Skip to content (Press enter)

Migrant Experiences

Charlie Furia and Lina Furia marriage 1921

Charlie Furia and Lina Furia, marriage, 1921, courtesy of Tess Epis

Migrant women, particularly from Italy, Dalmatia and Croatia, often migrated with their husbands, or even alone - seeking work or joining family members. Millie Pavlovich migrated alone in 1914 in search of a better life and ran boarding houses in Boulder. [1] The Toia family returned to Kalgoorlie in the early 1900s to start the first market garden. [2] Women worked alongside their men or supplemented their income by their domestic labour.

During the race riots in 1919 and 1934 women and children were equally at risk as men, as businesses run by women and, especially in 1934, homes were burnt down. A police report of the damage to the All Nations Hotel paints a worrying picture of the danger Mrs Orsatti placed herself in as she tried to prevent her husband being thrown over the balcony by a mob of Returned servicemen.

The men then made a strong effort to throw Orsatti over the balcony onto the crowd below. By this time Orsatti was half way over the rail with his wife hanging on to his neck, both him and her screaming.

After a hard struggle in which I was afraid that the railing over which we were all struggling would give way with the strain, and precipitate the lot of us on the roadway below I with the help of some of the other men got Orsatti and his wife into his bedroom. [3]

In 1934, many Slav women lost their home and many possessions when homes on 'Dingbat' flats were burnt. The livelihood of those who owned hotels and wine saloons were also compromised as premises were looted and destroyed. Yet many Australian women also opened their homes to their friends and sheltered them until the danger had subsided. [4]

Migrant women continue to run their own businesses and contribute to the community. Until the 1980s they continued to work in the Sommerville garden area in Kalgoorlie growing vegetables for the community.

Women's Stories

Read more about women from Kalgoorlie-Boulder in the Australian Women's Register.

Lina Furia - Hotel owner
Nerina Beccarelli - Domestic worker and gardner
Palma Alfirevich - Boarding house worker and shopkeeper
Savina Patroni - Gardener

Audio

Title: Nerina Beccarelli describing working at the Cornwall Hotel
Type: Interview
Source: Criena Fitzgerald

Title: Nerina Beccarelli describing working in the market garden
Type: Interview
Source: Criena Fitzgerald

Title: Nerina Beccarelli discussing her family staying with Australians during the riot
Type: Interview
Source: Criena Fitzgerald

Title: Nerina Beccarelli: Weekly Italian dances at the Cornwall Hotel
Type: Interview
Source: Criena Fitzgerald

Title: Palma Alfirevich describing escaping Boulder before their house was burnt down during the riots
Type: Interview
Source: Criena Fitzgerald

Title: Tess Epis discussing the fires during the riots
Type: Interview
Source: Criena Fitzgerald

Title: Vera Beccarelli discussing 'flattening' a boy who called her a 'Ding'
Type: Interview
Source: Criena Fitzgerald

Images

Title: The Boulder Block after the 1934 riots
Type: Image
Source: Di Stockdale

Title: Boulder Block after the riots
Type: Image
Source: Di Stockdale

Title: Charlie Furia and Lina Furia, Marriage
Type: Image
Date: 1921
Source: Tess Epis

Title: Charlie Furia, Lina Furia and their daughter Teresa
Type: Image
Date: 1934
Source: Tess Epis

Title: Cornwall Hotel, Kalgoorlie Boulder
Type: Image
Source: Criena Fitzgerald

Title: Cornwall Hotel, Kalgoorlie Boulder
Type: Image
Date: c. 1980
Source: Tess Epis

Title: Lina Furia
Type: Image
Date: 1933
Source: Tess Epis

Title: Nerina Beccarelli
Type: Image
Date: 2011
Source: Nerina Beccarelli

Title: Outside a ransacked restaurant after the riots in Boulder
Type: Image
Date: c. 1934
Source: Eastern Goldfields Historical Society

Title: Palma Alfirevich
Type: Image
Date: 2011
Source: Palma Alfirevich

Title: Palmira Alfirovich and family eating
Type: Image
Source: Palma Alfirovich

Title: Palmira Alfirovich and her family after the riots in Kalgoorlie
Type: Image
Source: Palma Alfirovich

Title: Savina Patroni at work in the market garden, Sommerville
Type: Image
Date: 1983
Source: Savina Patroni

Title: Savina Patroni, taken on arrival in Australia
Type: Image
Date: c. 1950
Source: Savina Patroni

Title: Savina Patroni's vegetable garden, Sommerville
Type: Image
Date: c. 1980
Source: Savina Patroni

Title: Yugoslav Band circa 1930s
Type: Image
Date: c. 1930
Source: Palma Alfirovich

Notes

Interview with Mick Pavlovich by Criena Fitzgerald, Gwalia/Leonora Oral History Project. Also interview with Anne Vukcevich by Criena Fitzgerald, Gwalia/Leonora Oral History Project. Return to text
Staking Our Claim: A Century of Women in the Goldfields 1893-1993, Kalgoorlie Auxiliary of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, c.1992. Return to text
Police File report on 1919 riots. State Records Office of Western Australia, Cons. 430 Item 1919/3871. Return to text
Interview with Nerina Beccarelli and Tess Epis by Criena Fitzgerald. See also Bill Bunbury, 'A Bad Blue [sound recording]: Goldfields Riots in Kalgoorlie, 1934', ABC social history radio feature, 1986, producer Bill Bunbury, Battye Library ref no. H11403. Interviews with Stella and Evelyn Villa and Mr. E Fraser. Return to text

This exhibition is a project of the National Foundation for Australian Women, in collaboration with the University of Melbourne, as part of the Foundation's ongoing initiative, the Australian Women's Archives Project.

Work on this project was generously funded in 2011-12 by the Government of Western Australia, KCGM (Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines) and Kalgoorlie-Boulder City Council.

Copyright © Criena Fitzgerald and the National Foundation for Australian Women, 2012
Published by the Australian Women's Archives Project
http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/wikb/migrantexperiences.html