Tag Archives: old photographs

Feb 3, 2026 · 11:16 am

a photograph tucked in a letter…

I found this lovely photo of Nanna Francesca’s Sydney cousins and friends tucked in with a letter sent to her in Brisbane in the 1950s. The way news was shared of a new baby and baptism celebration back when it wasn’t common to hop on plane (and who could afford to take time off from work anyway).

In Italy, they’d all mostly lived in the same town, often a short walk from each other’s houses. Now, different situations meant sometimes living vast distances apart in Australia and, plane fares aside, even an interstate phone call was terribly expensive, if you actually had a phone yet.

I can just picture Nanna Francesca finding this letter in the mailbox and opening it while still standing out in the sunshine. Perhaps smiling to see the photo tucked inside. Happiness maybe mixed with a little melancholy at not being able to be there in person.

There’s so much I love about this photo. The togetherness, the joy in creating their own music and a new life held aloft – the baby perhaps the first born of the next generation in this new country. I notice the older generations are not there, they are back in Italy, and so new connections are being created all the time in Australia and held close, friends becoming like relatives too. All the while, holding onto that much-loved and familiar Italian life as well, which the new generations will also come to love. Connections new and old. ❤️🌠

books, libri…

…sulla spiaggia di Palmi, 1950

“Ricordo del 26 July 1950 sulla spiaggia di Palmi – Memory of 26 July 1950 on the beach of Palmi…”

Sent to my grandparents from relatives in Italy during the 1950s, these beautiful photographs with their fleeting, heartfelt messages written on the back say a lot about the sacrifice of migration. Yes, that courage to go to the other side of the world brought much-needed opportunity and prosperity, as well as new friends and family. And yet, there was so much that had to be left behind too, loved ones, ancestral homes no matter how modest, centuries and generations of history and belonging.

To think of the fragility of such photographs criss-crossing the world sent with love and a need to keep family ties strong, well, it both warms my heart and makes it break a little, if I’m honest. These photographs were taken in Palmi, Calabria and Fossa, Abruzzo, Nanna Francesca and Nonno Anni’s birth towns and I wonder how they must have felt when they received them from their loved ones, Vincenzo, Pierina and Luigi.

I know this tradition kept on at least until the 1970s since Nanna would get me, as a child, to pose for photos to send to Italy. Back then, I couldn’t understand why she’d be sending a photo of me to some far-off relatives I’d never met. Now, it is quite amazing and beautiful to think how, for many decades, families between two countries on far sides of the world kept close in this way. 🖤📸

8 Comments

Filed under old photographs + art

Tagged as black and white photographs, family history, Fossa Abruzzo history, Italian Australian history, Italian migrants, Italian old photographs, Italian-Australian, Italy Australia, Italy studio portraits, migration, migration history, migration stories, old family photos, old photographs, old photographs Italy, Palmi Calabria history, sacrifice of migration

Aug 2, 2022 · 11:48 am

Inklings of the past…

Bisnonna Francesca… a companion post to the previous on Bisnonno Domenico. Likewise, I didn’t get to meet her yet each photo has a little to reveal and brings the past somewhat closer in that moment. A rare photo, circa 1930 (bottom right) shows Francesca in Palmi, Calabria with her mother, Soccorsa, the baker and her daughter (Nanna Francesca). The three who lived together for years after Domenico was in Australia. And then (top left), just Francesca and her daughter, soon to leave to join him in 1934. She and her mother had worked hard to help raise the ship fares, determined as she was to be reunited.

I long for a photo of Francesca in her Applethorpe kitchen, cooking at the wood-fired stove, but sadly there are none. Often, I find her standing a little way behind in photos or to the side so it’s nice to see her front and centre (top right) with family and friends happy at harvest time.

For, by the photo of her and Domenico, it wasn’t long before he died, she becoming a widow at only forty-six. Sadly, their orchards were sold and she moved to her own house in the city – Teneriffe, Brisbane (bottom centre) but missed the farm and her life in Stanthorpe. At a picnic day with friends and family (top centre), still wearing her dark, mourning clothes, again Francesca stands to the back, as in many photos. Dad told me she remained heartbroken at losing Domenico and it truly must have affected her heart for she died just over a couple of years later, aged only 50.

My truly favourite photo of her is one of happiness (centre). She stands in her orchards and it seems light is falling upon her. To me, what’s most beautiful is her bare feet. My great-uncle, Vincenzo tells me his mum was always walking barefoot in the orchards and I love this so much. Her feet on the ground, feeling the earth. For someone who worked her entire life from a very young age and with no holidays, thankfully it seems there were these small moments of beauty in the everyday. 💛

Companion post –
Clues in black and white… Domenico

3 Comments

Filed under inspiration + history

Tagged as Applethorpe history, Australian migrant history, family history, first generation migrants, growing up Italian Australian, half Australian half Italian, Italian family stories, Italian history Stanthorpe, Italian migrant family life, Italian migrant history, Italian migrant history Queensland, Italian migrant photographs, Italian migrant stories, Italians Australia, Italians Queensland, migrant life Australia, old houses Teneriffe Brisbane, old photographs, Stanthorpe Italian stories, walking barefoot, women migrants, women’s stories

Jul 21, 2022 · 5:09 pm

Clues in black and white…

When writing of the past, two of the most valuable things I can hope for are handed-down spoken stories and photographs. I never knew my bisnonno, Domenico yet each photo can say so much…

In his work clothes (top left), one knee patched, behind him his Applethorpe orchards on land he’d hand-cleared, long before he could afford the horse.

Below, just a teenager in his navy uniform, this studio portrait in Palmi at the time of WWI. (For most of his life a cigarette never far from his hand – he smoked Capstans).

Other photos reveal the camaraderie of the migrant men in Australia. Their evident love of music and dance in those rare times they weren’t working and could get together, Domenico often asked to play his guitar. Bonds built up in the years they’d been compelled to be apart from family in Italy, and now reunited with wives and children, WW2 over, the future promising.

In the centre photo, Domenico stands between two fellows, well-dressed, behind them the truck he’d bought – that sign of success for many. By this time he owned the farm, had his wife and three children near, a first grandchild. It must be one of the last photos of him. Domenico only lived to be fifty-three but by then, the risk he’d taken in emigrating to Australia with so little, knowing he could never again see his parents and relatives back in Italy, had set up a future for ongoing generations of his descendants. It never fails to impress me what these first generations of migrants accomplished.

Companion post –
Inklings of the past… Francesca

4 Comments

Filed under inspiration + history