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Manjimup as a tobacco grower. During a visit to Melboume in 1947, a reporter for
the (Melboume) Sun wrote about his adventures, gold mining having continued to
capture the imagination of many readers. Referring to his childhood days in
Eganstovm (and thereby disseminating knowledge of the Italian speakers to a wide
audience) Antonio spoke of the mine which his father had worked in Daylesford and
which he now hoped to re-locate and mine. Speaking with the hope and excitement
which had brought the immigrants to Australia, he claimed:
I know there is gold there. If I can find the old tunnel leading into a
hillside through which I wandered when I was a boy, I know I wiU get
enough gold to make me a rich man. I will be on Easy Street for the
rest ofmy life.^'
Though reasonably successful in the mines, Antonio (jnr) ~ like his father and his
father's generation ~ supplemented his income from a variety of sources, such as
cutting railway sleepers and growing tobacco. Married, but childless, Antonio died in
the Westem Australian timber tovm of Manjimup on 21 July 1948.'"
No Caligari children married ItaUan speakers. Luisa became the wife of a Mr
Coutts, with whom she moved to Melboume. There she was joined by her sister
Lavinia (Mrs George Gough). One of Lavinia's grandchildren was to achieve
noteworthy qualifications in the field of Arabic, indicating not only the increased
educational opportunities for the younger generations, but also the multicultural world
which Australia had become. Lavinia's sister Amadea married a Mr Mclnemey and
raised a famUy in the Victorian town of Stawell; remembered as house proud, an
exceUent cook and mother, she possessed all the female attributes most admired in
Australian women of her day. Battista Caligari (apart from some years of active
service during the First World War) remained all his working Ufe on the family farm at
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