Maria Isabel Marimon (nee Tornero)

Story

My name, when I came to Australia, was Maria Isabel Tornero, but from the time I was born everyone called me Maribel. I came to Australia with my parents Luis and Cecilia (nee Blanco) Tornero in December 1962. We came by plane from Madrid, Spain. I didn’t want to come. For me it was not that easy. I had a very busy life, with lots of good friends that I saw nearly every day.

My wonderful life studying, dance classes, spending time with friends and working all came to an end when my mum and dad decided that we would go to Australia and have a great adventure, just like the promotional movies and pictures the Australian embassy people showed us promised. They showed us a movie about Australia and told us there would be jobs waiting and fully furnished houses at low rent readily available. Australia needed skilled labour, which made it very easy for us to travel to Australia.

I said good-bye to family, my dear grandmother who was ill at the time, my wonderful teachers, my dance colleagues and my friends at a farewell party. I never saw my grandmother again, she died three months later. On the day we left for our big adventure to Australia, we locked the front door of our apartment and that was that. No more dance classes, no more studies and no more friends.

We arrived in Sydney in the early afternoon after three days. We stopped in India and Darwin. A bus took us through Sydney to Fairy Meadow near Wollongong. There was no one on the streets!! Everything looked old, like a town from the old cowboy movies that Americans used to make. It felt like we had boarded a plane in the 20th century & some how we had gone back in time!

By the time we arrived at our destination it was very late. We were told ‘this is a hostel; this is where you will live’. A tin shed, like a tin wine barrel that had been cut in half through the middle and put on the ground, round side up. Inside was very hot, it had one single bed, a sofa that could be opened and used as a double bed, one small table, three chairs, a chest of draws and a heater, no cooking facilities.

The bathroom and laundry facilities were communal, so was the dining room. What happened to the fully furnished house that they promised! We had to go to the dining room for all our meals. There were people from many different countries. I liked that part. What I didn’t like was all the single man that would wait at the door, continually looking, even while I ate, not letting one pass, waiting near our front door and following me everywhere. I became very depressed. I stopped eating, & could not sleep.

Dad had found work at BHP, the steelworks. There were not many places available to rent, but we found a converted garage in Port Kembla & we moved in. The place belonged to a very nice Italian family. There was only one toilet, a small shed in the back yard with a bucket that was collected once a week.

In the meantime, I met new people, made new friends from all around the world. I learned to speak Italian, Portuguese and some German. I also made Spanish friends. One of them was a nice and good looking young man. His name was Luis Marimon, from Madrid; we had a lot in common.

Luis was going back to Spain, he was at university in Madrid, but then we met. He applied for a permanent visa so he could stay here. In the meantime my parents wanted to go back, they could never settle here. I could not leave Luis behind. I loved him. We decided to get married.

Luis and I married on 8 November 1964, a day before my 17th birthday. Luis was 24 years old. We made a life together and had two beautiful daughters, Rose Isabel born in December 1965 and Sylvie born in April 1968.

Luis was a hard worker and great provider for our family. We wanted to give our daughters all the opportunities we could, just like we had had. A good education and a good start in life. I wanted to help and worked as a supervisor in a Bonds clothing company and for many years as a jewelery consultant. I worked for over twenty years.

Lots of things have happened in our life, some good, some not so good but we have had a very good life together. We travelled the world, including Spain & seeing parts of Australia. We have our daughters whom we are very proud of & 3 wonderful grandchildren that we dearly love, Christine Raquel Warren, Daniel Carlos Warren and Aiden Garner.

I sometimes think, what would have happened if I had gone back to Spain many years ago. I think of Spain as a mother, it is where our roots are, we are proud of where we came from and of whom we are. Spain prepared us to be good members of society and gave us freedom to set our roots down where ever we wanted. We have done so here, we are the beginning of what will hopefully be a long family line in this country that we love, Australia.

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