Luci Callipari-Marcuzzo writes in Recalling the journey II from the perspective of her mother, Anna Callipari (nee Cufari), who arrived on the Italian passenger ship, Australia, at the Port of Melbourne on Saturday 28 August 1954.
Tracing the Many Threads of the Past: La Famiglia Cufari
Anna Callipari
My father, Francesco Cufari, left Platì, in the province of Reggio Calabria in Italy, to find work in Australia in 1951. It was his intention to earn some money and return home. The only form of communication we had with him was via written correspondence to and from Italy and Australia.
After some time in Australia, we received a letter to say that he had made the decision to settle here. He believed it was a better place for our future; there was work available and more opportunities for the whole family.
So, after three years apart, we migrated in 1954: my mother Domenica (aged 48), my youngest brother Bruno (9) and myself (13). My older brother Antonio (Tony) had already arrived in January of that same year at the age of eighteen.
"The hardest part about moving to Australia was leaving my older sister Maria and eldest brother Giuseppe (Joe) and their families behind; both of them had two young children of their own".
My father had also expressed in a letter that as soon as we were able to save enough money, we would arrange for my siblings to migrate to Australia too, but we didn’t know how long that would take.
We left our place, Nefrara, a farmlet of approximately five acres. My parents built the house in 1945–46 (after WWII). The property had a lot of fruit trees, vegetables, and animals – cows, goats and pigs – and an orchard of olives, which my brother and sister looked after once we left.
As well as my two eldest siblings, we left behind my two grandmothers and all of my aunties, uncles, cousins and many friends.
"It was a very traumatic time when we left because we didn’t know if we would ever see them again, what we would encounter once we got to Australia, and what would be there for us".
The photo shown at the top under the headline was taken a few months before we left Italy to send to my father in Australia. We travelled by bus from Platì to Bovalino to have the photo taken at the photographer’s studio.
The clothes we are wearing were handmade by our dressmaker, Giuseppina (I used to visit her sister Giustina for embroidery lessons every day after school). The shoes were purchased from a shoemaker in Bovalino.
My hair was in long plaits and my mother also wore her hair in the same fashion but used to pin it up on the top of her head as was customary. I am holding a bunch of dry flowers in my hands, a pearl necklace around my neck and my brother has a camera also around his neck, which were props that the photographer had in his studio.
"The main thing I can remember during our journey to Australia was being sick. Some days were worse than others, depending on how rough the sea was".
After twenty-nine days at sea, we were excited to sight the coast of Australia, then finally arrive at Port Melbourne, get off of the ship, and be on dry land again.
When we arrived it was early evening. We were impressed to see the city lights and tall buildings, something we had never seen in our small village.
My father was waiting for us when we got off the ship with some friends that lived in Melbourne. We stayed with them for the night, then the following day collected our luggage and boarded the train for Mildura. We were met there by my dad’s boss who owned the property where my dad was living and working.
He came and got us in his car from the train station and drove us to the house. When we saw the house, we got a big shock.
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"Italians in the 50s were bullied by the press, in streets and pubs. My life has been very hard"
We were expecting to see a beautiful home, better than the one we left in our small town, but instead we saw an old, run-down place, almost like a shack.
The kitchen had a very old wood stove, no refrigerator and no bathroom. It was more like a little enclosure or sleep-out and had no laundry.
My mother had to wash the clothes on a big stone outside, which my father found for her, with water carried in buckets filled from an underground water tank underneath an olive tree. We had better facilities in our home in Platì than this first home in Australia.
"If we wanted hot water, we had to boil the kettle on the wooden stove. We didn’t have a shower. If we wanted to wash ourselves in the old tub, which had no taps or running water, we had to carry the water in from outside, which wasn’t fun".
There was a small sink with cold water. The two sleep-outs had really old floorboards with holes in them – the wind would come up through the boards – and when it was hot in summer, the mosquitoes would get in through the open windows as there weren’t any flywire screens on the windows or doors. Sometimes the mosquitos were so bad, my mother would get up in the middle of the night and spray with DDT.
My father lined up work for us, and most of the time we had to walk two to three kilometres to get to a job. In wintertime, it was pruning grapevines, which we had never done before.
We hadn’t really ever had a large acreage of grapes in Italy – just a few for eating or making homemade wine.
I had never worked before coming to Australia, because I was young. And when the pruning finished, we would work picking peas, beans and carrots, and then grapes during harvest season, but mainly field-based work in market gardens, grape and citrus orchards – whatever we could find.
Bruno, Francesco Cufari, Domencia (née Vaticano) and Anna Cufari taken at Zaetta Studios in Mildura, c.1956. Source: courtesy of Luci Callipari Marcuzzo
This photo was taken approximately two years after we arrived in Australia. We had the portrait taken so that we could send it back to my brother and sister in Platì.
The dress I am wearing was purchased in Mildura, along with the bag and shoes. I had outgrown all of the other clothes we had brought with us from Italy.
My mother is wearing the dress made by our dressmaker in Platì, Giuseppina, before we left. My mother’s dress is special because she wore it on the ship for her journey to Australia; the shoes and bag were also purchased in Italy.
We purchased a new suit for my younger brother Bruno, who had also outgrown his Italian clothes. My father is wearing the black, Italian-made suit he bought with him from home.
We were still living at the same property when this photo was taken. My hair is different. I cut it six months after we arrived in Australia because I could see most of the young people had nice, modern hairstyles and I felt old-fashioned. I’m not sure what became of my plaits. I can’t remember keeping them. My mother was still wearing her hair in the same fashion as she had in Italy.
We look happy in this picture; we had established ourselves and had got to know other people that lived in the neighbouring towns.
We had regular work and money coming in, which we sent back home to my brother and sister, who were looking forward to joining us in Australia so that our family could again be reunited.
It took approximately three years of saving to send for my eldest brother Joe, who came in 1957 on his own. His wife and children followed two years later in 1959.
As well as happiness, the family suffered tragedy too. My youngest brother, Bruno, died suddenly at the age of sixteen in a tractor accident in 1960, the year before I married Antonio Callipari from Natile, Reggio Calabria.
My sister Maria migrated to Australia with her family in 1963, nine years after we had left Platì. They were on their way to Australia when we had our eldest son Michael, who was born in January of the same year.
The loss of my brother Bruno was a great loss for our family, and my mother never, ever really got over it. She never wore her red dress again after that.
For information about Recalling the journey II, please contact lella.cariddi@multiculturalarts.com.au.
