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area. Leading from the bakery, with its large bread ovens, was a corridor where fresh
loaves of bread could be displayed to the customers. Off this was the sales room.**
The livmg and business areas of the property were thus closely aligned, an arrangement
not dissimilar to the peasant homes wdth which Ferdinando was familiar.
With his bakery in operation, and supposedly a steady income, 1892 was also
the year m which Ferdinando chose to many. His bride, Luisa Scheggia, was the
daughter of Ticinese immigrants who lived at Elevated Plains (near Shepherds Flat).
Luisa's father had emigrated to AustraUa from Semione near Biasca in 1858, marrying
Margherita Delmue, also an immigrant from Biasca, in 1871.*' Bom one year later,
Luisa was the first of their ten children. Her marriage to Ferdinando, which
strengthened kinship ties between families from the same region of Ticino, revealed
endogamy as a still popular practice among Italian speakers at the end of the
nineteenth century. The wedding ceremony, which took place on 2 April 1892 at St
Peter's Roman Catholic Church in Daylesford,** was a reminder that central to a
marriage's success were shared religious beliefs. While it might have been an arranged
marriage, Luisa's age at 21 and Ferdinando's at 28 (though his marriage certificate
states 24) could suggest that the two had become acquainted during one of the many
social occasions attracting Biascans, Luisa's brother Jim, it will be recalled, had been a
member of the early Vanzetta mining team. At the time of their marriage Ferdinando,
while operating his bakery in Hepbum, had often resided in their home,*' Their union,
Uke some of the earlier mining arrangements, had thus fostered the development of
close emotional bonds between first and second generation immigrants ~ pooling
recent experience of Ticino with increased knowledge of the Colony,
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