Veneto market gardeners 1927

This blog gives a  brief history of the life and work of Leo Conci, a man born on the island of Elba in the province of Toscana in 1909,
who married Pina Bergamin, a Veneta in Adelaide in 1944.

The image above is the engagement photo of Leo and Pina, taken c 1943.

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Deni Conci says that his father, Leo Conci, was a man who created many opportunities to change his working life – “he was a man of 1000 jobs.” Leo himself acknowledged that he took many paths in his working life and admitted that he had had more jobs than he could recall. Because of his entrepreneurial disposition, he was ready to take on challenges in business, and he involved his family in his many ventures.

In addition to his many business interests, Leo took on a very significant role in 1972 when he was one of four guarantors who made it possible for the newly formed Veneto Club of Adelaide to purchase land to build the Club at Beverley. Leo was a member of the first two Committees and for his contribution, he was recognised as a Life and a Foundation member. He was also involved in the establishment of the Italian Club and the Club Toscano in Adelaide.

From Capoliveri to Adelaide
Leo Ameleto Conci was born at Capoliveri on the Isola d’Elba (the Isle of Elba) on 16 April 1909. He was the only child of Nello, a miner, and Caterina Magnanini, a seamtress.  In 1925 Nello became unemployed after the mine closed, and it was difficult for many families to survive on the island. Nello was sponsored by an acquaintance, and the family arrived in Adelaide in 1925.

In Adelaide, the Depression was affecting the working lives of people and although jobs were scarce, Leo got his first job at 15 years old as an apprentice to a shoe-maker on North Terrrace in the City of Adelaide.

 

Later, he worked with his father clearing land near Karoonda, about 160 kms east of Adelaide. In the meantime, Caterina had found a dressmaking job in Adelaide.

Father and son embarked on a new venture, bought a truck and an abandoned quarry in the Adelaide Hills and extracted stone for road base. After about two years of hard work, the quarry was destroyed by flooding, and Leo and his father had to find other work. For a short time, they leased land and set up a market garden.

Life in Australia changed for the Conci family in 1936 when Nello died of a heart attack, aged 54 years, and the following year Leo and his mother moved to Broken Hill to live with relatives from Capoliveri. Leo worked in a lead mine for four years before he and his mother returned to Adelaide. At that time, he started a building firm with three friends but it was dissolved after a short period.

Marriage to Pina – and family life

At the age of 35 years, Leo’s life transformed when he met Giuseppina (Pina) Bergamin. Her parents had migrated to Adelaide in 1939 from San Martino di Lupari in the province of Padova in the Veneto region.

Leo and Pina, aged 22 years, married on 1^st January 1944.

Together they opened several milk bars in the City of Adelaide, and one later became the Star Grocery in Hindley Street which sold continental goods.

 

 

Leo and Pina had four children, Deni, Noreen, Lido and Liana.

Leo’s mother, Caterina, lived with Leo and Pina and the family until she died in 1974.

It was never a problem for Leo to be involved in two or three activities at a time. He took on other jobs which included being a second-hand car dealer and a land agent. He renovated several old homes in St Peters where the family lived for some years. He took an interest in manufacturing objects for domestic use and this included an initial venture making cement pots and other items which Pina painted before they were sold including stock that went interstate.

Business ventures in the 1950s

In 1954, Leo started in a venture that would determine the rest of his working life. He began working in wrought iron and made fences and balustrades.

In 1958 he formed his partnership, L Conci & Sons, and opened the retail store across the road from the airport and became the largest manufacturer of wrought iron garden furniture in Adelaide.

Pina painted the furniture, and initially, Deni was involved in forming and welding the pieces while Leo was responsible for sales, delivery and marketing. All the items were built at the workshop at Brooklyn Park.

 

Development of Leo Conci & Sons

Leo Conci & Sons was considered an important participant in the furniture manufacturing sector in Adelaide. From the late 1950s, the business won prizes at the Royal Show.

In 2018, an exhibition at the Jam Factory, ‘Adelaide Modern: Past. Present. Future,’ featured Leo Conci & Sons as one of six South Australian furniture companies that made their mark in the 1960s. The design of furniture reflected new family traditions because of the introduction of television in homes.

 

The Conci outdoor metal furniture settings were known as a very significant feature in backyards and patios in suburban Adelaide in the 1960s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The essay for the 2018 exhibition described the work of the Conci factory and its outstanding role as a furniture making business in Adelaide:

The Conci family were remarkable innovators. They designed and built their own tooling and were early adopters of the latest technologies from Europe such as electrostatic paint spraying. The iconic (and in Adelaide, almost omnipresent) small mesh chair was designed by Leo’s teenage son Dino [corrected by Deni to read, “designed by Leo, Pina and Deni with a metal fabricator” ]  in 1959. Like all Conci pieces it was manufactured in Brooklyn Park where the family made everything from the tool making to the upholstery.

By 1960 with a few employees, including an Italian permanent/part-time toolmaker from GMH, the business was producing a range of wrought iron garden furniture including the bucket chair settings in large quantities.

Another evolution of the design included upholstery. After a few years, the rest of the family joined the business although they were still school students.

Deni remembers:

Dad oversaw everything. I was on tooling and machines. Mum was designer and painter at this time. Noreen had a clerical role and Lido and Liana were in the upholstery area. There was no escape on weekends. Work had to be done.

Deni and other employees prepared the iron work components for chairs and tables and a paesana, of Leo’s, Anna Ballerini,  was spot-welder.

After Deni and Lido married, their respective wives, Sandra and Marisa, took on roles in sales.

The evolution of the business

Several Italian welders arrived either before or after their shifts at GMH and completed the welding. During the winter, the stock built up, and it was ready by the time of the Royal Adelaide Show in September.

Leo watched over the continuing development of the business which continued to evolve and met the changing trends in furniture. Deni recalls that Leo had a favourite saying, “Nothing is impossible.”

In another new direction, Leo became an importer in 1964 following his first return visit to Italy where he attended the Furniture Fair in Milan. In 1983, the business brought 43 containers of furniture from Italy – a demonstration of the popularity of the ornate Italian designs. The business continued to import Italian furniture until the late 1980s.

By the mid 1960s, Leo Conci and Sons attracted contracts for commercial furniture such as tubular tables and stacking chairs for hotels. Another successful change of direction was manufacturing timber furniture produced in a factory at Beverley by Deni and six employees from about 1990 to 2007. The business adapted and produced manufactured bespoke furniture with hi-tech mechanisation in 2000.

While he managed Leo Conci and Sons and he travelled to Italy for business, he also found time to enjoy visits to Capoliveri. He totted up about 40 visits to Italy, sometimes with Pina, and he loved spending time with relatives and friends in the place he was born.

The influence of Pina in the family

Son-in-law, Romano Rubichi, acknowledges (Pina), in the following statement:

 Giuseppina, Leo’s wife of a lifetime, was the anchor of a successful marriage, dedicated and tenacious supporter of Leo’s active life. Their four children could always rely on her generosity and loving care. Her sweet nature made her always accessible to family and friends.

Later years

In later life, Leo and Pina enjoyed their family, children and nine grandchildren. They loved holidays in Italy and the opportunity to socialise with their friends at home. They had a reputation for offering hospitality at their home at West Beach and people today remember the parties and dancing.

 

Leo spent time at each of the three Italian clubs that he assisted to establish, the South Australian Italian Association or the Italian Club (Leo was a member of the 1967 Building Fund Committee and a Foundation member), the Veneto Club and the Club Toscano.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the eulogy at his funeral, Leo was remembered fondly by his family:

During his years of hard honest work, nonno always ensured he enjoyed the pleasures in life. Nonno enjoyed socialising with family and friend and going to parties, where he would grace the dance floor like no other man. Every woman would watch and dream of having a dance with nonno, but his wife was the lucky one!

Leo died in 2003 at the age of 94 years after a long and productive life – with many achievements in design, manufacturing and sale of furniture in South Australia and he had also made a significant contribution to the Italian community in Adelaide. Pina died in 2012 aged 89 years.

Leo Conci and Sons finished operating in 2019 after more than 60 years in the metal and timber manufacturing furniture business in Adelaide.

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Leo Conci, Romano Rubichi and Madeleine Regan
12 October 2025

Photos supplied by the family unless otherwise indicated.

Sources of information

• Deni Conci
• Conci family – Eulogy at Leo’s funeral, December 2003
• Pino Bosi, Toscani di la’, Toscani di qua, Catalogazione nella pubblicazione (CIP) a cura della Biblioteca della Giunta regionale Toscana, 2001.
• Sam Gold, Yolanda Lopez, Scot Van Manen, “Conci Furniture.”
• Romano Rubichi, Obituary, “Life a work in progress” The Advertiser, 27 December 2003, p 52.
• Essay, “Adelaide Modern: Past, Present, Future”, exhibition held at the Jam Factory October – December 2018.

The photo above tells a story about Ballestrin families who migrated to Australia from Vallà in the province of Treviso between the wars. The wedding of Luigina Ballestrin and Eugenio Zalunardo took place in Adelaide in 1943. Luigina was the youngest of ten children and with her mother, Santa Agata, she had migrated in 1939. They joined four other family members and a cousin who were already living in Adelaide. The Ballestrin family was establishing a network – a family tree in Adelaide. (The photo was provided by Norma Camozzato nee Ballestrin and Silvano Ballestrin identified the individuals.)

Arrival in Adelaide, 1927
It is 98 years since Antonio and Isidoro Ballestrin arrived in Adelaide with their 17-year-old-cousin, Giuseppe, on 21^st September 1927, leaving a large family household at Vallà  in the Veneto region that could not provide adequate food or enough land  to divide between sons as the children in two Ballestrin families came of age and married.

The food was not grown for income – it was for a household to exist. Frank Ballestrin, the son of Isidoro, estimated that there were 17 children living in that household at the time that the first of the Ballestrins migrated. You can understand the need for some young men to make that decision to migrate and have more opportunities for the future.

 Marriage in Adelaide, 1943
When you look at the photo, the first feature you notice is the formality of the portrait. It was war time with restrictions on buying clothing and other goods. Yet everyone is dressed to fit the occasion, and they gather around Luigina and Eugenio as a kind of protective, caring group. Luigina and her attendants hold beautiful flowers. She was marrying a man who, along with her brothers and their wives, was a member of the Veneto market gardener community at Lockleys.

Like many in the group of Veneto market gardeners, Eugenio had arrived in 1927. At the time of the marriage, he was leasing land on Grange Road next door to Antonio and Romilda Ballestrin. The marriage would have been acknowledged as ‘suitable’ because Eugenio was ‘known’ in the sense that he was from the same area in the Veneto region and he was making his living from growing vegetables – as they were doing in the Lockleys area.

Both Eugenio and Luigina chose members of their wedding party from other Veneto market gardener families. Eugenio had Romildo Santin as his best man and Luigina’s bridesmaid was Rosina Tonellato and her sister, Assunta, was one of the flower girls. The other flower girl in a matching dress, was Santina, daughter of Isidoro and Gina Ballestrin. Giuseppe, the cousin, who had arrived in 1927 with his two cousins is in the photo with his family, wife, Cesira and children, Lino and Norma, in her father’s arms at the back.

Children from three different Ballestrin families are in the photo. One other adult included in the extended family photo is Arturo Cecchetto, a brother-in-law of Antonio Ballestrin who lived in Adelaide for a few years. He stands next to Giuseppe Ballestrin and his small daughter, Norma.

 Luigina’s mother, Santa Agata is third from the right in the front. She died in 1945 aged 71 years.

Six Ballestrin families in Adelaide
In the wider Ballestrin family, six separate family groups settled in Adelaide before WWII and were market gardeners in the Kidman Park, Flinders Park area. Eight of the second generation from four of the families were interviewed for the oral history project.

Antonio Ballestrin leased land on Grange Road with his wife Romildo Minato. They had nine glasshouses and apart from tomatoes, grew a range of other vegetables.

Isidoro and Gina had three children, Santina, Frankie and Dolfina. Frankie carried on in the market garden after his father died in 1965 and continued to grow vegetables commercially at Flinders Park and Bolivar until he retired.

 

Ermenegildo was 26 years when he migrated in 1937. He married Norina Berti and they had two sons, Ric and Angelo. They lived on Hartley Road and shared a partnership with cousin, Giuseppe.

 

 

 

 

Narciso emigrated in 1938, leaving behind his wife Maria Dotto and their infant son, Egidio. The family was reunited in 1940. Three other children were born in Adelaide, Lina, Silvano and Norina. Their market garden was off River Road, now Findon Road.

 

 

Luigina and Eugenio Zalunardo grew vegetables on Grange Road and had two children, Noemi and Renato. Luigina died after a long illness in 1965.

 

Giuseppe and Cesira had three children, Lino, Norma and Louis and they worked 20 acres on Hartley Road in partnership with Ermenegildo and Norina who had two sons, Ric and Angelo.

 

 

The families adapted to life in Australia and became successful vegetable growers. Although they faced challenges in World War II, they all purchased land after the war when it was possible for ‘enemy aliens’ to sign contracts for sale.

Ballestrin families – tomato growers

In the photo taken by a newspaper in 1950, Ballestrin relatives are near their truck after their cases of tomatoes had been loaded onto a semi-trailer. The Victorian train strike ran for 10 weeks from October to December 1950 and created challenges for growers of fresh goods like tomatoes. At that time, the tomato harvest from August to December and the majority of the fruit had been sold in Melbourne for some years.[1]On the truck door the Ballestrin growers are identified by three initials I. E. & G.; two brothers, Isidoro and Ermenegildo and their cousin, Giuseppe. The truck gives their business address as River Road, Findon – which we know today as Findon Road, Flinders Park. All the families grew other vegetables for market.

The Ballestrin family – building a future in Adelaide
The Ballestrin families began their settlement in Adelaide from the late 1930s when they leased different parcels of land in the general Lockleys area. After leaving multigenerational households and poverty in the province of Treviso, the first generation was developing a new life as they married and raised their families in separate households on land that they improved and eventually owned in the 1950s as they generated a livelihood as commercial growers. The six families became significant members in the community of the Veneto market gardeners at Lockleys who created a strong social network that sustained them over many years.

In 2025,  many families with connections to the Veneto market gardener community can claim Ballestrin ancestors from Vallà  – second, third, fourth and even fifth generations! The Ballestrin families continue to make a significant contribution to South Australia over the 98 years since the arrival of the first members.

Madeleine Regan
28 September 2025

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Ballestrin members (from four different families) interviewed for the oral history project:
Frankie Ballestrin, Lino, Norma Camaozzato nee Ballestrin,and Louis, Egidio, Lina Campagnaro nee Ballestrin, and Silvano, Noemi Campagnolo nee Zalunardo.

[1] https://pir.sa.gov.au/aghistory/industries/horticulture/glasshouse_tomatoes2

 

This blog is based on a previous one posted on this website in August 2019.

The feature photo shows a first holy communion class at St Mary’s Franklin Street, Adelaide c 1940. Maria Rosa Tormena is first on the left in the front row. Photo provided by Maria Rosa Tormena.

It is 98 years since an Italian priest, Father Vincenzo De Francesco, visited Adelaide in August 1927 to provide pastoral care to the Italians living there. He was based in Melbourne for 14 years, from 1920 to 1934. His role was to care for the spiritual life of Italians in Victoria. However, in 1927 he travelled to Adelaide, Port Pirie and Broken Hill by train to minister to Italian communities – he was away for 30 days.

In correspondence to his superiors in Italy, he wrote about his brief trip to Adelaide: “After lunch, I head out in search of Italians. It’s not difficult here, as they all live in the same part of town.” (De Francesco, ed. & translated Aniello Iannuzzi, 2010: 34)

 

The Italians mainly lived in boarding houses in the western part of the city of Adelaide. When he visited Port Adelaide where there were some Italians, he met a 90-year-old man who had arrived in Australia when he was a child. Father De Francesco was surprised to learn that the man had never been to confession.

 

In 1924, Father De Francesco had been told that there were only about 50 Italians in Adelaide. In 1927 there were 300 including some families.

One of those families was the Marchioro family – Francesco and Margherita and their two young daughters, Mary and Lina, who lived in a boarding house in Hindley Street in the western part of the City of Adelaide. The priest was concerned that some Italian children were not baptised, and the Church was not recognised as a part of family life. However, he did acknowledge that most of the Italians were men and were working in the country areas or in mines and that it would have been difficult for them to attend Church.

At the time, in Port Pirie there were about 200 Italians and in Broken Hill, Fr De Francesco found about 300 Italians.

Italians in Adelaide between the wars

The Italian Catholics in Adelaide usually attended Saint Patrick’s Church in Grote Street in the city. Weddings, baptisms and funerals were conducted from the church which was located in the west of the city where large numbers of Italians were accommodated in boarding houses. Many of the Italian children went to school at St Mary’s Franklin Street adjacent to St Patrick’s. In the part of the city where the Italians lived, a Veneto family, the Rossettos, owned a grocery, and another Veneto family, the Mattiazzos, had a butcher shop.

 

 

 

 

 

The Catholic church in Australia

The way that Italians practised their faith in Australia was different from their experience in their villages in Italy.

The parish priest in the village was a very powerful authority and exercised his power in many ways – donating parts of crops to the Church, giving advice about suitable marriage partners and voting in elections. In Adelaide, some Veneto market gardener families attended Sunday Mass while in others, the women and children fulfilled the obligation. However, the full community attended religious rites of passage such as baptisms, first holy communions, confirmations and weddings and enjoyed the celebratory occasions that also marked close connections between families.

The role of the Church

Respect for the authority of the clergy was a fundamental element of the religious, social and cultural framework of the comune in villages in Italy.[1]

 

Angelina Marchioro who left Italy in 1937 remembered the influence of the local priest in Monte di Malo, “Everybody go to church … the priest knew all the families in the little town … they were very strict in the town, the priests,” (Angelina Marchioro nee Marchioro, OH 12/1, 13 March 1984, 5, 7).

 

The experience of interacting with Catholic priests in Australia was different. In the interwar years, Italians in Australia had to overcome obstacles like language and other cultural differences in the Catholic Church. Irish clergy had dominated Australian parishes and the training of priests since the 19^th century. In 1939, the Archdiocese of Adelaide covered extensive suburban areas ,and two thirds of sixty-five diocesan priests were Irish born.[2]

Italians were not fully accepted as a cultural group in the Catholic Church in Adelaide until after the Second World War.[3] In 1946 the Archbishop of Adelaide, Matthew Beovich, the son of a European father, began to address the needs of Italians and appointed an Italian priest to minister to the Italian community in South Australia. Between 1946 and 1949, Father Paul Zolin brought the Catholic Church to the Italian community. He made pastoral visits, offered translating and interpreting services and arranged for a scholarship to support the post-compulsory schooling of boys.

Experience of the Church after World War II

After the Second World War with the increased numbers of Italians, some Sunday Masses were conducted by Italian priests in the Flinders Park church, the closest parish to the Lockleys area. Silvano Ballestrin remembered that the Irish Australian priest supported a distinctive Italian social event, la cuccagna, in the ground of the church in 1952.[4]

The families adapted a Veneto tradition and organised a procession of decorated horse-drawn carts which led from the market gardeners’ houses to the church grounds accompanied by a boy playing his piano accordion. Teams of men climbed a greasy pole competing for a trophy. Veneto men from a suburb on the eastern side of Adelaide who were accompanied by their Italian parish priest also competed.

Some second-generation narrators remembered that in the late 1950s, when the Italian population was larger, the same parish offered young women and men opportunities to participate in sport and social programs.

A church was built on Grange Road, Seaton in 1954 within walking distance to the market gardeners in the ‘Lockleys’ area, as part of another parish. In 1961, the first Italian priests, the Scalabrini fathers, were invited by the Archbishop “to come to Adelaide to take charge of a proposed new parish of Gleneagles.”  http://www.scalabrini.asn.au/content/parishes

The proximity of the church, which is now in the suburb of Seaton, reflected the location of the church in the heart of villages in the Veneto region.

Madeleine Regan
7 September 2025

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[1] Huber, Rina, “From Pasta to Pavlova: A Compariative Study of Italian Settlers in Sydney and Griffith,” (UQ Press, 1977, pp 26-27.)

[2] Josephine Laffin, Matthew Beovich: A Biography. (Wakefield Press, 2008), 105.

[3] O’Connor, No Need to be Afraid: Italian Settlers in South Australia between 1839 and the Second World War, (Wakefield Press, 1996, 131.)

[4] See Silvano Ballestrin, “Parties and Festivals,” Veneto Market Gardeners 1927 Website Blog, 12 July 2020 https://venetimarketgardeners1927.net/?s=Parties+and+Festivals