Thursday, November 15, 2012

A simple tale - the story of Berardino Forlano

I am still waiting on some material to complete Neucleus days - Part One. Bernardino Forlano.In the meantime, I hate not posting. Yet my personal petrol tank is also running very low because of projects and deadlines. Given this, I thought that I would simply share with you in a series of micro-posts a few of the things I have noticed.

This is the photo of Italian Berardino Forlano taken just before his emigration to Australia in 1956. It is from his obituary, written by daughter Lina. You will find the obituary here.

It's a simple nice tale of an ordinary man, not ordinary to his family of course, but one that captures one of the many complex threads that make up modern Australia.

When you read the story, think of the turmoil of the Second World War. Think of those in Europe who went through that turmoil. Then, in Berardino's case, he went to work in the mines in Belgium.

From there, and luckily, to Australia. There he worked, married and raised  a family.

I have known many Italian migrants and children of Italian migrants.  I thought that Lina's story of her dad captured it all rather nicely. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jim, his story is that of almost a whole generation. thanks for sharing this link.

kvd

Jim Belshaw said...

I know, kvd. That's partly why I shared it.