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Living Next To Nonno and Nonna

An enriching and unforgettable experience

My father, mother and my two brothers and two sisters lived right next door to our Italian paternal grandparents. In fact our adjoining blocks were connected by a gate which offered excellent free two way access between the families. As a lad (second child) I am told that I spent the majority of my time at N and N until at age 14 when I was at boarding school and when my Norna passed away (sugar diabetes, gangrene) some years before a grief-stricken Norno (cardiac).

Thus I had the privilege of living next to N&N for about 16yrs (1943-1959).

A ‘mud-map’ of N & N’s property.

The reader can use this to locate some of the stories in the text.

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A Caveat.

Many psychologists believe that our memories are inaccurate at best and false at worst. Research seems to confirm this even for very recent events. Furthermore, the more vivid a memory is the more likely that it is false. Perhaps, our brains rework our experiences to fit in with our beliefs and desires. Research suggests that what we believe we recall is only the latest reworking of the memory of an experience.

Nevertheless, I set down below my memories of living next to N&N.

The PigeonsThe first thing I remember on coming through our interconnecting gate was the cooing and fluttering of the pigeons in the dove-cote right next to me on the right. It seems three or four pigeons roosted there in the evenings and laid their eggs in a nesting box. During the day they would fly off to forage but would return.

The pigeons were common rock pigeons (maybe homing pigeons) that have been man’s companions since the beginning of time, sharing our ‘caves’ and providing us with food and feathers. Norna used to collect the surplus eggs but always leaving enough to hatch to maintain the pigeon population. She would also catch surplus pigeons for eating. I remember well her deftness in collecting and dispatching her chosen pigeon with a flick and pull of the bird’s neck. It was swift and painless.

I remember too how succulent and tasty Norna’s baked pigeons were.

Today we despise the humble rock pigeons who still keep us company, roosting in our buildings and dirtying statues and pavements. However, in days past they were a reliable food source and may well be in the future. N&N were way ahead of their time perhaps.

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Fruit TreesOn the left, just through the gate was a huge orange(?) tree. It was big enough for us kids to climb up into it and collect the fruit. Further over to the left was a large turkish fig. Again, it was strong enough for us to sit up in it and the figs were delicious.

An even stronger tree was in the centre of the left front yard. It had a robust trunk holding up a spherical canopy. It was a persimmon tree and in season was loaded with orange-red fruit.

It was an effort to get up into the persimmon tree because its trunk was about 2 m high, but once there you could feast on the fruit. However, you had to be sure the fruit were ripe. Fruit that was not fully ripe left a numb unpleasant feeling in the mouth. Neighbourhood kids all loved the persimmon tree. I was reminded of this at the 60th anniversary of my time at the local catholic school (St Brigits). The old students all remembered N&N’s Persimmon tree.

There were other fruit trees e.g. orange, mandarin, lemon and coffee. You might say that N&N had a part permaculture garden. I remember Nonna picking the coffee beans and roasting them. She had a manual coffee bean grinder.

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The Veggie GardenThe front yard (well most of it) was dug up and planted with all kinds of vegetables. There wasn’t the traditional front lawn. There was cabbage, beetroot, beans on poles, a large rosemary bush, various herbs and flowers and much more. I loved the pansies and carnations.

I fondly recall helping Nonna cutting off the asparagus shoots as they emerged in the mornings.

We have a lovely vegetable and fruit garden often admired by people passing by. A north Italian lady on seeing it commented on how it looked like the gardens of home.

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The GrapesThere were six trellises of grapes. Each was about 2 metres high, 2 metres wide and some 4 metres long. The grapes were trained to grow along several wires tightened from the front to back supports.

The height of the grapes meant us kids could barely reach the berries. We must have looked like Romulus and Remus as we fed on the suspended succulent fruit. There were different varieties too, black and sweet, brown, white grapes and one trestle of special grapes that we were not allowed to pick. This one trestle of grapes was used by Norno to make wine which he did from a number of harvests. I remember seeing bottles of his vintages displayed on the tank-stand. I think I also recall Norno getting tipsy from sampling his product.

Italians were known for their fondness for and their (illegal?) production of grappa. I can’t remember Nonno making this high content ethanol brew from his grapes but he did have some. Uncle Peter (my dad’s brother) introduced me to tasting grappa. He said he got his bottles from Italian friends of his at Casino. It was so strong that a lighted match would ignite a few drops of it poured on a concrete floor.

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Laundry and ShowerA little further along the path through the gate there was a rain-water tank on the left and a home built laundry and shower.

Norno must have been a versatile and busy building constructor. I don’t know if he built his house or modified an existing one, but he must have built and concreted the laundry and shower and connected the water. He also certainly had a hand in building the garage and barn, toilet, hen houses and grape trestles (but more of these later).

There was no ‘town water’ and reliance was made on rain water collected from the roofs into tanks. N&N had about five galvanized iron tanks, raised on tank-stands to provide tap pressure.

There was no hot water system. To wash people poured heated water from a kettle into a bowl and cooled it with tap water.

I remember Norno one day putting out a large tub of water in the morning sun. By afternoon this water was warm enough for a comfortable bath. How is that for cheap solar heating?

Washing clothes was a long process. Nonno used to express this as, ”Poor old Monday washing day”.

The clothes/sheets washing began with lighting a fire under a large ‘copper’ boiling pot, bringing the water the boil along with the clothes.

After boiling, the washing was further cleaned by rinsing and scrubbing board before being put through the wringer to remove water.

A copper boiler resembles that used by N&N.

This unknown young lady shows how to use the ripples of a scrubbing board. The wood in N&N’s board was soft and bleached from use.

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Across the back yard long strands of wire were slung off poles with cross bars. This clothes-line was N&N solar clothes dryer. The sagging strands were held up by about 8m forked poles. To hang the washed clothes you took out the poles. There was no washing machine. Clothes were boiled in a copper vat over a fire and then scrubbed clean and rinsed.

Needless to say the shower was a cold one.

It was an exciting day in the late fifties/early sixties when we were connected to town water.

Nonna had a wringer somewhat like this. You had to careful not to let clothing you were wearing e.g. a scarf/neck-tie get caught in the wringer.

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The House

N & N house looked somewhat like this. It had have a chimney for its wood stove. It was a one level building on wooden stumps perhaps half a metre high. There were thus steps front and back (which made it difficult for snakes to slither into the house).

There was a front verandah on which N & N would relax and sometimes play tria. Tria is a board game that two people play by placing and manoevering their ‘tokens’ (usually beans and corn grains), to prevent your opponent getting three tokens in a row. There was many a dispute during a match (no referee) that sometimes ended with one or the other tipping over the board, spilling the tokens and ending the encounter. Their board had a repair which suggests it was once broken in two pieces (I hope not in anger).

There was a kitchen with a recess that housed a wood stove and axe-split wood for fuel. It also had a memorable row of pots and pans hanging from their handles on the side wall. The pride of the kitchen was a polished ‘marble’ topped table. Thinking back it probably wasn’t marble but polished aggregate, but it was hard and smooth and was very hard to scratch. It was excellent as a surface to cut on.

Tria has been played for at least 2k years. It is known by many names e.g. Nine Man Morris, The Mill Game, Cowboy Checkers etc. The Roman Ovid says “it is a bad thing for a woman not to know how to play, for love often comes into being during play”.

I wonder if N&N knew that.

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Nonna had a device to produce spaghetti from dough. The pasta dough was fed in the top and an Archimedes screw forced it through holes into long strands which were then dried and stored for when needed. She would also roll the dough into a thin flat layer and cut it into thin strips.

The same machine with different attachment was used to mince-meat. Mincing meat served to use up pieces of leftover meat for rissoles for example.

N&N home had three bedrooms, a dining room and a lounge room.

I recall helping Nonna to make the bed. Only two people could make the bed. Nonna would not allow a third or more participate for she believed that misfortune would befall the third or more. This misfortune could include untimely death. In spite of this and other superstitions, Nonna was a devout Roman Catholic and prayer books, rosary beads, holy pictures and statues of saints, the Virgin and Christ decorated her room. She was also educated and could read and write. I collected many Argentinian and Italian postage stamps from her mail. I particularly valued the Argentinian ones portraying Eva Peron.

This spaghetti maker looks similar to Nonna’s.

Here are pictures of two of the many stamps portraying Eva Peron. Eva has become well known to us through the musical “Eva’ and the song ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’. Even today the Peronists are a viable political force in Argentina.

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‘Classical ‘Italian music and opera always reminds me of N&N. Perhaps it is because they listened to such works. I particularly associate the works of Verdi and Puccini with their lounge room where there was a radio which they listened to each midday for the news. It was perhaps from this radio or from a record player that the beautiful music flowed. Also in the lounge were a large mantle clock and an upright piano (though I don’t know if anyone in the household could play it).

Anyway, I got the impression that ‘culture’ was appreciated in N&N’s house and that culture had an Italian flavour.

This is a vinyl record player that might have been similar to N&N’s. I don’t remember an ear trumpet amplifier.

These are representatives of the operas of Puccini above and Verdi’s ‘Il travatori’ below.

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Nonna

Mum was heard to complain that I spent too much time at N&N. During school breaks she said I practically lived there.

True it was that N&N offered a second home, just next door, that provided many interesting distractions. At home with Dad at work and Mum busy with house work and my younger siblings there wasn’t as much to do.

Although N&N spoke Italian (a Venetian dialect I’m told), to my later disappointment I never became bilingual. N&N communicated with me and other Australians in broken English.

My cousins, Uncle Peter’s children were bilingual since both their parents were Italian and spoke English and Italian at home. My parents spoke only English, both because Dad wanted us to integrate quicker and because Mum was not an Italian speaker (she could speak some German). It is a pity since research studies have shown that bilingual people have more exercised brains resulting in better decision skills and delayed onset of dementia.

Nonna in the 1920s, looks unsmilingly at the camera. This might have been when she was in Italy and Nonno in Australia.

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Nevertheless, I did learn a lot of Italian words from NB&N. Casa for house, cane for dog, gatto for cat, flora for flower are some of the many. A phrase a remember meaning to N&N ‘All done well” sounded like” fatto beta loca”, which I have yet to translate it. Fatto could be Italian for finished/done. Bella is beautiful, but what is loc? Perhaps it was dialect for mad (loco). Another word that was often used was “caprice?” meaning “Do you understand?”, especially to get reassurance that we did get it’

Years later when I began learning Italian, those times with N&N proved a valuable start.

Nonna was deeply religious. My father also was a devoted Roman Catholic. The religious accessories in her home included blessed holy water, rosary beads, scapulars, holy statues and pictures of the Sacred Heart, the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph and other saints and angels. She attended mass at one of the great wooden churches in Australia, Saint Brigit’s.

Nonna was always telling stories about past happenings. She spoke about her (frightening) time in Brazil and of her life in Italy which was punctuated with periods of famine and starvation. She expressed her dislike for the Fascist regime in Italy that tortured her husband and sent her sons to ‘training’ schools. The story is told of when she received class photos, she would cut the uniforms off the pictures of her boys to dissociate them in some way from the fascists.

People who survive famine are often those who possess ‘thrifty genes’ that store fats in times of plenty to better cope with periods of starvation. These thrifty or ‘sweet tooth’ genes can lead to diabetes when famine is eliminated. Nonna suffered from diabetes and found it difficult to avoid sugary foods. She developed gangrene in a lower limb which was amputated at the hip.

This was a devastating blow to N&N. Nonno’s anger caused him to see off a community worker that came to the house to help with housework and care of Nonna. She passed away soon after this (I was at boarding school and missed this parting).

This is a photograph of Nonna’s church, St Brigit’s. It even had a bell-tower that would have reminded one of an Italian Campanile.

The church had a prebestry, a convent and a school run by missionary Irish nuns (the Sisters of Mercy).

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NonnoThe Nonno I recall was a busy, inventive, productive man. He was strong with great endurance. He used to say he wasn’t as strong as one of his relatives (Julio his brother or a cousin?) whom he claimed could get under his horse and lift it off the ground.

Nonno seems to have constructed all the out-buildings on his property e.g. the shower/laundry, the hen houses x 3, the grape vine trellises, the tank stands, the garage and especially the ‘barn’.

Nonno stands next to his T-Model ford (of course, its black). You will note his dapper waist coat, suit and wrist watch.

Also, note the ‘barn’ in the background.

Nonna in the thirties at the wedding of her daughter Maria to Pio Maculan, sits in front of Nonno and my dad Guiseppi.

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The BarnNonno’s barn was really a tall (two stories high) shed. It was constructed from weather- board attached to eight poles and roofed by galvanized sheets. In the photograph this roofing was partially held down by lengths of timber looking unstable in high winds.

These high winds occurred one evening in the form of a severe storm and tornado. (I heard mention of a possible similar one, on a TV news report on the recent storm/tornado at Lowood) (November 1015). Anyway, I can recall Nonno, Dad and Uncle Peter surveying the damage and the galvanized sheeting and timber scattered over a wide area.

Inside the barn was a boy’s delight mixed with danger.

The barn had a loft at one end but was open to the ceiling at the other. Good to climb up on and explore. Stored in the barn were various things. I remember best the hay, the Lucerne, the pumpkins, the ‘chook’ food and the corn but there may have been wheat and barley. The barn had a distinctive odour that was not unpleasant. My brother Ken says the thing he remembers well is the smell of N&N barn.

The barn had at least two pieces of machinery, a chaff-cutter and a corn cracker.

Chaff-Cutter and Corn-Cracker.Oh how we used to like operating and fighting over the chaff cutter, in spite of the obvious danger of the rotated double blades. Chaff here is hay, grass, Lucerne etc. that is cut into smaller pieces. This

A chaff cutter similar to Nonno’s

(U Tube .com)

A corn-cracker like Nonno’s

(Hervey Bay Museum)

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makes the hay go further as all of the plant goes into the chaff bag on a horse’s head. It is horse and cattle fodder. Nonno I think collected cut grass as hay and used his corn stalks and Lucerne reapings to feed into his chaff cutter.

Nonno grew corn (maize) and on harvesting several sacks of corn ears ended up in the barn to dry out. When they were ready, we helped to shell the corn cobs i.e. to remove the corn grains from the husk. We became very adept at using a finished husk to shell the corn.

The de-corned husk could also be used to make a good ‘helicopter’. The top of the husk is soft pithe into which two hens feathers may be inserted. When the helicopter is hurled high into the sky it comes down slower spun by the feathers. It can then be thrown up again of course.

The corn shelled corn kernels could then be placed in the top of the corn-cracker to produce cracked corn as a feed very popular with the hens. Of course, there was robust competition of who was to turn the corn-cracker’s handle.

Nonno’ s Ploughing , Planting and Harvesting.

Nonno had a few fields around Rosewood that he cultivated. Besides the acreage at his house he also used the acreage behind our place, an acre up the road and others. In these fields he planted mainly corn and pumpkins but also lucerne and wheat.

I can still see him struggling behind a plough being pulled by his horses. With much shouting and cursing he managed to control the beasts and the plough to turn over the soil. Following that he would use a harrow to break up the clods to allow easier planting. He was quite competent at handling horses.

A corn cob ready to be shelled of its kernels

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The two horses Nonno used (I don’t know if he owned them but I can’t remembered them being stabled anywhere near), he used to say were called ‘push it’ and ‘pull it’, because that is what they could do when harnessed. I can remember sitting on either ‘push it’ or ‘pull it’ when they were harnessed to a dray of corn in the barn yard.

Nonno poses in his corn-field in his working clothes.

This photo reminds me of Nonno ploughing his field, although his plough was not as fancy as the one shown. Neither were the horses.

Nonno’s plough was more like this

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Barn Yard

The barn was on one side of a fairly big yard (see mud-map earlier) where the hens scratched, pecked and pooed during the day (they were locked in their pens at night to protect them from the foxes and local dogs).

As a consequence of the free-range chickens, this yard was a grassless, barren area of powdery black earth. During the wet season in turned into a quagmire of mud and chicken poo that clung equally to shoes or bare feet and which took some effort to get off on a boot scraper or otherwise. The fowls made for a foul yard.

The hens though were a very valuable asset. Besides daily egg production they also provided roast chicken. I think Nonna also used their down feathers for pillow filling.

The hen houses had an efficient layout that I still use with the hens II keep today. The main features were a tiered roosting perch and a separate set of above ground nesting boxes. They slept or rested on the roost and only used the nesting boxes to lay their eggs. Of course, we loved to collect the eggs. In some of the nests Nonna had placed a porcelain egg. She explained that this was to encourage the hens to keep laying after you ‘stole’ their eggs because they thought that there was one left. Another reason might be to discourage hens from pecking open and eating the eggs of other hens (or their own).

And his harrow looked more like this.

The free range hens stripped the ground bare.

(My-chicken-house.com).

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The GarageAt the north end of the yard was another wonderland, the garage/tool shed. This was also Nonno’s work-shop which must have been busy when he was constructing all of his out-buildings.

There was quite an array of tools, crosscut and hand saws, chisels, hammers etc. He also has a brace and a collection of bits from small to large. A brace and bit is a very efficient was to drill a hole through timber using manpower alone. Today I have battery power drills but I still use a brace and bit where I can for difficult jobs away from a power supply.

I can’t remember seeing a car in the garage.

Another tool in the garage was the scythe which was used mainly for lawn ‘mowing’ or cutting to be more precise. The scythe was very efficient and is still preferred by many today as a better alternative to fuming destructive petrol mowers or electrical/battery mowers that contribute to global warming. The design of the scythe fascinates me. It is ancient is its use. Over the centuries it has become perfected as a 3D tool. The haft is curved twice and twists. The handles and blade are placed so that when it is swept through the grass it leaves a neat and even swathe.

I became quite adept at using a scythe, even being able to use a honing stone to keep the blade sharp. When my electric mower wears out, I may get a scythe.

Also among the garden tools there was besides the apocalyptic horseman’s reaper (scythe) there was a much used (druid’s) sickle.

Brace and Bits

This is a new scythe which may be an English type which differs from the Austrian in having a reinforced blade.

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Chopping the Wood

We used to love to chop the wood for the stove. Nonno would have delivered or would cut for himself hard wood into about 40cm lengths. These would then be split lengthwise about six times which would provide pieces that would fit into the wood stove. Chips and splinters were a bi-product used as kindling.

Sustenance The garden, hens, grape vines, corn etc. provided supplement to N&N’s income. This may have included some kind of age pension but Nonno also worked part-time for stores in Rosewood such as Rhuno’s Department Store (Yes, it had departments such as clothing, hardware, sewing supplies, groceries (free home delivery), fuel, stock-feed and grain. Accounts with instore payments travelled along ceiling rails, propelled by a rubber sling-shot. Receipts and change return promptly from a central cashier by the same method). I met up with Nonno at his job as a storeman.

For milk my Mum and Nonna used Walkers dairy farm down the street and around the corner to the west. It was about a km walk. I remember being sent to the milking shed with 2 pint ‘billy-cans’ to get the milk straight from the cows during milking times. This milk was unpasteurized, of course, and still had its cream content. Nonna and Mum both used to skim off the cream to make their own home-made butter. I can recall my siblings and myself sitting in front of our stove hand churning the cream with salt to produce a lump of butter. Mum often used to heat the milk before use to reduce the chances of infection from the raw milk.

A sharpened axe, a chopping block and a good aim was needed to produce fire wood for the stove. A wayward blow could result in the axe becoming stuck in the wood to be split or the chopping block. The axe was often hard to extract.

The pieces would be taken inside in a wicker basket or else balanced in the crook of an arm.

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Preserving Food

There was no refrigeration until later. To preserve food and to make ices, an ice-chest was used. This was an insulated cabinet with a block of ice within. The ice man (then not a drug supplier) would come to the house to deposit a new block of ice when needed. I can see him pull up in his horse-drawn two wheeled ‘refrigerated’ cart of ice blocks. Also used for keeping meat from spoiling was the meat safe. I think this worked by keeping flies away and having meat safe in a cool area.

This ice chest is similar to the one N&N had. The doors lock shut when closed. As a result there were child fatalities if a child was inside the chest and the door closed. This lead to magnetic closing in more modern fridges

Our ice-man had I think had a two-wheeled cart pulled by a horse.

Ice was carried by a clever tool called ice tongs.

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Old Norrie

‘Old Norrie’ (I think he was called) was a dog of N&N that I remember as a medium sized dark short haired dog. He was very friendly but nervous. Perhaps he was afraid of us kids.

The Cousins’ Visits

This dog reminds me of N&N’s dog Old Norrie. If and why they called him that I can’t say.

When he died I helped Nonno cremate his body. We made a pyre of wood that looked like something from the banks of the Ganges

This meat safe resembles that of N&N.

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Aunty Maria died young and left Pio a widower with four children (all older than me except for Rosie). Recently, a received a phone call from Rosie, giving me her married name (Everett), asking if I remembered her and could she and her daughter and son-in-law visit us here on the Gold Coast.

I replied that I remembered here very well and her visit brought back a flood of memories of being play-mates at N&N’s. It must be about fifty odd years since that time but we were able to talk about places and events at N&N’s place with easy.

Cousin Ann stayed with N&N when her mother died to be “brought up” by them. When Ann married Ron, N&N made available part of Nono’s cornfield on which to build a house.

Frank, Chester and Rosie went to live with their dad at Childers (up near Maryborough in Qld). These cousins from the cane-fields seem to visit fairly often (probably in the school holidays) and I got to know them fairly well. Frank was a bit too old for me but Chester (short for Caesarea, Nonno name?) played the role of a big brother teaching pocket knife uses, knots and fresh-water yabbie hunting under the railway bridge off Mill street. These yabbies were black, about 100cm long, with large pincers. They could be caught with meat on a string lowered into a fresh-water pool. They would cling to the meat long enough to be pulled from the water. I recall placing these ‘lobbies’ in a can of water boiling on a fire we had lit beside the pool. I think we also placed pennies on the railway track and collected the 6 inch flattened copper discs produced when a train and its carriages passed over them. Such are adventures.

I had numerous other cousins. Besides, Auntie Maria’s, there were three of Auntie Lena’s, three of Uncle Peter as well as others from Mum’s side of the family, many of whom I got to know well as play-mates. However, the ones I remember best were the cane-field cousins, perhaps because I saw them less frequently or they were just more interesting to me.

Aunty Maria and Uncle Pio Maculan photographed on their wedding day in the 1930’s.

They had four children, Ann, Frank, Chester and Rosie to use their ozy names.

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N&N’s Tall Tales and True

The history of the Sbeghen Family has been amply set out by my brother Ken Sbeghen. However, there are other stories told by Nonno (mostly) that might add to that history or not depending on their veracity.

SmugglingNonno told us of the smuggling that regularly took place between some folk from his village/region, across the Dolomite Mountains into Austria. He hinted that he took part in this contraband.

The area in Northern Italy where he lived is close to the border of Austria/Germany and many trails are present today for hikers so there may be truth in his story.

Piovene R, because of its mountainous location had a dam and hydroelectricity and so a woollen mill.

The mill would have made army cloth and employment for locals. Nonno may have worked there at one time. It is probably no coincidence that apparel companies such as Benneton have their head- quarters in Treviso a few kilometres to the south-east.

A view across Piovene Rochetta (N&N home town) shows the foothills of the Alps arising above the town. Nonno used to say that Rosewood with its hills of Perry’s Knob and The Bluff reminded of home and was a reason why he settled there.

A trail signage near Piovene R shows the way to the Dolomite Alps beyond the immediate mountains.

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Conscription

Nonno seemed to tell us that on returning from Brazil, he and his brother Julio were detained for missing the conscription draft (all Italian men were required to do national service). This is so today so that if my boys visit Italy on European passports they must claim an exemption from national service.

So Nonno became a member of the Italian army (again).

Nonno and Nonna pose at their wedding.

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On the Front Line.

Nonno spoke of his involvement in the First World War as a soldier in the Italian army. He said the battle line was close to where he lived with Nonna and his family. My father Guiseppi would have been three years old at that time. The Piave River runs near (12km) to Treviso (his main town), and battle maps show the front line right on top of Sbeghen territory, so this lends credence to his story.

Nonno said that on one occasion he went AWOL in a lull in the fighting to visit his family. For this, he was tied up in no-man’s-land to be shot by the enemy. However, he relates that the opposing soldiers ignored him and so he survived.

Nonno had claims as a war veteran. As he fought with the Allies this service should extend to recognition by Commonwealth countries. However, no such honour was extended. Still, his family may be successful in having Nonno recognized as a WW1 Digger if they pursued the matter. His sacrifice in contributing to the protection of the Australian people needs to be acknowledged.

Certainly to me he is a War hero and a very brave strong man who survived the vicissitudes of battle.

The Piave River was the front line in WW1 where Italy with British and US help held the Austrian/German advance. The battle was fiercely fought from 15-23 June 1918 with heavy casualties on both sides. There were estimates of 200,000 dead or wounded. It was a decisive victory for the Italians. In an earlier battle Italy lost 400,000.

The front line was on the Piave River in WW1. Flooding of this river was an important factor in slowing down the Austro-German advance and to the Italian-Allies victory.

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Potential Trouble at the PortAfter suffering for his beliefs with the rise of Fascism and Benito Mussolini Nonno and his brother Julio decided to flee. Julio to Argentina, Nonno to the great south lands. To do this he said he had to abandon his home and family for seven years. After this time his family could also emigrate.

He told me of his desperation at embarkation. He said he had a knife that he ‘intended’ to use if he was impeded from leaving. Fortunately, he was allowed to depart without incidence.

It must have been a very sad and troubling time for this Sbeghen family. Besides the emotional loss there was also the loss of the breadwinner. Poverty and malnutrition followed. Nonna describes doing cleaning (she said she would clean the steps of a wealthy home for a cup of salt). The children also had ‘jobs’. There is a photo of Dad selling the evening paper.

I stayed at Treviso for a few days in the early 2000’s. I was talking to the desk clerk at the Great Western Hotel. I was bemoaning the circumstances of our family’s leaving. She replied with humour pointing out the good fortune we had enjoyed. After the war, she related “half the population killed the other in reprisals and paybacks and the country didn’t recover until the 1980’s. Meanwhile, you lot were living free and easy, no bombs or bullets, had schools and hospitals, roads and cars, well-stocked shops etc.” I stood corrected.

In a way, the Sbeghens were refugees, fleeing persecution and poverty and finding a safe haven in Australia. Not much has changed.

New Zealand or Australia?

Nonno said nothing that I can remember about his boat journey to Australia except a story of when he arrived. It appears that when he reached Australia he was unable to alight and the boat went on to New Zealand. He was not allowed to disembark in New Zealand either so when the boat docked in Brisbane he jumped overboard.

For this decision we barrack for the Wallabies instead of the Kiwis (although we get beaten more often than not).

Also if he were detained these days he may have ended up in Manus Island.

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Working on the Roads

Nonno spoke of his early days in Queensland where he was employed in weeding and cleaning the roadsides. Later he may have laboured in the Rosewood and Ipswich coal mines.

Nonno said that he worked hard, lived frugally and sent home as much money as he could during the long wait for immigration of his family.

Nonna and the Children arrive at Rosewood

Dad or N&N said little of the journey from Italy to Australia. Dad mentioned how hot it got travelling down the Red Sea.

However, they arrived in this country right in the middle of the Great Depression. They might have thought they had come from the “frying pan into the fire”.

They must have disembarked at Brisbane and made their way by train to Rosewood. At that time Rosewood was mining and milling town with unpaved roads. Albert Street where Nonno had prepared home for his family would become a muddy slippery path when it rained.

I remember seeing an old photograph of Nonno with his road –work mates standing beside a tent on a work site. Nonno is holding on to a dog leashed with a piece of cord. The tent was larger than the picture being more a sheet of canvas over three beams (one at top and one on each side).

The Rosewood railway station was an impressive building for a small country town in the 1930’s.

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So the story goes that the girls (Lena and Maria), in the late teens/early twenties were none-to-pleased to alight from the train at the Rosewood Station to be greeted by the rain and mud of a ‘remote’ mining town. It is told that they were well-dressed in the fashions of the roaring twenties which made it all the more miserable.

There is MoreThere must be lots more memories of N&N but I will stop here. Perhaps I can add an addendum at a later date.

Thank you for getting this far and I hope you have learned something of the culture of these North Italian people.

Greg Sbeghen 2015

Note: This year (2015) is the centenary of the births of Joseph (Giuseppe) Sbeghen, born December 4, 1915 in Piovene, Italy; and Mabel Ellen Sbeghen (nee Dilger), born March 4, 1915 at Rosewood, Australia.

Aunties Lena and Maria might have been dressed like these young women when they arrived at Rosewood.