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also strengthened the immigrants' kinship ties, extending and reinforcing their channels
of emotional support.
It was not an easy life for the women of the Colony, especially for those
arriving on the goldfields from Europe, A long with having to adjust to life wdth a new
husband, or to someone from whom they might have become estranged after years of
separation, they were confronted with a different culture and way of life. Many were
shocked by the primitiveness of their surrounds and conditions which were little better,
if not worse, than those they had left behind. It may be recalled that Maria Gervasoni's
first home in Yandoit was a small miner's hut built by her husband's dairying partners
(cf above p. 319), Fashioned from the local timbers these temporary dwellings,
known as 'wattle and daub', were built as a wooden post frame on to which mud,
stiffened with chopped straw or clay, was liberally spread. The mud was contained
within a series of closely placed sticks which ran cross-ways to the frame and gave the
buUding strength, A bark roof covered the homes, window spaces were covered wdth
calico to keep out the cold and the flooring was just the bare earth on which the house
had been erected. All cooking and washing was done outside,^ Despite the
disappointment and anger which many women felt on first seeing their homes, many
were soon cheered by the promise of a new and better house, this being one of the
highest priorities of the Italian speakers.
Due to the availability of certain building materials, the villages from
which the settlers of northem Italy and Ticino had departed were vastly different from
the towns which grew up in the Colony. Unlike the timber homes at Jim Crow, the
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