225
In the late 1950s, living and
working in Perth, Paolo Del Casale was a young man
with a sports car and several girlfriends. Going to Wittenoom had been his means to escape
all but the one he wanted to marry. Upon his return to Perth in December 1960, he became
engaged and by May 1961 had married and started a family. The couple had three children:
two boys, one born in 1962, the second in 1965 and their daughter in 1973. Paolo explained:
The young one is a girl born in ’73. Yeah, a little bit too
far apart. I say two boys that will do! My wife: “I want a
girl. I want a girl. I want a girl”!!!!! One night I went home
a little bit… I went Italian club and when we get
home…..
32
In 1961 Del Casale started work as a driver in a saw mill in Rivervale. With over time work,
he soon bought his own earth mover which he used on weekends to supplement his income.
By 1968 he had developed his own earth moving business and obtained a rail maintenance
contract with the railways. He also worked on the construction of the Joondalup line. Paolo
Del Casale retired in 2002.
Giulio Santini was still working in Wittenoom in 1960, but had decided to take a
holiday in Perth. His plan to return to Wittenoom changed
when he met and married
Graziella. They worked to buy and pay off their family home; with Graziella staying home
after the birth of their daughter. Giulio’s first job after Wittenoom was with BHP. Now a
married man, the shift work limited the time he could share with his young wife. Subsequently
he found work as a rigger with Alcoa, in Kwinana. Within three years he was made a foreman
and the shift work ended. He took a voluntary redundancy in 1995.
I asked, “What’s the offer?” They said, “Why? You want
to leave?” I said, “I just want to know: What’s my worth?”
When I heard what I worth, I said, “Jesus, I worth that
much?!!!!”
With the redundancy payout Giulio and Graziella purchased a sandwich bar. Being self-
employed, however, was not what they had expected.
I went from day to night because the lunch bar was a lot
of work. We said, “We haven’t killed anybody to do this
sort of life!” So we sold the lunch bar. Next door came up
and I bought next door. We bought the shop, a freehold
of a shop in Cannington, and [I] start to do a little bit of
maintenance here and there.
32
Interview with Paolo Del Casale, Perth, December 2008.
226
In Giulio’s eyes Wittenoom never provided the basis for his
sistemazione:
(Deep sigh) If you were greedy Wittenoom was good, but
if you were a gentleman… Wittenoom wasn’t good. And
look, probably this complicates my conversation, but to
cut a long story short [it] wasn’t the kind of life I wanted,
right? For me being up Wittenoom Gorge and if I were to
stay here would have been the same thing; the only thing
by being at Wittenoom Gorge I done harm on myself by
having whatever I could have tomorrow in me you know?
But…..ah…..I didn’t improve by going up Wittenoom
Gorge. My improvements come when I work at Alcoa at
Kwinana.
33
At least half the research participants became self-employed as farmers or as
restaurant, delicatessen, liquor shop or supermarket proprietors. Many Wittenoom Italians
had worked in agriculture — on family owned
farms in the south, centre and north of Italy, the
steeply terraced vineyards of the Valtellina in Lombardy or as sharecroppers in Sicily,
Abruzzi and Tuscany. Among the research participants, it was the former Lombard and
Island of Elba miners who became farmers in Western Australia. The Oprandi family’s story
is typical of several ex-Wittenoom Italian families who settled in the Bullsbrook area
establishing dairy farms, or around Wanneroo, on the outskirts of Perth where
one Island of
Elba family ran poultry and market gardens.
In 1957, having earned enough money from gold mining to put a deposit on land,
Attilio Oprandi, his wife, Caterina Bellini, and a business partner bought 160 acres in
Bullsbrook, 30 miles [48 kilometres] north of Perth. The land was located in a limestone belt
with swamps surrounded by bush,
making it suitable for dairy, pig and poultry farming. The
family lived in an old asbestos house, with no power, a kerosene fridge and an open fire (see
figure 113). A year later, Caterina gave birth to
their third child, Renato. It was hard work
clearing the virgin land. Their daughter Emilia remembers “mum putting us under a bush and
taking the axe. She’d start hacking away at small scrub to clear it. They did it by hand”. (see
figure 114)
34
Attilio worked on the farm and at the nearby Pearce Air Force base to
supplement the family income. The children started school and increasingly, the family’s life
became more linked to their adopted country. For Caterina it was difficult as she endured the
isolation and her family’s daily absence. The stress of farming and his second
job took its toll
33
Interview with Giulio Santini, Perth, October 2009.
34
Interview with Emilia Oprandi, Perth, November 2009.
227
on Attilio’s health, culminating in his hospitalization. Emilia explained that “it was just too
much. He was off work for three weeks — in hospital and then he came back and carried on.
They just carried on”.
35
The family’s combined efforts saw them establish a viable farm, raising cows,
chickens and pigs. They sold their cheeses and eggs to various Italian and Greek
delicatessens in Northbridge:
Pisconeri’s, the
Re Store, and
Kakoulas’s.
36
In Perth’s
oppressive heat, Caterina took public transport (bus and then train) from Bullsbrook to deliver
her home made ricotta in a fully-laden suitcase, dripping with whey.
37
As they became more
prosperous, the Oprandis bought a car and built their family home to replace the original
baracca [shed] (see figure 115). Attilio left his job and took over the deliveries of the cheeses
and eggs to the Perth delicatessens.
The
Oprandi children, Francesco and Emilia, recall that the family retained elements
of their Italian way of life, including the annual pig ritual, where a pig was killed to provide the
annual supply of pork sausages and other by-products. This occasion brought many family
friends together. It was a daylong activity during which
news from Italy was shared, and once
the job was finished, everyone enjoyed the sausages and
brösola.
38
Francesco spoke of his
parents’ love of music and their singing traditional folk songs, such as
Mamma mia dammi
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