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Italian speakers providing unusual testimony of the multicultural nature of the colonial
goldfields.
Caterina gave birth to her first child in the Tinetti house in 1892, naming her
Ellen Adelaide Virginia. A second child, bom in 1894 and named Caterina Angelica,
suggested Antonio's divided sense of national allegiance ~ a characteristic of the
relatively brief time he had spent in AustraUa. In 1897 the Rodonis moved out of the
Tinetti house and into a small wooden home of their own in nearby Elevated Plains.
Sited on a hill near Mt Franklin, on the main road to Castlemaine, the home's
accompanying ten hectares of farming land suggest the family enjoyed reasonable
financial security.** Elevated Plains attracted a number of members of the Biascan
community ~ Pietro Rodoni had dairy farmed there for a time before moving to Deep
Creek ~ the clustering of village communities still being evident at the end of the
nineteenth century. Despite their apparent economic stability, the Rodonis maintained
a peasant life-style with the accent on self-sufficiency. Crops, vegetables, fruit, herbs
(thyme, rosemary, maijoram) and almond trees were planted in the rich volcanic soils
surrounding their home, the creek-flats and gently undulating paddocks being supplied
wdth water from the nearby creek.*' Cypress trees were planted to recall the European
landscape. Along with his dairy herd Isidoro kept a few sheep,* this break with
traditional farming practice signifying his (and probably other Italian speakers') gradual
integration into a more distinctly 'Australian' culture.
In 1896, Caterina gave birth to a son, whom she named Charles Feter, Again,
responding to a call for increased living space, Isidoro extended the family home to
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