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withdrawal of her children from the govemment school would reflect badly on the
teacher. It was not until the arrival of the archbishop that Maddalena was able to
explain the situation and receive a sympathetic hearing. The archbishop agreed that
any child who knew his or her catechism should be aUowed to be confirmed and, as the
Morganti children had been weU instmcted by their mother, the matter was quickly
resolved. Maddalena never moved her children to the CathoUc school but, as a
compromise, the youngest children, Andrea and Henry, later became its pupils.'*^
Some years after it was decided to close the Education Department school due to
falling numbers, a situation not helped by the fact that even the headmaster sent his
children to the Catholic school.'*'* The Presentation Order applied to buy the old school
buUding but, when the Education Department opposed the sale, the Catholic
community, dominated largely by the Italian speakers, built their OV^TI wooden
schoolhouse nearby. This school has since been pulled down but, ironically, the old
brick schoolhouse remains intact up to the present.
While at school the children in the Morganti household contributed to the
mnning of the home and farm. In the sheds and workshops surrounding their home,
they leamed to buUd and repair things, to make nails and horseshoes and to care for
the animals. They planted and harvested the crops and made preservable sausages and
jams. They chumed the butter and made the cheese. Maintaining the traditions of
their forebears, they became experts in the mnning of their home and farm and
indispensable to its success. In the kitchen, the giris helped their mother prepare a
variety of foods, such as rich vegetable soups, and, in later years, pasta with
flavourings of fried onion and cheese. In the stone cellar beneath the home, which was
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