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for your future welfare will accompany you in your new sphere. We
are dear Sir, yours tmly (for the committee), F. Rotanzi, chairman.'**
With this send-ofif, the family of five departed for Heywood.
One of the earUest settlers of the Heywood region, where he purchased and
cleared land and built his home, Serafino's appearance as a 'landlord' in a local history
symboUses the wealth and status he achieved as a resident of Australia."*' The last of
the Righetti children were bom at Heywood: Walter William James, arriving some
time in 1879, and Leonard Beyer Allan on 5 September 1883. The Righetti property,
which again incorporated a farm for self-sufficiency and a pretty garden planted by
Lucy, was named 'Rose Grange', its glass house for exotic plants providing another
example of the family's prosperity. In 1888 Serafino purchased a general store and
produce buyers outside Heywood, previously named 'Fletcher's'. Renaming it
Righetti and Son ~ an indication to all of its Italian-speaking owners ~ it was operated
wdth the help of Emest. Like Serafino's shop at Hepbum, this store sold a variety of
goods including animal skins, wattlebark or anything else for which there was a
market. Serafino later bought into a savmiiUing business which enabled him to survive
the difficuh times of the 1890s. When some people later claimed that 'In conjunction
with his store trade, he managed to keep the township going',"* it revealed how
financially secure he had become. Still preferring a diversified income at the tum of the
century, his success may be partly attributable to his peasant roots but also represents a
rising above relatively humble peasant origins.
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