Joe’s Fruit Shop and Milk Bar continues each weeknight on ABC Nightlife – thank you to all who’ve sent messages upon discovering the book – lovely to hear from you!
By chance, I came across this photograph when looking for something else for the next book and realised it might be the only one to show the family unit of Maddalena and Vitale and their two sons Elia (left) and Annibale/Joe (right) taken not long after they were reunited in Australia.
Financial hardship, separate migration, the Depression and WW2 forced Vitale and Maddalena apart for all but about three of their first 26 years of marriage, the boys without their father, and then Maddalena and Annibale apart for a decade after he migrated at 15. So lovely to see them reunited here. They remained close for the rest of their lives in Australia with Maddalena and Vitale even living with Annibale and his family for many years.
Zoë Boccabella 
HI! Zoe, this photograph of the Boccabella’s gives me the opportunity to meet the family re-united at last.
Maddalena is now a little older that the one I remember, and Elia a much younger them days, but a big boy now.
Thank-you for posting this photo.
Augusto.
Much appreciated, Augusto. It must certainly give you an extra element to seeing these photographs when you knew the people back in Fossa all those years ago. Auguri, Zoe x