January 4...

Last Sunday was January 4 and on that date in 1967 my father lost his 11 month battle with leukemia. He was 58, and I can remember at the time, how people, when offering their condolences always said he was 'too young'. I didn't really understand what they meant, but as I have grown older myself and gone past 58, I do understand...
My dad was born in Sicily and at the age of 15 came to Australia to join his older brother, who was a canecutter in north Queensland. My father came out on the steamship 'Regina d'Italia'; he would have travelled from Sicily to Genoa to board the ship. I did not know any of these details when my dad was alive; I only discovered these things during a visit to the National Archives of Australia in Canberra. I have already written about this very emotional day in a post here.

Regina d'Italia

Many people associate migration from Italy to Australia with the post World War 2 years but history shows that many came to Australia in the 1920s (and even earlier,) as my father and his brother did. They were escaping poverty and hoping for a better life.

The photo that was used for my father's temporary passport

My dad on the left with his older brother Sam

My dad is holding the enamel mugs and teapot; when he arrived he was too young to join the 'gang' cutting cane so it looks like he was the 'teaboy' until he was 17

From books that I've read, being a canecutter was very hard, dirty, hot work but my dad's stories of those times didn't reflect that. The money was good and the season was only part of the year...

Dad's on the right 

 He told me stories about his beloved motor bike; the photo below isn't him but one of his mates. He described riding the bike along the long beaches up north...my staid 'old' dad sounded a bit of a rebel! lol

I believe he was in his 20s when the next photo was taken...in Australia he was able to learn the violin; many of my memories of him feature him playing opera tunes on his violin.

In this photo he would be in his 30s and the hairline has 'gone right back'

In his mid to late 30s my dad started farming in the Stanthorpe district, but after WW2 ended  he moved to Brisbane...

One of a set of studio photos my father had done to send to the woman who would become my mother...

When dad first arrived in Brisbane, he worked at the Wunderlich factory at Ferny Grove, but luckily not for long as the Wunderlich factories were producing asbestos sheeting. After having had a share in a fruit farm at Ballandean, dad started working in a fruit shop in Brisbane city...
Needless to say the workers in this shop seemed to have some fun times...about 13 years ago, Jimmy, the man on the front right of the photo, gave me the original but damaged photo. Jimmy's parents owned the shop...the shop was called The Why (or Y) Worry and it was in Edward St.

I don't think my dad ever expected to be a father. His first marriage had ended in divorce and with no children. Then when he was 42, I was born. 

He was a very 'hand on' dad, changing nappies, bathing  and feeding me...

My dad would go to Symphony concerts and the opera and would wear his suit and a bowtie to these occasions. The photo below was taken in 1963 at my cousin's wedding (an arranged marriage for her :-( )   and dad is wearing his 'concert outfit'; because my uncle went back to Sicily to live many years earlier, my father was the Patriarch of the family here...a role he took seriously. 

The last photo I ever took of my dad; in 1966 working in his garden.

I like to think that even though my dad died when I was only 15, he lived long enough to influence the type of person I became as an adult. 

January 4...

Today I went to the funeral of a former colleague, George. He was the teaching deputy at the school that was my first posting and seemed quite old! lol Of course he was younger then, than I am now and I'm certainly not old...lol! He was 91 when he died on the last day of 2011 and had obviously enjoyed his retirement years. I have many memories of George but one particular one I shared with his widow today. Dot used to pack the most magnificent lunches for him...all of us in the staff room were quite envious of those lunches!

January 4 has particular meaning for me; it is the anniversary of my father's death. He died in 1967 which is a while ago now. I always felt that I didn't really know my father that well because up to the age of 15 (when he died) I had never really talked to him at great length about his early life. Those missed opportunities over those 15 years to talk about him, have occasionally plagued me over the years. I wrote about my dad's final illness in this post.  (Sorry I always seem to be linking back to that same post, but I guess so much happened in that decade )   Let's fast forward to January 2008...

DH had had to go to Canberra (the national capital) for work and because I was working .8 again that year, I joined him on the Thursday night. DH suggested that on the Friday, while he worked, that I should go to the National Archives and see if I could find some records of my dad's migration to Australia. I was a bit hesitant as I felt that I had little detail to give them to start the search. However on Friday morning I fronted up to the enquiry desk at the NAA building. The lady behind the desk was so helpful and encouraging...she said I would probably be surprised at how much I did know. I said that I think he was 16 when he arrived so I thought he may have arrived in 1925 but I had no idea of the ship or which port.

Her fingers seemed to fly over the keyboard and within a matter of minutes she had found my dad and told me he had disembarked in Brisbane in March 1925 and the ship was the Regina D'Italia. I just stared at her in amazement...and then burst into tears because of the emotion of the moment! The archivist then took me to the microfiche 'room' and hepled me load the machine and then find my dad's name on the ship's manifest. She then said that the details on the other file showed there was another document available which I could order as it wasn't scanned and put into the public domain at that time. I organised for that document to be sent to me, not having a clue what it would be.

My dad and his brother

The cane has been cut! Dad is third from the left

The boys have got the knives ready to cut; dad is third from the right

It arrived 3 weeks later and boy! wasn't it worth the wait! It was a scanned copy of my dad's temporary passport. I'd had some lessons in Italian but I needed my SIL Mary, to help me read some of it. She was able to decipher that dad, as a minor, was travelling with a married couple. He boarded the ship in Genoa, so he would have had to get to that northern city from his home in Catania province in Sicily...and then travelled to the other end of the world. What an adventure for one so young and without any English!

My dad came to join his older brother who was already in Australia cutting cane in the Innisfail district of Queensland. My dad used to tell the story that when he arrived he was too young to join the canecutting gangs so my uncle and his mates 'hid' him in their barracks' accomodation and he did the cleaning etc to earn his keep. Then when he was 17 he started cutting cane. His stories used to make it sound such fun...but as I got older and read about those days, I realised that it was a hard life and immigrants also ran the gauntlet of racial intolerance as well. But I guess my dad wasn't afraid of hard work and he did seem to enjoy his years in the cane districts.

Dad on the right; note the swimsuits! The building in the background is the 'castle' in Paronella park in Nth Qld circa 1930s

Dad and his first wife Vera

Dad in his early 40s when I was born