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were all married to English speakers. Celestino had even shocked the community with
a non-Catholic wedding which many first generation Irish and Italian-speaking settlers
would not have tolerated. As he grew older, Gaetano also found himself without the
traditional support of his children to help mn his farm. Despite whatever misgivings
about leaving his homeland he may have had, however, he lived a more materially
prosperous Ufe in AustraUa and was continuing to mn his property productively.*" He
was seUing an increased variety of goods to the local community, keeping bees for
honey and six or seven cows for dairy products: butter was sold at seven pence a
pound to the grocers who also called to buy the family's eggs. Gaetano's cabbage
plants and seedlings found a ready market.
In 1912, when Gaetano was 81 years old and his wife 52, he applied to the
Lands Department for a clear title to his block at Eastem Hill.*^ He never ceased to
concem himself with the financial security of his family, his earliest memories perhaps
reminding him of the poverty which awaited the complacent. Growing older, he
developed regular habits which his daughter Catherine Angelina (then known as
Leena) later recalled:
In the morning he had his sop. His was bread, black tea and a lump of
butter and salt. It was set beside the fire until the bread went brown at
the edges. He had it at about half past nine. At 4 o'clock he cooked
his own meal. There was boiling water with salt in a big pot on the fire.
We had a crane. He'd throw the macaroni in and when it was done,
he'd put it in a bowl with about a quarter of a pound of butter ... he
Uked doughboys ~ the dumplings boiled with meat. Dad wouldn't eat
roast meat. Whatever it was it had to be boiled.*^
Apart from his preference for boiled meat, which was a hangover from his mining days
when everything was boiled for hours to ensure its safety, Gaetano continued to enjoy
many elements of his SAVISS diet, especially pasta and foods rich in fat.*^ Each day he
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