The staple marks show that this would've been attached to his Carta d'Identita, or ID Card.
On the 4th of April 1955, my nonno Umberto left his hometown – like many other migrants – in search a better life for his family. Poverty was rife in the south of Italy, and there were little to no job opportunities. However, he didn’t plan to stay here. He wanted to make enough money to get comfortable, all while sending money home, to eventually return with riches. Soon enough, he realised that he would have to stay, if he wanted to keep making money and start a family down the line. Letters from home told him the situation hadn't changed. Poverty was still rife, and jobs were still very hard to come by.
My nonna, Angela Furci, left Italy as a fresh-faced 20-year-old on the 1st of April 1959. This was after a few days of check-ups and injections in Napoli, all to ensure she’d be safe in a new climate. On the ‘Oceania’, a ship which departed for the sole purpose of taking migrants to Australia, she bunked with 5 other people – two ladies around the same age as her, and a family of three. She was alone, but unafraid, as she quickly struck up a friendship. The lady was Albanian, but she spoke Italian, and they became close over the 23-day journey. Once they got to Melbourne, they never saw each other again.
Since her sister was already living here at the time, her trip to Australia was subsidised by the Australian Government through ‘assisted passage’ – a scheme in which the government would help to pay for migrants’ travel fees if they could confirm they’d have a sponsor in Australia. That sponsor would be responsible for them, ensuring they found work and smoothly made their way into Australian life.
In the words of their daughter, my aunt Maria, this was to "sort out the riff raff." Australia wanted to know they were getting people who’d be keen to work, as there weren't enough workers at the time. Italy had too many people, stifling job prospects. This forced them to attempt to find work – and a better life – elsewhere.
When she arrived, my nonna Angela lived with her sister in Fitzroy. In May 1959, she found a job at a belt factory – a small factory, working with just 10 other people. She fondly recalls that she worked there until her first child, Maria, was born.
Nonna’s home life at the time was a bit different. Her sister had already started a family – she had two children to look after. As a result, nonna was, more or less, on her own. Other than going to work, she didn’t have many opportunities to go out.
She recalls a time when she was made to go to the fruit shop to buy some peas. Seems simple enough, but she didn’t speak any English at the time. Her relatives told her she’d see them on the shelves, so she wouldn’t have to worry about speaking – and so she went.
“I was like a dog in a church,” she says. After a few minutes, and a stare from the cashier, she made the short walk back home, asking her sister why she’d make her go when she knew she couldn’t speak English. Her sister had some knowledge of the language, so she made the trip – but she too came home empty handed. Turns out the shop didn’t have peas after all.
She tells me her lowest point was a Sunday afternoon at her sister’s, when as per usual, she was washing the dishes, making the coffees – doing all the housework for the family, who’d always come to visit on weekends. Once she was done, she decided to write a letter to her mum back in Italy, letting her know how much trouble she was having, going as far as telling her that she was going to come home. However, she decided against going any further with it, for fear of what her family back home might think. She ended up throwing it out.
Her brother in law found the letter, and told her – “if you want to go back to Italy, then go!” While she was initially optimistic about Australia – she quickly found she wasn’t enjoying it at all.
Meeting up with my nonno Umberto played a big part in changing that. “When nonna met nonno Furci, her life changed! She was happy, she had her own life,” says aunt Maria. At that time, Nonno was a bit of a “wildcat” in her words. He’d go out dancing every Saturday, and he was working as a tailor by day/MC by night. One day, as the story goes, his cousin Santo said something along the lines of “Umberto, you’re 30, you should settle down. I know a girl, I ride the tram with her every day – she’s beautiful.”
He introduced Angela to Umberto, and they fell in love. According to aunt Maria, “he was her ticket out of her predicament.” Her family was taken aback when they heard she found someone, “almost as if they were expecting her not to ever get married.” They got married on the 15th of April, 1961, and started a family soon after.
By 1967, the Furci family had grown from two to six. They gave birth to my uncle, my aunties, and my dad in this time – Maria, Rocky, Tony, and Pina, in that order. My uncle Michael came along in 1975. Umberto soon realised he wouldn’t be able to feed a family off the back of tailoring, as he was an independent professional in an industry being overrun by factories. He didn’t want to become factory fodder, so he found a new line of work – tram conducting.
However, he kept tailoring on the side. He and nonna Angela built a makeshift studio in the back of the family home in Hadfield, and he taught her to work with garments. Soon enough, she became a tailor too. The shed is still there to this day, seen in this site's cover image – a photo which my nonna took, "sometime in the 90s.” He’d work on the trams by day and work on orders at night, and nonna Angela would work on them while looking after the kids.
With little English knowledge in the early 60s, nonno fluked the English test he had to pass to become a conductor, and he got straight to work. He'd often sing songs and tell jokes, becoming well known along the north-western tram lines where he worked. Nonna remembers there was an old European folk song he’d always sing – the Ciucciarella – she starts to sing along, as she remembers the song's name.
Working on the trams allowed nonno Umberto to constantly interact with people – something he adored, as he was a showman. Of course, there were the teenagers that would rub him the wrong way, but he took it all in his stride. There’s one joke Maria distinctly remembers him telling, and it played on the idea that he was an Italian still coming to grips with the English language, all while working with and around English speakers. Since he too came with assisted passage – the government subsidised his journey here, as he was moving in with relatives already in Australia – he’d always say something along the lines of “the Australian government asked me to come here, but you came with chains around your ankles!”
He worked as a conductor for around 30 years, finishing up in 1992. In this time, he managed to star in an advertisement for The Met (look out for him at the 43 second mark!), which nonna Angela speaks about below. The photos in the gallery below are all taken from his retirement ceremony – nonna Angela fondly recalls “many of the men were crying,” as he was such a well-known, well-liked figure in the industry.
Like anything he did in life, he did it with passion – wearing it on his sleeve, even up to his final days. Our last photo together was taken on his 82nd birthday, not long before he passed, in December 2011. In it, he’s both sharply dressed and wearing his signature tram pin – showcasing two of his three loves.
He, the conductor, and Angela, the tailor, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary that year.
