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Lafranchis ate the sausages freshly boUed (after they had just been made) or dried and
cut for sandwiches. When included in the children's school lunches, their strong aroma
sent out messages of their owner's ethnicity. Meatless dishes which the family
enjoyed, and which were also typical of a traditional diet, were polenta (traditionally
commeal, made into porridge or bread) and macaroni with fried onions. Most of these
foods were produced on the Lafranchis' farm.
Along with their work about the farm and in the home, the older children
served in the bar and assisted in most other areas of the hotel.^" The store was the
domain of Mrs Lafranchi and her daughters. When not working on the family
property, the children attended the local Mt Prospect school where Olimpia was a
student with Celestino Tomasetti. Some of the younger children may have later
attended the CathoUc school along with the Morgantis. It was within these institutions
that aU immigrant children gained the English skiUs to assimilate into Australian
society, in the process risking becoming distanced from their parents who stmggled
with the language in both its spoken and written forms. The advantage which children
gained over their parents through their language skiUs helped reverse the traditional
power stmcture, making children the possessors of knowledge and their parents the
dependants. At the same time, children were able to act as go-betweens for their
parents with the general community, thus smoothing their assimilation into Australian
society. Within the Lafranchi home, the children also heard their parents' Italo-Swiss
dialect through the songs which Margherita sang to them when young. The form, if
not the meaning, of some of these songs has been preserved through the generations.
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