In December 2015, 357 new names have been added to the Welcome Wall, a monument to migrants in Australia, taking the total of names honoured to 27,411. Bartolomeo and Giuseppe Pittorino, who came from the Aeolian Island Salina, are among these.
From 1890 an epidemics of phylloxera (a type of plant louse) devastated over 90% of Salina's vineyards, pushing many people from the island to migrate, especially towards the United States and Australia. Bartolomeo was among them: at only 15 years of age he reached Sydney in 1897, aboard the Orotava. His brother Giuseppe joined him a year later: he turned 13 only days before reaching Australia. The trip took three months at the time; upon his arrival Giuseppe Pittorino found a job in the fruit shop of a relative.
In 1902, when Giuseppe was seventeen and his brother nineteen, they opened their first fruit shop in Marrickville, using a horse and cart to go to the Markets. After a few years Giuseppe went back to Italy, where he married in Salina Anna Costa. They came back to Australia, together with one of their daughters, in 1921.
Why did they come out? How easy or how hard was it? It was amazing how little (I and) some of my cousins knew...
Carolyn Pittorino, one of Giuseppe's grandchildren, has decided with her relatives to honour the story of migration of the Pittorino brothers, a story she knew very little about.In 294 Rocky Point Rd, Ramsgate, there is still a tangible sign of Giuseppe and Bartolomeo's life down under: "PITTORINO BROS 1929".
Pittorino bros Source: google maps
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