Theresa Micallef

Story

Theresa Micallef (nee Vassallo), was born in Cairo, Egypt, on 18 February 1923. She was the third child born to George and Georgina Vassallo, Egyptian-born people of Maltese descent.

During the Second World War while working in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1943, she met Joseph Micallef, a Maltese shipwright who came to Egypt with his brother Charles as part of the British war effort. Ironically, brothers Joseph and Charles Micallef married sisters Theresa and Melita Vassallo in Alexandria, and all were destined to migrate to Australia from Malta in 1949 and 1950 as part of the post-war immigration programme conducted by the Australian

Government.

Catholic nuns in Cairo educated Theresa where she became fluent in both Italian and French as well as speaking both Arabic and Maltese. During her life in Australia she was also able to add English to her impressive arsenal of five different tongues!

Theresa\’s father George died suddenly in his mid forties, leaving his wife to fend alone for her five children, a formidable task considering the world-wide economic depression in the early 1930\’s, later compounded by the travails of the Second World War. Life for working people in Egypt during these stressful times would not have been easy. Fortunately, Theresa was a beautiful girl with a great disposition and she would have coped with her plight while also helping her mother and siblings along the way.

After travelling back to Malta with her husband Joseph and infant daughter Stella and also accompanied by Charles and Melita and their infant daughter Helen, the newcomers from Egypt were obliged to settle in to unfamiliar surroundings while their husbands resumed duties at the British Naval Dockyards.

War-torn Malta was a harsh environment offering little hope for many young families, so when the opportunity to migrate to Australia arose, the Micallef boys were among the first Maltese immigrants, leaving in 1949. Unfortunately they were not able to bring their wives and children with them but the families were eventually able to join them in 1950.

Theresa sailed to Australia on the Greek-owned migrant ship the SS Cyrenia accompanied by her two first-born children, Stella (born in Alexandria on 16 February 1944) and Alfred (born in Malta on 4 January 1947). This would have been an adventurous undertaking for a young woman with two small children Ð a journey to the unknown but with great hopes for a better life for her fledgling family. They arrived in Freemantle, WA, on 20 May 1950 before sailing on to Melbourne, Victoria, where a jubilant husband and father, Joseph, met them.

A further train trip to Queanbeyan, NSW, brought them to the place where they would live with Joseph\’s brother Charles and his family for the ensuing two years while awaiting the allocation of a government house in Canberra, ACT, which saw them move to a pre-fabricated house in First Street, Narrabundah ACT in 1952. They moved further down the same street to No 10 in 1959, where they continued to reside for the rest of their lives Ð Theresa died in 1998 and Joseph in 2005.

Theresa was the proud mother of nine children: Stella, born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1944; Alfred, born in St Julian\’s Bay, Malta in 1947; and a further seven children born in Canberra Ð Joan, 1951; Ernest, 1952; James, 1954; Doris, 1955; Maryrose, 1957; Michael, 1959; and Robert, 1964. She had 18 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.

Besides rearing her nine children, Theresa was kept busy attending to her household duties and assisting her husband Joseph with his various hobbies especially the numerous visitors who came to their home to see the Bonsai trees. She was also a devout Catholic and attended church regularly, while also assisting as a volunteer at the Narrabundah St Vincent de Paul charity shop. Sadly, she contracted bowel cancer and passed away in 1998.

– prepared by Stella Keenan, Joseph & Theresa\’s eldest child, 21 November, 2007.

< Back to the Stories