19.06.2013 Views

Download (14Mb) - VUIR - Victoria University

Download (14Mb) - VUIR - Victoria University

Download (14Mb) - VUIR - Victoria University

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

the Irish and Italian speakers, the Europa from Hamburg docked in the Colony on the<br />

same day carrying 85 Ticinesi.<br />

There is no recorded evidence of where Kate was living when she first arrived<br />

in Australia though she may have found work as a servant with a Geelong family<br />

named Clark.^ She was still a servant-girl at the time of her marriage and her husband<br />

a gold miner. Kate and Gaetano's marriage, which was celebrated at the Catholic<br />

chapel m Deep Creek (a building completed only one year earlier) was one of many<br />

which united Irish and the ItaUan-speaking settlers. It has already been noted in<br />

previous chapters that few Italian-speaking women seeking husbands arrived in<br />

AustraUa during the years of the gold msh, making it difificuU for Italian-speaking men<br />

to find suitable wives. Village tradition directed that young people married from<br />

within the village or, where necessary, from a nearby village or valley. Endogamy was<br />

thought to preserve the pattems of village life and maintain the size and composition of<br />

the viUage population. Many of the settlers in Australia strove to uphold these<br />

traditions: Stefano Pozzi retumed temporarily to Giumaglio to find a wife; Battista<br />

Righetti wed a girl from his viUage despite her mere thirteen years; and Maurizio<br />

Morganti married the daughter of settlers from his village. Not all men could do so,<br />

however, and instead tumed to Irish girls who, though of a different ethnicity, shared<br />

a simUar religious and socio-economic background. Gaetano Tomasetti's marriage to<br />

Kate Clooney is one among the many examples which follow.<br />

If the Tomasettis' first home was a typical miner's dwelling, it would have<br />

comprised vertical wooden slabs with a bark or shingle roof and unglazed windows<br />

137

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!