Summary

Passenger Ticket for the Lloyd Triestino Line ship MV Oceania, issued to Andrea Andrighetto on the 31 January 1952. The ticket states that the ship will leave Genova for Sydney on 1 February 1952. Born in 1932 and the oldest of six siblings, Andrea grew-up in Fara, Vicenza, Italy on a 4 hectare farm, with 1 cow and 1 pig. They family made enough to subsist and grew some wheat, maize and had some grape vines. As the eldest Andrea felt it was his responsibility to improve his family's prospects, so he decided to migrate to Australia following in the footsteps of an uncle and cousin who had immigrated in the 1930s and settled in Sydney.

He had to wait 12 months and undergo a dental operation before he was allowed to migrate. Aged 20 he travelled on the MV Oceania with around 900 other Italian migrants, with the ship travelling to Sydney via Naples, Messina, Port Said, Colombo, Fremantle and Melbourne. In Australia he worked in Brisbane as a carpenter (he had been a cooper in Italy) from 1952-54, returning to Sydney in 1954 to assist his aunt and sick uncle run their farm and working in construction during the day. On his arrival in Australia Andrea spoke no English and found life quite difficult, he attended evening English classes and within six months could handle basic conversation.

In 1955 one of his brothers joined him and they worked building the Cronulla oil refinery before moving on to building bridges in Balranald NSW and Murchison in Victoria. In 1956 he moved to Melbourne. In 1958 the rest of his family (including a new born sibling) arrived from Italy, and as his brother had married Andrea was left with much of the responsibility of looking after them, although his brother's in laws did assist the family in finding some boarding rooms.

Then Jack Silvagni offered the family a 4 bedroom house in Canning St Carlton for a discount rate of 6 pounds a week, where they stayed for two years. During this time, everyone got jobs, started marrying and settling down. In 1963 Andrea married an Australian girl and they settled in Reservoir.

Physical Description

Passenger ticket with printed red and black text on a yellow background with a decorative black boarder. Details have been filled in with typed black text and red stamps.

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