By PETER and CATHIE SHEEHAN, ne' Bianco
THE Bianco Clan made an especially big deal about the La Fiera Italian Festival in Myrtleford earlier this month, as they had a milestone celebration of their own.
Exactly 100 years ago this month, their founding father, Santo Bianco, left Italy for this new far-away country.
He had left his young wife Santa Mazza and two baby sons Fillipo and Vincenzo in their home village of Bianchi in Catanzaro, Calabria.
The plan was for them to follow as soon as he could send home enough money.
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At 22-years old and already a qualified tailor, even with a trade, life was a struggle in post WWI Italy.
Only fortune brought the clan to Myrtleford.
Santo had intended to join his brother Francesco in Pennsylvania, but was blocked by newly changed US laws restricting post-war European migration.
So, Australia it became.
He found tailoring work in Flinders Lane but it was six years before he had the money to bring Santa and the boys out.
However, Santa was unhappy in the city and wanted fervently to join her Mazza cousins already growing tobacco at Markwood.
So, Myrtleford it became.
Some very tough years followed, struggling to grow tobacco and surviving on home-grown produce.
After a time the family moved into a house in Eurobin.
Santa produced three more children; Joe, Mary and Remo.
Tragically, however, she died in childbirth at the Myrtleford Hospital in 1940, when Remo, the youngest, was just four years old.
Three years on, while working as a tallyman at Panlook’s Hop Gardens, Santo met Doris Matthews, who was on a working holiday from Melbourne.
They were married in 1944.
With enormous courage, living in a tiny house in the shade of the hill at Eurobin, where winter frost lasts all day, city girl Doris took on the household.
Together, between 1945 and ‘51 they had five more children; Catherine, Peter, Paul, John and Gerard.
With much hard work and fortitude the blended family became established.
Moving into town in 1947, Santo finally set up his tailor shop.
They later bought a six-acre property near Myrtle Creek, built a house from an old school building and began growing tobacco.
During all this time Santo and Doris were great friends and supporters of many later Italian migrants, helping them get set up.
Doris worked in the office of the Tobacco Growers Association often as a volunteer in the days when the small growers had a particularly tough time.
Their efforts were much recognised in the numerous baskets of fruit and vegetables that were regularly dropped off at their home in later years.
Doris died in the Myrtleford Hospital in 1993 and Santo died peacefully at their home in Myrtle Street in 1994.
At least 40 of his 68 descendants were in town to celebrate the centenary at an event at the Myrtleford Hotel on Saturday evening during the La Fiera weekend.
And there was certainly music - as many of the family have inherited Santo’s skill as a musician and locals may remember his band’s contribution to local dances and to the Myrtleford Brass Band; not only with himself on the trombone, but with sons on tenor horns.
Incidentally, he also made all the band uniforms.
Family members enjoyed seeing lots of historical photographs as Doris and Joe were enthusiastic and early photographers recording family and local events.
And they were thrilled to meet old friends at La Fiera, chatting and sharing stories of Santo, Santa and Doris as they celebrated a century of memories.
- From the Bianco Family
