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of Daylesford: these centres included Linton, Piggoreet, Smythesdale, Happy Valley
and Allendale (ref figure 6). It would seem that Vincenzo was mining with less
success by this stage since, on 30 January 1857, he was only able to send his wife the
small sum of four pounds.^* In another of the informal support networks established
by the immigrants Pietro Leoni, who was returning to Ticino after three years in the
Colony, carried money on behalf of his friends: arrangements such as this revealed the
enormous tmst which existed among the immigrants, reflecting not only the close
bonds of the old village life but also the exigencies of the new colonial existence.
For Serafina Quanchi, whose husband had been three years in the Colony, four
pounds offered little consolation for the dislocation of her family. Nor did it alleviate
the misery of her existence since his departure: in 1859 the Quanchis' ten-year-old
daughter Benedetta had died and, though the cause of her death has not been
documented, the cause may have been malnourishment and poor sanitation in the
villages of the Valle Maggia, which contributed to the spread of many childhood
diseases such as tuberculosis, influenza, convulsions, dysentery and diarrhoea.
SmaUpox, against which many doctors and parents neglected to vaccinate, was also
common. The only hospital for the valley was located at Locamo, denying many of
the peasants adequate medical care.^^ Already, in 1853, the Quanchis' six-year-old son
Piero had also died. While poverty and hunger might have prompted Vincenzo's
decision to emigrate to Australia, the continued suffering of his family perhaps
hastened his retum. By 1874 he was back in Maggia. His nephew Gioachino had also
retumed by 1861 but his son Alessandro remained in Australia.^'
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