The Australian Women's Register

Savina Patroni talks about her Italian family background; her siblings; her husband emigrating after WWII following his brothers arrival before WWI; meeting her husband in Italy; her work as a dressmaker and tailor during the war; Milan; husband asks her to come to Kalgoorlie; coming to Australia by ship; Diphtheria; landing in Fremantle; the train trip to Kalgoorlie; their first house in Kalgoorlie, electricity on after five years; missing family; Italian neighbours; family move to live near her; food and refrigeration; learning English; husband’s work; birth of children in hospital; garden work, sending carrots and cabbage to market; her children’s careers; dressmaking; speaking Italian at home; carting water from the bush by bucket for the house and the water bag; outside toilets; coping with Australia; compares Milan to Kalgoorlie; Italian families living near Somerville Gardens; understanding dialects of neighbours; returning to Italy for a visit; men’s camps; first impressions of Australia; cousin visits from Italy and brought her own small gas stove; regularly writing long letters to Italy; how it is easier for men to migrate and then find work than women; her husband working with his brother; hotel work in Kalgoorlie.