Italo Dall’Armi
| Town/City | Broken Hill |
|---|---|
| First name | Italo |
| Last name | Dall'Armi |
| Country of Origin | Castelucco Treviso Italy |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1949 |
| Submitted by | Christine Adams |
Story
After the Second World War, Treviso was over-populated. We were a farming family that was struggling against poverty and landlord corruption. I believed the only solution to my family’s problems, was to emigrate and prepare the way for other members of my family to join me. Fortunately I was able to come here to Australia. So I made a plan, before I left Italy and I am still, after fifty-three years, sticking to that plan
.
I left Italy on the 10th August, 1949. In those days after the war, we had cardboard suitcases. I picked up my suitcase and the handle came off and all the clothes that my mother had pushed into the suitcase came out! Necessity is the master of invention. I worked out a quick way to resolve the problem. I took my belt off, wrapped it around the suitcase and carried it from the train to the ship. But there was another problem after that! I had to keep my trousers up with the other hand! I carried the suitcase with one hand and held my trousers up with the other! As I said, necessity is the master of invention.
I went to Griffith after I disembarked in Sydney but I couldn’t speak English and I knew my uncle, who was working on the mine in Broken Hill, could help me. I came to Broken Hill in November, 1949 and lived for two years with my uncle in a boarding house for men.
In 1951 I bought a block of land. It cost me eighty-five pounds. I worked by day with a builder and then I worked late into the night on building a house. In 1954 I sold the house and I paid all my debts. I had two thousand pound net profit from the house and I thought I was a rich man, with half of my plan already on the way! But the plan wasn’t finished yet. I built another house and brought my parents out from Italy in 1956.
Saverina Sinopoli and I married in Fitzroy, Melbourne on the 12th June 1965 and we returned to live in Broken Hill.
I think I will die in Broken Hill but I will die happy because the plan that I made fifty-four years ago went accordingly. We achieved what we planned. Thank God for that.