p 14)
Lina’s wedding
In April 1964, Lina married Luigi Campagnaro who was from Rosa in the province of Vicenza. He had been in Adelaide for four years. When they married, Lina had designed her own wedding dress with a boat neckline and a train with the assistance of a very good Italian dressmaker. She was very pleased with the finished item even though she recalled that the material was not expensive. Lina wore a veil that had belonged to her sister-in-law and was cut down to suit the style of her hair style and dress.
Lina’s students formed a guard of honour when she got out of the car with her father to walk into the church. She had no idea that the students were going to be there and she found this gesture of respect very touching.
After the wedding ceremony, Lina and Luigi went to the St Joseph’s convent at Hindmarsh to meet the sisters and have some photos taken before they went to have the formal portraits taken in the city.
The long ties of friendship
When she thought about the many weddings she attended as a flower girl or bridesmaid, Lina said that it was a reflection of friendship and the ties that friends made with each other. In the case of being flower girl, it was her parents’ friendship with the bride’s family. Joyce Muscaro’s parents had asked Lina’s parents if Lina could be a flower girl and this was an acknowledgement of the close relationship between the two families. who were neighbours. The closeness and sense of trust was obvious when women lent each other wedding dresses and bridesmaids’ dresses. In some cases, bridesmaids wore the same dress at different weddings. Being asked to be a bridesmaid was an honour and showed the friendship and affection between the young women.
In the two photos below, Lina is bridesmaid and wears the same dress for each wedding.
Turning 80
“What a milestone,” reflected Lina when she was talking about her 80th birthday in July 2024. She said she was “going along with the flow and working on a healthy lifestyle.”
Lina and Luigi love spending time with their children and their families – including their 14 grandchildren.
The ties of friendship have always been important to Lina and it was a great joy to have her family and close friends to celebrate the significant birthday with her.
Madeleine Regan and Lina Campagnaro nee Ballestrin
28 January 2025
All photos supplied by Lina.
