ROSSI, Giuseppina

Giuseppina was born in 1939 in Serrata, a tiny village in Calabria, and had her family remained in Italy, she would unlikely have ever met her husband Vince.  But in the 1950's it wasn't hard to spot a fellow Italian on the week-long journey from Alice Springs to Melbourne via Adelaide.  Pina went to Melbourne with her brother Tony for a family holiday, and Vince was working on the Adelaide to Melbourne rail route.

Like so many others, Pina's family left Italy to find employment.  As unassisted migrants they arrived in stages, first her father in 1950 or 1951, then her two older brothers, and finally Pina and her mother in 1954.  Her father, formerly a farmer, was sent to work in the Alice Springs post office and loved it.  But remote Alice Springs, surrounded by desert and with a large Indigenous population struck the 14-year-old Pina as a terrifying place.  Unable to speak a word of English and never having seen a dark-skinned person before, she hid in the house for quite some time until the Kindly Australian neighbors offered to take her to school.

There was no work to be found in Alice Springs once Pina left school.  But that encounter with Vince on the train led to a correspondence followed by another visit to meet her parents and by 1958 Pina, aged 19, was married and living in Ballarat with Vince, then 25. He already owned an old house in Gregory Street, Ballarat North, where the couple soon welcomed son John, the first of their three children (Peter and Elizabeth).  Pina never worked outside the home but she was not lonely.  She helped at the school canteen when the children were young and made local friends.  

Pina recalls helping raise money for Italians who arrived in Ballarat following the 1968 Sicilian earthquake.  She was also an active member of the Ballarat Italian Association as her husband Vince had been lucky enough to be able to financially assist the club in the early days get off the ground. 

Pina also attended the monthly Italian Lady's Tombola games held at other Italian family homes.  This group each year raised enough money to donate to a worthy Charity after holding a Christmas Dinner.

When Vince retired he and Pina kept busy at home with a large vegetable garden and the making of their own wine.  Pina would harvest beans to put in oil for the winter and make passata and her own dried tomatoes.  She recalls missing the bread in Italy and was lucky enough to go back to visit accompanied by Vince a couple of times.  She would often say that life in Italy was too different and is no longer for her.  There was no way she could get used to sleeping in the middle of the day or eating so late at night.

Giuseppina died on the 24th of July 2019 in Bendigo and is buried in the Ballarat New Cemetery with her husband Vince and sons John (2015) and Peter (2017).

Hill Block Row 12 Grave 35