‘Entra! Entra!’ The house even smelt Italian. Mrs Donetta Bracamonte had laid out every cold cut imaginable, from prosciutto to salamis to mortadella. It was all there and so perfectly presented that I thought I had entered a delicatessen. “Don’t make yourself too full on those, I have pasta al sugo rosso coming up for you,” Mrs Bracamonte said.
Donetta Bracamonte has lived in Australia for 65 years, and 60 of those have been spent living in the Warrawong area, in a grand two-storey house overlooking the glittering Port Kembla beach.
“I left Italy when I was 20 years old. It wasn’t easy. I left all my family behind, my sister and four brothers and my mother and father. It broke my heart, but my husband was waiting for me”.
Mrs Bracamonte met her husband Gino in their hometown of Sant’Andrea di Conza [Avellino, South of Italy] at church on Christmas eve, and the rest was history.
“He was immaculately dressed, so very well-mannered and well spoken, with the posture and grace of a true gentleman. One could never tell that he had not even two cents to rub together. However, that didn’t faze me in the slightest, I knew instantly that I wanted to marry this man and I did”.
After only 15 days together, Donetta and Gino married in a state hall in Naples, however life in Italy proved too hard for the newlyweds. Money was tight and there was no work to be found, so Gino packed his bags and left for Australia in order to begin work as a fruit picker in Griffith and to better establish himself for when his wife arrived. Donetta would arrive two years later to join Gino, once he had paid off his own ticket and hers working in the cane cutting business in Queensland during the winters and picking fruits in Griffith in the summer time.
“I arrived in Australia from Naples on the 22nd of December 1931, by the ‘The Fairsea’ ship. I remember seeing Gino and he did not look well, he was so skinny I could tell that he was working himself to the bone, literally. So after a hug and kiss I said to him, ‘c’mon amore, let’s go, I’ll cook you a nice plate of pasta with meats’”.
Donetta and Gino spent the next five years living together with a Yugoslavian/Italian family in Griffith who had also moved to Australia in the hopes to create a better life. Together the two families lived in a two room house which was split into the kitchen, dining area and sleeping areas in one room and the bathroom in the next.
Donetta and Gino shared this small house with Rosa and Tony—who were from an Italian and Yugoslavian backgrounds—and their four children. Here Donetta started what would become a lifetime friendship with the lovely, Rosa.
“Life was extra hard for me as I am illiterate, so my dear friend Rosa would help me to write letters to my family back in Italy and help me with paper work and even taught me how to write my name and create a signature. In return I helped her cook and work our way through le facende (house work)”.
After settling in and getting used to the Australian surroundings and way of life, Donetta began work at an Italian restaurant named, ‘Capri’. Here Donetta worked alongside Rosa as a cook. But soon after, Donetta fell pregnant to her first child and left her position at Capri.
“After I gave birth to my first child, Maria, Gino and I had saved enough money to place a deposit on our first house and start our little family life”.
Donnetta had Rosa and her family move in with her and Gino into their new Warrawong home until they were financially ready to find a place of their own. Here the families had a lot more room to raise their children and were a part of a community in Warrawong that they could identify with. All of their neighbours were either Italian, Macedonian or Spanish. The men would sit outside of their Warrawong homes and play scopa and games of chess all together. Delicatessens were all around and Donetta and Gino could hear their Italian language being spoken once again
“Warrawong back then was like little Italy, it straight away felt like home”.
Image sourced by: Ralph, M. (2012) Port Kembla Steelworks. Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelanthonyralph/
After moving to Warrawong, both Donetta and Gino began work at the Port Kembla Steelworks. However, being illiterate it was difficult for Donetta to land this job.
“Nobody anywhere wanted to hire me. I couldn’t speak the language, I could barely understand it and I couldn’t write- not in English or Italian”.
“I was lucky to get work at the Capri restaurant thanks to my connection with Rosa. But at the Steelworks I was turned down with my first interview. However, I did not give up. I went to the Steelworks the next day with a mop and some cloths and began cleaning. Soon enough they added me to the pay roll and taught me what all the warning signs around the area meant”.
Donetta continued working at the Port Kembla Steelworks for 11 years. She raised three children, Maria, Enzo and Addelina and visited her hometown of Sant’Andrea di Conza in her late forties with her husband, but says she wouldn’t go back there again.
‘‘It would make me lonely to go back, there is nothing there for me anymore, my friends and family are all in heaven and I feel Australia is my home now”.
At age 85, Donetta is now a proud nonna to seven grandchildren and enjoys spending her days knitting clothes and blankets for each of them. Each Sunday her house is filled with all her children and grandchildren for their traditional family luncheon together where she makes her famous pasta al sugo rosso.
“When I see my family together, talking and eating, my heart is filled”.
