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Childhood Illness and Mortalities
Excerpts from the Wittenoom cemetery register dating between 1952 and 1962 record a
number of children’s burials.
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Cecilia Bonomi had commented to me on what she felt was
the large number of children’s funerals passing by her home during her stay in the town
between 1953 and 1961.
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The ratio of childhood to adult burials in the excerpts of the
cemetery register I obtained would seem to support Cecilia’s observation. In the period
between 1952 and 1953 of the four burials listed, one is for a child, 6 days old; during 1953
and 1954 of the eight burials, three were children — two and twenty-two days old, while the
third had no age listed;
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during 1961 and 1962 of the eleven burials, four were children —
six months, two and a half years of age, a stillborn (Anthony Bevacqua, son of Giacomo and
Lidia) and another two years of age. In all, eight of the 23 listings were of children from
newborn to two and a half years of age.
Giacomo and Lidia Bevacqua had two children during their stay in Wittenoom: their
first child, Anthony, who was stillborn at birth and Francesca, born two years later. Giacomo’s
memory was that the Wittenoom hospital facilities were very poor. His wife developed
complications during the birth of baby Anthony. All these years later, speaking about
Anthony’s birth is still difficult for Giacomo. He recounted the story in a barely audible voice.
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Interview with Alvaro Giannasi, Perth, October 2009.
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The extracts from the Wittenoom cemetery lists from 1952 to 1962 were supplied by resident,
Lorraine Thomas, during my visit to Wittenoom in September 2010.
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Interview with Cecilia Bonomi, October 2009.
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All the entries for children’s burials show the graves were dug to a depth of four feet, which lead me
to conclude that this third entry was that of a child, the grave having been dug to a depth of four feet.
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“She was in bed screaming. Doctor wasn’t there. It was night-time. He didn’t help at all. They
suffer the baby.”
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Baby Anthony had suffocated.
Two of Tony and Gina Martino’s five children — Rosemary and Noelle — became ill
while in Wittenoom. In July 1965, Gina and Tony Martino’s daughter Rosemary, aged 10,
passed away suddenly, after a brief stay in the Wittenoom hospital. The Martino’s memory of
the events leading up to Rosemary’s death is understandably a blur: Tony thought that the
doctor was not present in the town; Gina’s memory was that he had continued to see his
listed appointments, before attending to their daughter. They both concurred on the nurse’s
opinion: Rosemary displayed symptoms of peritonitis due to her high fever. The doctor kept
the child in the hospital overnight for observation. By the time her parents arrived the next
morning, Rosemary had died. The Martinos wanted their daughter buried in Karakatta
Cemetery, in Perth. Wittenoom’s Catholic priest, Father Fitzgerald, drove Rosemary’s body
part of the way down the west coast to the waiting funeral director, who then completed the
journey to Perth for her burial.
Once having experienced the Wittenoom doctor’s insensitive treatment, many Italian
parents and their children went to Perth for necessary surgical interventions and the birth of
subsequent children. In the 1950s, it was after the unsparing treatment of Lina Tagliaferri’s
nephew during the removal of stitches from his appendix operation, which saw Lina take her
daughter to Perth for her tonsillectomy. Lina recalls another Italian neighbour taking her
daughter to Perth for similar reasons. In 1964, for the caesarean birth of Giacomo and Lidia
Bevacquas’ second child, Lidia went to Perth. The Martinos, after the loss of their daughter
Rosemary, nearly lost their youngest child, Noelle, to illness:
Gina: Rosemary [she means Noelle] in a month she got
sick. We had to fly to Perth. But they didn’t realize that
she had meningitis.
Tony: She was too far gone.
Gina:… She pull through but if I would leave her there
[Wittenoom] she would probably die.
Tony: Oh, yeah. They put her into an ice incubator.
Gina: She had a temperature…..high.
Tony: We saved her. That’s what happened to her.
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Interview with Giacomo Bevacqua, Perth, November 2008.
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Interview with Tony and Gina Martino, Perth, November 2010.
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