I arrived in Carlton on 7 August 1953, thirty four years ago, and I expected a nice beautiful big house, but when I came here and saw this small house I cried and I cried every day. And when I went to Lygon Street I couldn't find anybody who spoke Italian. Next door was an old woman who talked to me but I understood nothing. I always said yes, yes, yes, and I felt very bad. When I first arrived I needed a comb for combing the hair of the children and myself. I asked one lady who was an Italian, but had been a long time in Australia, 'Where can I buy a comb?' She said, 'Oh, you go along Lygon Street and you'll find a comb.' I went up and down Lygon Street, but I couldn't find a comb, and for three days we didn't have combed hair. At first I wanted paid work but I couldn't find a job, and I cried every day. I felt unhappy because I didn't have anybody here.
Now I have plenty of friends and my brother, my husband's sister, and many nephews. But before I cried every day because I didn't have anybody here. Maria, my next door neighbour, came after two or three years.
After a while I found one lady who had the Italian grocery, and I went to this lady all the time. She told me, 'Don't worry because I'm Italian, you can trust me any time with what you want.'
I soon found everything I needed here. I brought to Australia too much pasta and olive oil, because when I was going to Australia somebody told me, 'Oh, in Australia you can't get that stuff, it's different.' But when I came to Australia I found everything. I just didn't find much money, but I found everything else. If you have money you can buy everything you want.
My husband came to Australia two and a half years before me. He was living with friends, where the Commission flats are now. The friend of my husband was a tailor; now he's in Elgin Street. My husband knew him when he came here, and he looked after my husband. He ate there and slept in the caravan, before he found a job. He had no money when he came here. And my husband saw this house and everybody helped him with the deposit, two hundred pounds, many friends helped him. Then I came to Australia, and this house was very bad, it didn't have anything, no light, no water, no hot water service, no bathroom, nothing. I bought a plastic bath, like the ones you bath babies in, and I warmed up the water on the gas in the kitchen and I bathed everybody. My husband would go on Saturdays and have a bath in the City Baths, because there was nothing here. If I washed the children, I couldn't wash him too. It was very bad.
I had three children when I arrived, and another two here in Australia. When I found a job, I was four months' pregnant. I finished work on a Thursday and I had the baby on the Saturday night. I then stayed one year at home, and after one year I had another baby. I left this baby to go again to work when the baby was two months old, and I have worked ever since.
It was very hard. When I came to Australia I felt sick, I cried every day. And my husband didn't know anybody, no doctor that understood Italian. So my husband took me to a doctor in Lygon Street, it's the doctor I still go to. But I didn't understand English and my husband didn't either. But I went, and my husband told the doctor, 'Oh, my wife feels sick because she just came to Australia.' He gave me a tonic, because he said the change in climate from Italy to Australia makes a big difference. But when I took the medicine I vomited, every time I took it, for three days, and I said, 'This doctor gave me poison, I don't want this.' My husband took me back to the doctor and told him that I vomited and that I thought I was poisoned. 'She can't vomit,' the doctor said, 'I didn't give her poison, I don't give poison to anybody.' So he arranged to see me again, and said 'Ah, I didn't give you poison, you're pregnant.' Then he told my husband, 'It's your fault, not mine, your wife's pregnant, eight weeks, that's why she feels sick when she takes the medicine, because she's pregnant.' And I say, 'Oh my God, I'm pregnant and I have to look for a job, what can I do?'
First I worked in a socks factory in Brunswick, and after that one year in Mount Royal Hospital. I liked working in a hospital, but this was too far for me because I worked a broken shift and that's very hard with a baby. My big daughter was ten years old. She prepared herself to go to school and the other two, my boy and the other daughter. She also took the baby to the lady who looked after the baby. After that I found a job in the Royal Women's Hospital, and I've been very happy there, for twenty eight years.
I came from a nice little village in Italy, up on a hill with very nice fresh air. It was beautiful and sometimes I missed it.
The main thing I disliked about Carlton was the house. I always fought with my husband, because I wanted to sell this house, and my husband didn't want to sell. He said, 'If you sell this house you'll never have a house any more, because it costs too much money to shift, with five children.' I felt very bad, terrible. I wanted to go back to Italy. One day my son saw me crying, (a little boy, you know, five or six years old). He took the suitcase and said, 'Mum, I'll make your suitcase, come on catch a taxi, and go back to Italy. I'll come with you, what's the matter with that? You leave here and I'll come with you. I'll fix everything, I'll put everything in my suitcase and catch a taxi and we'll go back to Italy.' Five years old, you know?
I learnt from my children, that's all. I didn't ever go to school. It was very bad, especially when I had sick children. I went to the Children's Hospital and I always needed an interpreter. Sometimes the interpreter would tell you one thing then tell another thing to the doctor. So I always took my daughter with me, my older daughter, because I didn't trust the interpreter, because the interpreter was a young girl too, from a northern Italian family and a Greek family. She just knew a bit of Italian so when she spoke to the doctor she didn't tell him properly. That was very hard, not just for me, but for the other women like me, because we didn't understand English. But after the children grew and learnt English I didn't have any more problems, because I always took one of them with me.
When I started work, I had to get up at four o'clock in the morning, bath two babies, one two, months, the other fifteen months. I then made the breakfast for the children and everything like that left my place at six o'clock in the morning to go work in the factory in Brunswick. When I left the factory I worked in the Mount Royal Hospital West Brunswick. I had to take a tram and a bus started at a quarter past seven in the morning, and finished at a quarter past two. Then I started again five o'clock and finished at seven o'clock at night. It was very hard, very hard. I didn't sleep and I got very sick, broken nerves. I didn't have a washing machine, I didn't have anything and I had to wash the nappies from two babies, and the clothes. The was no water, nothing. But after I started work bought a washing machine, I put in a hot water service, I got everything in the house. But before that the house was terrible, terrible.
Some people did not like us when we first came because we didn't understand English. They would say bad words to the Italian people all the time. One day my friend replied, 'Bloody Australian, if Italian people didn't come to Australia, you'd still be eating fish and chips all day.'
I am very happy in Carlton now: I have all five children married, and plenty of grandchildren. My husband is even happier to stay in Carlton, where he has many friends. Carlton does not look like Australia any more. It looks like Italia ittle Napoli. People eat in front of the restaurants, eat their dinner, or icecreams. Napoli was like that.