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Shepherds Flat the couple had buUt a traditional peasant-style house, dairy and cow
bam from the local stone (described in Rodoni section) and farmed the land. Their
thuteen children, raised in an environment strongly influenced by the Ticinese culture,
leamed to speak Italian, to observe the Roman CathoUc faith and to respect the
traditions of their parents.^'* Several children eventually married Italian speakers, the
fourth eldest Ferdinand Andrew, bom in 1877, marrying Veronica Milesi, and the tenth
eldest EUen Antonietta, bom in 1887, marrying Giuseppe Milesi. It was not
uncommon for marriages to occur between several members of the same Italian-
speaking families (a further example occurring in the Rodoni section) since they helped
preserve the immigrants' life-style and the values and traditions which they held dear.
The marriage between Giuseppe and Ellen Milesi was celebrated on 12 July
1911 in St Peter's Church, Daylesford.^* Giving expression to their Roman Catholic
faith were other Italian-speaking members of the congregation, including witnesses
Ferdinand and Eugeni Tinetti, Ellen's brother and sister. In later generations, only one
of Ferdinand and Veronica Tinetti's children would marry an Italian speaker, as would
one of Griuseppe and Ellen's grandchildren. The practice of endogamy between Italian
speakers (these marriages nearly all occurred between Italians or people from the
district of Biasca) grew weaker with each generation as the language, culture and
life-style of Anglo-Australia assumed supremacy.
Many years later, descendants of the Milesi family visited San Giovanni Bianco
and Biasca, forging global links into the post-European period of Australian histor>'.
The peasant-style stone houses, which bore remarkable resemblance to the Tinetti
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