Giovanni Storti with produce including cheeses, olive oil and wine. Mitchell Mine, Kilcunda in background. Photo: Wonthaggi Historical Society - undated
By Linda Cuttriss
WHEN I was little, the house on the corner from my grandparents in Wonthaggi had a vegetable garden that took up the whole front yard. Tall sticks held up vines heavy with plump, red tomatoes in summer. It was beautiful yet strange to see vegetables where normally there’d be lawn. Grandma told me it was the Gervasis’ place and that they were Italian, as if that would explain this unusual wonder.
Later I learned that in the 1920s and 1930s, like my grandfather who came from the north of England, men were coming from the north of Italy to work at the State Coal Mine. My grandfather was a coal miner and the Italian men subsistence farmers, but they all came for the chance of a ‘better life’.
WHEN I was little, the house on the corner from my grandparents in Wonthaggi had a vegetable garden that took up the whole front yard. Tall sticks held up vines heavy with plump, red tomatoes in summer. It was beautiful yet strange to see vegetables where normally there’d be lawn. Grandma told me it was the Gervasis’ place and that they were Italian, as if that would explain this unusual wonder.
Later I learned that in the 1920s and 1930s, like my grandfather who came from the north of England, men were coming from the north of Italy to work at the State Coal Mine. My grandfather was a coal miner and the Italian men subsistence farmers, but they all came for the chance of a ‘better life’.
Most of the men stayed and when they had enough money sent for their wives and children. It wasn’t easy for the Italians to leave their mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins when family was everything.
By all accounts the Italian immigrants were welcomed by their Australian neighbours but there were rumblings of discontent from some quarters. Through 1924 and 1925 occasional reports appeared in the Argus, Weekly Times and Sun News Pictorial about an influx of Italians at Wonthaggi.
The union claimed Italians undermined the wages agreement with the State Coal Mine as they didn’t understand it and would take whatever they could get. Some returned soldiers claimed Italians were employed in preference to them. Others protested that they speak little English, have no mining experience and give little to the town as they spend little and send the rest back home.
But others disagreed. In the Argus of 29 July 1924, Mr Falloon, an accountant in the Melbourne office of the mines, stated that out of 1,000 employees at Wonthaggi only 84 were Italian and they received the same rate of wages as other employees.
Mr Sullivan of Richmond, a miner who had worked at Rutherglen mines for 17 years from the early 1890s, claimed in a ‘letter to the editor’ in the Labor Call of 23 April 1925 that there were always Italians working at the Rutherglen mines and they often got work ahead of Australians, but he held no grudge against them. They were good workers and socially good fellows.
Perhaps the most resounding endorsement of the Italian community’s standing in Wonthaggi was a brief in the Age of 5 July 1932 where, in response to a meeting of 400 Italians upset about incorrect reporting of a police raid in Wonthaggi, Mr W.G. McKenzie M.L.A. stated that, ‘The Italian population in Wonthaggi has the respect of every citizen in Wonthaggi’.
The union claimed Italians undermined the wages agreement with the State Coal Mine as they didn’t understand it and would take whatever they could get. Some returned soldiers claimed Italians were employed in preference to them. Others protested that they speak little English, have no mining experience and give little to the town as they spend little and send the rest back home.
But others disagreed. In the Argus of 29 July 1924, Mr Falloon, an accountant in the Melbourne office of the mines, stated that out of 1,000 employees at Wonthaggi only 84 were Italian and they received the same rate of wages as other employees.
Mr Sullivan of Richmond, a miner who had worked at Rutherglen mines for 17 years from the early 1890s, claimed in a ‘letter to the editor’ in the Labor Call of 23 April 1925 that there were always Italians working at the Rutherglen mines and they often got work ahead of Australians, but he held no grudge against them. They were good workers and socially good fellows.
Perhaps the most resounding endorsement of the Italian community’s standing in Wonthaggi was a brief in the Age of 5 July 1932 where, in response to a meeting of 400 Italians upset about incorrect reporting of a police raid in Wonthaggi, Mr W.G. McKenzie M.L.A. stated that, ‘The Italian population in Wonthaggi has the respect of every citizen in Wonthaggi’.
*****
By the mid 1930s a thriving Italian community of around 800 people was living in the district leading busy lives centred around family. Adelino (Lino) Cumin’s memories as a young boy are captured in Sam Gatto’s PLOD essay ‘Between two worlds: An Italian childhood in Wonthaggi’.
Lino remembers his family had good Australian neighbours who were very welcoming. Despite making firm friends with the Aussie children next door, Lino and other Italian children mostly played together, spoke Italian at home, ate Italian food and attended Italian school on Saturday mornings.
The Italians had their own social life too. Lino recalled the monthly Italian dance at the Buffalo Hall, the Italian picnic at Inverloch and the Italian feast day at church. But he would never forget that when war broke out everything stopped.
Lino remembers his family had good Australian neighbours who were very welcoming. Despite making firm friends with the Aussie children next door, Lino and other Italian children mostly played together, spoke Italian at home, ate Italian food and attended Italian school on Saturday mornings.
The Italians had their own social life too. Lino recalled the monthly Italian dance at the Buffalo Hall, the Italian picnic at Inverloch and the Italian feast day at church. But he would never forget that when war broke out everything stopped.
Italian Community Gathering Wonthaggi, Victoria. Circa 1929. Photo: Museums Victoria
On 10 June 1940 shock waves ripped through town when news came that Italy had entered the war on the side of the Germans. With Italy now the enemy, what would this mean for everyone’s Italian friends?
Over the next few days reports of events at Wonthaggi appeared locally in the Powlett Express, in Melbourne’s Herald, Age and Sun News Pictorial and as far afield as Brisbane’s Sunday Mail, Townsville’s Daily Bulletin and Port Pirie’s Recorder.
Initially some men at the State Coal Mine refused to go down into the pits with certain Italian employees claiming one man could cause the death of 250 others. A union meeting was held in the Union Hall and after extended discussions, the men agreed by majority vote to ‘return to work and leave any action to the federal government’.
Wonthaggi Borough Council also convened, and the mayor sent a telegram to the Premier asking for all Italians to be withdrawn from the mines pending clarification of the situation and that steps be taken to safeguard ‘all the vital points in the town’.
Some newspapers explained that the Italians and their families were a big part of Wonthaggi and Kilcunda townships. There were 100 men at the State Coal Mine and 25 of the 36 miners at Kilcunda were Italian. Many had been resident for years and had become naturalised British subjects.
Wonthaggi’s Italians rallied quickly to show they didn’t support Italy’s fascist dictator Mussolini in the war. They handed in their sporting weapons to the police, promised to declare their allegiance to the British Empire and asked to contribute towards the ambulance Wonthaggi planned to give to the Australian Infantry Force.
A week after Italy’s declaration of war a special squad of detectives from Melbourne raided many homes in Wonthaggi and Kilcunda. Several Italians were arrested and taken to detention camps outside Melbourne and at Puckapunyal. Their families regularly made the long journey to visit them.
Young Lino Cumin remembered quite a few Italian homes were raided and that some men were taken away. By then his father was a naturalised British subject and not considered an Enemy Alien so didn’t have to report regularly to the police station like many others. But they still worried their houses might be raided. His father and the other Italian men just kept working hard at the mine and looking after their families.
Despite the worries of that time Lino remembered that, ‘We Italian children went to the Saturday matinee pictures at the Union Theatre with all the other kids.’ There were no fights and, ‘when it was our birthday, we received presents just like all the other children’.
Compared to other parts of Australia there was little trouble in Wonthaggi because of the strong union stance of co-operation and protection of workers and the ethos of the miners sticking together.
Over the next few days reports of events at Wonthaggi appeared locally in the Powlett Express, in Melbourne’s Herald, Age and Sun News Pictorial and as far afield as Brisbane’s Sunday Mail, Townsville’s Daily Bulletin and Port Pirie’s Recorder.
Initially some men at the State Coal Mine refused to go down into the pits with certain Italian employees claiming one man could cause the death of 250 others. A union meeting was held in the Union Hall and after extended discussions, the men agreed by majority vote to ‘return to work and leave any action to the federal government’.
Wonthaggi Borough Council also convened, and the mayor sent a telegram to the Premier asking for all Italians to be withdrawn from the mines pending clarification of the situation and that steps be taken to safeguard ‘all the vital points in the town’.
Some newspapers explained that the Italians and their families were a big part of Wonthaggi and Kilcunda townships. There were 100 men at the State Coal Mine and 25 of the 36 miners at Kilcunda were Italian. Many had been resident for years and had become naturalised British subjects.
Wonthaggi’s Italians rallied quickly to show they didn’t support Italy’s fascist dictator Mussolini in the war. They handed in their sporting weapons to the police, promised to declare their allegiance to the British Empire and asked to contribute towards the ambulance Wonthaggi planned to give to the Australian Infantry Force.
A week after Italy’s declaration of war a special squad of detectives from Melbourne raided many homes in Wonthaggi and Kilcunda. Several Italians were arrested and taken to detention camps outside Melbourne and at Puckapunyal. Their families regularly made the long journey to visit them.
Young Lino Cumin remembered quite a few Italian homes were raided and that some men were taken away. By then his father was a naturalised British subject and not considered an Enemy Alien so didn’t have to report regularly to the police station like many others. But they still worried their houses might be raided. His father and the other Italian men just kept working hard at the mine and looking after their families.
Despite the worries of that time Lino remembered that, ‘We Italian children went to the Saturday matinee pictures at the Union Theatre with all the other kids.’ There were no fights and, ‘when it was our birthday, we received presents just like all the other children’.
Compared to other parts of Australia there was little trouble in Wonthaggi because of the strong union stance of co-operation and protection of workers and the ethos of the miners sticking together.
*****
After the war, a second wave of Italians arrived in Wonthaggi from both the north and the south of Italy and the reasons they came were much the same.
Frank Coldebella says his father Leone left the Veneto region in Italy’s north in 1949 because the countryside was devastated by war, Italy was broke and there was no money.
Frank Coldebella says his father Leone left the Veneto region in Italy’s north in 1949 because the countryside was devastated by war, Italy was broke and there was no money.
Italians at Kilcunda, 1950. From left, Albino Maccagnan, Leone Coldebella, Luigi Coldebella (junior), Giovanni Piasente, Giacomo Maccagnan, Remigio Grisotto, Luigi Coldebella (senior).
Photo: Coldebella family
Photo: Coldebella family
Sam Scimonello and his brothers came from Sicilia in the 1950s. In the Post essay ‘Sam Scimonello’s sewing machine’ by Carolyn Langdon (first published in the PLOD), Sam says they came because after the war, ‘We had no food, there was hardly anything to eat, and no one had any money’.
Wonthaggi Railway Museum display of Italian hand-made tools and items for producing and making food including a wooden salami making trough. Photo: Linda Cuttriss, 2026 Sam Gatto’s family were subsistence peasant farmers from the village of Carida in the Calabria region of the south where, apart from a few big landowners, ‘life was very hard for everybody’ and ‘poverty was the norm’. Sam’s father arrived in 1949 and Sam and his mother and siblings followed in 1950.
In his book, A Sort of History of Me, My Family and a Cow Named Gina, Sam Gatto gives a rich account of how his family adapted and made a new life in Wonthaggi. He tells of his mother’s anguish and loneliness, the urgency for him to learn English, the kindness of their Australian neighbours and his father’s pride in his ‘bella iarda’ (his vegetable garden) which took up the entire yard.
The Italians brought their traditions of tending their large vegetable garden every day, picking seasonal vegetables for the evening meal, keeping a cow, a pig, hens and ducks and of families getting together to make cheeses, salami and passata. They were almost self-sufficient and always had plenty to eat if there was a strike at the mine.
In his book, A Sort of History of Me, My Family and a Cow Named Gina, Sam Gatto gives a rich account of how his family adapted and made a new life in Wonthaggi. He tells of his mother’s anguish and loneliness, the urgency for him to learn English, the kindness of their Australian neighbours and his father’s pride in his ‘bella iarda’ (his vegetable garden) which took up the entire yard.
The Italians brought their traditions of tending their large vegetable garden every day, picking seasonal vegetables for the evening meal, keeping a cow, a pig, hens and ducks and of families getting together to make cheeses, salami and passata. They were almost self-sufficient and always had plenty to eat if there was a strike at the mine.
*****
At the State Coal Mine Heritage Area there is a time token board with the token numbers and names of many of the miners. Names like Andrighetto, Allen, Bernadi, Bell, Coldebella, Chambers, Dalla Rosa, Davidson, Storti, Stewart, Tiziani, Thompson and Zunetti.
The miners were from different countries but down the mines they were one and the same. They relied on each other. They looked out for each other. It was hard, dangerous work no matter where you came from.
John Coldebella’s vegetable garden. Photo: John Coldebella The Italians made Wonthaggi their home, but thoughts of Italy were never far from mind. The women felt the weight of separation from family members but agreed that life for their children had improved. In the words of Lino Cumin, ‘I am a proud Australian who is proud of his Italian heritage’.
Wonthaggi’s Italians and their stories will always be part of the town’s identity and if you see a yard with a vegetable garden with climbing beans and plump, red tomatoes there’s a good chance it belongs to an Italian Wonthaggian.
Wonthaggi’s Italians and their stories will always be part of the town’s identity and if you see a yard with a vegetable garden with climbing beans and plump, red tomatoes there’s a good chance it belongs to an Italian Wonthaggian.