Candido Macinante. 1888 - 1962 |
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View John Beatson's memories video |
MACINANTE FAMILY
Candido Vittorio (Sostituto) was born to Anastasia and Salvatore Macinante at Salerno in 1888, the sixth child in a family of eleven, and given the added name of Sostituto because a previous Candido Vittorio had died at birth.
At the age of twelve years he was taken by his older brothers, Joseph, Amelio and Anthony to Glasgow
Candido went to Narrandera to establish his own business for financial improvement and because he felt that his marriage to Olivia Farrell, January 14, 1914 would have a greater chance of success away from the new relations who did not make his Australian bride very welcome in their midst, particularly as she was five years his senior. The marriage was a very good one and Olivia out-lived many of her younger in-laws.
Mary, an older sister had married Frank Erbetto, a first class tailor who soon established himself in business in Narrandera, and Frank, the original "con" man, encouraged Candido to do the same, as a hairdresser.
He rented a little weatherboard shop in the main street, East Street, from 1914 to 1920 and built, in weatherboard, a small four roomed cottage [unlined for many years] in Bolton Street, opposite the school and the hospital. Four children, Salvatore, Anastasia, Joseph and Millison were born there with the aid of the local midwife.
Although I was about four years of age, I can remember the occasion of Millison's birth. The three of us were despatched to a neighbour's house across a back paddock, covered with buttercups, and given as a special treat a bag of Zu Zu mixed biscuits [ shortbread type with a star of brightly coloured hard icing on top] and a much treasured large ball, fur covered, to play with. When we returned, the ball was put safely away in the cupboard again and we were shown the new sister.
Her face was protected from the ever-present flies by a black silk scarf, the only thing available in their "no frills" existence, and usually used to tie Mum's hat on against the wind and dust when we were taken out anywhere in the Harley Davidson with its home made sidecar to accommodate the kids.
Except for the Erbettos few Italians lived in the town but growing numbers were moving into the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area where the initial industry was grape growing for the vino, and subsequently olive trees were planted around the perimeter as a wind break. Although only put in originally to protect the grape vines, the olive trees soon provided valuable crops of their own.
I can remember bike trips to pick olives and grapes, whenever the season, no charge for the fruit but at the cost of one shilling to pay for a wooden box [lightly made] one could fill it with as much as could be squeezed into it. On other trips to the Murrumbidgee River I was fascinated by the sight of what seemed to me, at that age, hundreds of green baby lobsters clambering over each other in a kerosene tin with a wire handle across the top, which had just been hauled out of the water. They were actually "yabbies" and anyone could set a trap at a favourite spot in the river.
Imported goods, olive oil, olives, anchovies, tuna, preserved vegetables, macaroni and spaghetti were sent by rail, the olive oil in green tins of various sizes and when the tins were emptied they were cut into suitable shapes and converted into pot plants for Mother's geraniums. The geraniums and a low hedge of rosemary made up the garden. The macaroni and spaghetti arrived in wooden boxes mostly 3' x 18" x 18" and these too were recycled as were the kerosene tins, all used to make cupboards, a lot of kerosine was used to keep the lamps alight.
Back to Sydney in 1920, Pappa worked for his brother Anthony and we lived at the "Cosy Corner" a fruit shop [still standing in Railway Parade, Kogarah] with his mother, sisters Elettra and Lucy and younger brothers Edmondo and Johnny. Later, in between moves, we stayed with my maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Farrell widow of John Farrell, at 141 Denison Road, Lewisham before moving on to another hairdresser and tobacconist shop at 221 Glebe Road, Glebe. While at Glebe I developed rheumatic fever and a distraught Candido took me in a horse-drawn cab to the Children's Hospital at Camperdown. The driver sat high at the back of the cab which really only held two people.
Uncle Joe had married an American, Millison [after whom my sister was named], they had no children and Millison sought company other than the ethnic relatives and became associated with a group of shop assistants from Anthony Hordems who were involved in putting on shows for charity. Bonnie MacDonald, a life long friend of Olivia, was also in the show with Millison who may have brought Candido along. He was very fond of music, could not sing a note, but at that time played the mandolin with a group including his brothers.
The Farrells, except for John, were all born here and considered themselves Australian, had no contact with Irish relatives or Ireland, so we developed as Italio-Australian rather than Italian-Irish. As children we played the Italian side very low-key, hating the tag "dago", my brother Salvatore only ever owned up to "Tory" and I "gave the flick" to Anastasia and became "Annie" .... these days I have happily gone back to Anastasia. I dreaded the annual re-writing of the School Roll, having to stand up in class and supply, amongst other information, details of one's father's name .... there was invariably a loud titter around the room when I responded, as quietly as possible with "Candido Vittorio".
The older brothers were Masons and persuaded the younger ones that the only way to succeed in business or any other way, was to join the Masonic Lodge. Candido was greatly influenced by his family and went along with it, not becoming really involved as he had been in the Grand United Order of Oddfellows in Narrandera. We children were only interested in the "secrets", the special way of recognising a fellow Mason, "riding the goat" and the annual Masonic Christmas Tree at the Masonic Hall. We peeped into the little black bag which held his fancy apron, beaded in blue and white, but found out nothing and continued to go to Mass because he always made sure we were awake in time. He dropped out of the Lodge about twenty years before his death in 1962.
Not one of the eleven Macinantes was a practising Catholic, and my father whose wish it was that his children be brought up as Catholics, was only reconciled with the Church a short time before his death. It was Olivia who saw to the training and she was received into the Church in 1933 by Father Dunlea of Boys' Town, then a curate at Hurstville.
Actually the children of Salvatore and Anastasia were never taught their Catholic faith, because at that period in Italy, there were more priests and religious than the impoverished lower classes could support and their resentment was passed on to their children. However, every child of that next generation would have been baptised in the Catholic church, Candido's four at St Mel's in Narrandera, Millison the youngest and Joseph by Father Hartigan, alias John O'Brien author of "Around the Boree Log".
While we lived at Kogarah, about 1922, another daughter, Candida, was born but survived only a couple of days, a priest was brought to the house to baptise her and she was buried in the Catholic cemetery at Rookwood.
Candido was only 12 years of age when he left Italy and only knew the small village where he attended the school at which his father was headmaster. He had a splendid command of English, written and spoken, as well as Italian but, unfortunately, we children [except for brother Joseph who studied it at University] were not sufficiently interested to make the effort .... a fact which I for one greatly regret. We each have a smattering of words and can "get the gist' of the conversation most times.
Pappa, as he was to us and much loved, sold the business in Glebe in 1924 - it was only rented and bought 51 Forest Road, Hurstville, a school tuck shop which once established was left for my mother, with the help of the older children, to manage. He went into partnership with brother Anthony who put up the capital for the rented premises 855 George Street, Broadway, barbering again and it took him forever to pay off his share as Anthony drove a hard bargain.
The Hurstville shop which was our home until the death of Olivia in 1965, was purchased through the PaddingtonWoollahra Starr-Bowkett Society, a co-operative, and the Bank of Australasia held the mortgage. Financial members of the co-operative took part in a monthly ballot and the winners received an interest free loan in accordance with the shares held. Because of the depression and helping to support his blind sister, Elettra, as well as the rest of us, he was never a financial member so when the StarrBowkett notified him that the particular Society was to wind up with him still owing seventy pounds, he had no hope of meeting the mortgage.
On this day I visited, as I often did, our dear friend [ who became] Dame Mary Gilmore, in her tiny flat at 99 Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross and she could see that I was upset. When I sobbed out the story her immediate response was "I will lend him the seventy pounds.." and she gave me a letter for him to take to her solicitor the next day.
Pappa worked in the George Street shop from Gam to 7pm with only Sunday to work in his garden, mend shoes, do necessary household repairs and cook - his very favourite occupation, whether it was making lollies, toffees, honeycomb, toffee apple on sticks or making his own tomato sauce in beer bottles sealed with crown seals and boiled up, with sugar bags separating each layer in the gas copper. He was a very good cook, made his own cheese and sometimes joined brother Edmondo and friends in making pork sausages and salami, it was said that the only part of the pig not used was its squeal.
He read widely and "caught on" quickly to any new invention, my mother would have had one of the earliest electric irons and loaned it to the neighbours who were not too afraid to use it. He built her an ice chest and many more after that for the "Italian connection", the same thing happened when he built his first crystal wireless, only this time the queue was longer. Marconi was his inspiration and as soon as the "Wireless Weekly" came out each Friday with a new circuit, he would begin to dismantle the existing set and use the parts to build the next one. There was a solemn moment every Sunday night when the last wire and the final dot of solder were in place and it was time
for the tuning in. One wonderful night a foreign voice announced that we were hearing Radio Saigon but that was as much as we could understand. Other nights there were wailing call signs, static or profound silence which was the cue for children to discreetly sneak off to bed.
Italian was only spoken when the "ethnic rels" came to visit, and that quite frequently, or when Pappa wanted to swear without offending.
Italian tradition was always observed when births, deaths or marriages took place, in naming children, god parents, gift giving, appointing the head of, or the spokesperson for the family, visiting at Christmas and Easter and the particular observance of Good Friday. Edmondo who had learned his trade from Candido while living with him in Narrandera acquired his own shop in Rose Bay and each Holy Thursday night Candido and Anthony and Italian friends would join with him on a boat trip to Shark Island to catch fish for Good Friday. They would rather starve than break the abstinence law on that one Friday of the year.
Salvatore and Anastasia were brought out by Candido and his brothers about 1912. He was coaxed to come and live with Mary Erbetto in Narrandera where there was a river for fishing and birds and game to shoot ... a sport he had followed since boyhood, meat was a rarity on the table in Italy so people hunted their own food. It was in a shooting accident that he lost a hand. However, he died a broken hearted man, so used to knowing and being loved and respected by everyone in his village, he was lonely and unhappy in the vast emptiness of Australia at that time.
Candido had never seen any of Italy's treasures, never visited Florence, Milan, Rome or Venice, but was proud of and loved them all, loved the music, art and all that the Vatican held, so he was happy when Mussolini brought it all together. He would follow every word on radio until we were saturated with information [which we did not understand] about Abyssinia and Selassi. Outside the home he kept his thoughts to himself, especially as his mother was a Balbo, one of the elite families with its own family crest of which we have a replica. Her brother or a close relative was Italo Balbo 1896-1940.
Amelio married a Scottish girl, Mary, known as Polly while in Glasgow. She had been employed by the brothers as a housekeeper until Salvatore sent a reprimand from Italy and Amelio chose to marry her and eventually bring her to Australia. They settled on a small farm at Matcham, near Gosford with a cousin Dominic Macinante and wife Julia. Amelio was a well respected member of the Matcham community, established an orange orchard and was an original member of the Masonic Lodge there. Unfortunately with the coming of the Depression, the bank foreclosed and this family, after years of hard work and content still to sleep on mattresses made of corn sacs filled with the husks of the corn, were forced to walk off the property. In Amelio's case his allegiance to the Masonic Lodge paid off, one of his Masonic brothers got him a job in the city markets.
Anthonio Macinante who has written his own story is Amelio's son and went off to fight for Australia without the blessing of his Italian relatives. |
ANASTASIA MACINANTE - CUDDY |
In 1912 Candido accompanied his father Salvatore on a journey from Sydney to Narrandera. Salvatore made notes comparing his observations with his homeland, Italy. Click to read Salvatore's Journey Centerary |
Anastasia Cuddy Story8th October 2009I am Anastasia Cuddy, daughter of Candido Macinante born 1916 in Narrandera and I am probably the eldest of my generation. At the age of twelve Candid was taken by his older brothers Joseph, Amelio and Anthony to work in Glasgow where he was trained to work as a tailor but eventually went onto the land with a cousin Domenic and wife Julia. Amelio was lame having been born with a "Club" foot. In 1908 the four brothers arrived in Australia and lived in Bourke Street, Surry Hills. My son Peter treasures has grandfather's sea-chest; it bears the label "Orsova". Joseph, Anthony and Candid were skilled tradesmen and were soon employed; Anthony by Sol Levy whose hairdresser and tobacconist shop may still be in George Street, close to Quay Street. Years later Anthony had his own business at 781 George Street and eventually went into partnership with Candid at 855 George Street (now part of TAFE) and Johnny in Quay Street. In 1912 Salvator and Anastasia were persuaded to bring out the rest of the family but Salvatore was unhappy coming from a small village where he was loved and a respected headmaster. Now he was a stranger in this foreign land who could not speak the language and really died of a broken heart two years later in 1914. In this year 1914, Candid married Olivia Farrell and set up his business in Narrandera where his sister Mary, having married Frank Erbetta had moved to, and took Edmondo who became Edmond, to live with them and learn the trade. At my birth in August 1916, my mother's youngest sister Moya came to Narrandera to be my Godmother with Edmond as my Godfather. Moya was a lot younger than my mother and Edmond was fond of her, but the romance was ended when Moya had to return to her mother in Lewisham. By the time that I was about five years of age we had all left Narrandera. We returned to Nonno's at 141 Dennison Road, Dulwich Hill and then at Cosy Corner with Elettra and Lucy on the corner of Railway Parade and Derby Street, Kogarah. We settled in our own home in 1925 at 51 Forest Road, Hurstville. Candid's family moved into a hairdresser and tobacconist shop at 221 Glebe Point Road, Glebe. By this time Edmond had met and fallen in love with Mary Costa. She was not very tall, but plump and loveable with lovely brown eyes and dark pretty hair. The marriage took place in St James Church at Forest lodge where I made my first Holy Communion with my brother Tory on the 24th May 1924. Mary's mother, Mrs Costa gave me a small white Italian marble statue of the Virgin Mary. I was train-bearer with the dressmaker's daughter and Nita, Mary Erbetto's daughter as flower girl. We wore pink satin frocks with tulle skirts and rosebud trimming around our hair. In the State library there is a photograph of the group which I donated to the Macinante Collection through Jim Andrighetti. My father was there amongst the buxom women and I in the front row "hunched up" in spite of the photographer's pleas to put my knees down. I held them up because I did not want to get dirt from the floor to touch my shinny white kid court shoes. For payment Norman Macinante has since obtained a copy of the wedding photograph. As a gift I received a small gold cross and chain with a small red stone in the center and on the day my daughter Elizabeth's baby Rebecca was born, I took it to her in Nepean Hospital. Anastina was the first-born at Rose Bay where Edmond and Mary lived at the Dover Road shop and my father was asked to be her Godfather which entailed his providing the complete Christening outfit and a gift as a memento. In return he was given a gold tie pin with a small diamond enclosed. We had a sepia photograph of this pretty baby girl with fair curls, only just able to sit up on the table and around her neck wore the gift, a charm on a gold chain, deep pink in colour and probably fashioned from polished shark tooth. Anastina was a sweet child and I think she would have inherited many genes from her gentle and refined grandmother, Mary Costa's mother. I do not know of any siblings but an old character known as "Old Joe" did all the dirty work around the place, however, not much is known about him but he grew old with the family. Nestina, as she became known, was not very old when her sister Francesca arrived then after the girls came their brothers. I always felt sad that she was allowed, even encouraged, to drink like a man at an early age. I blame her father Edmond for that. She worked at the counter and was popular with the American Servicemen who were based on the flying boats at Rose Bay. Edmond soon to found that money was to be made on the black market by trading with the Americans in American cigarettes, tobacco and spirits. I still can remember the tiny bottles brilliantly coloured essence, mandarin, cherry, crème-de-montheand and aniseed. One bottle would be added to a pint of alcohol into which at least a pound of sugar had been dissolved. Once given a taste in a liqueur glass, one sip was enough to burn the throat and stomach unforgettably. To help Mary with the washing of towels and haircloths and pregnant for most of the time, Edmond imported one of the very earliest washing machines to come to Australia. The shop was a ron-de-vouz for many prominent people of that time. Among them were the Hon Abraham Landa, Joe Lamaro, and brother Vince, the Evatt Brothers and Jim Bohane of "Niland and Bohane" solicitors whom I had never met were present at the party Uncle Eddie put on for my 21st birthday and Uncle Eddie presented me with a solitaire diamond ring. A number of years later this ring became my engagement ring because my intended husband Rowe Cuddy was still paying off debts incurred by his late wife's death. I have a snapshot taken by my brother Tory in the yard of 51 Forest Road, Hurstville. It shows Uncle Eddie and my dear sister Millison holding my first born son Peter on the day of his baptism, they were his godparents. Fascinating things went on in the Costa's house. There was a large shed covered in grapevines and inside there was an old iron bath filled with grapes and fermenting juice fresh from the treading. Brother Joe and I used to be part of the sausage making when the one bit of the pig not used was its squeal. My father made the tin funnels and dowel sticks for pressing the mince meat into the skins which had to be pricked with a large needle to reduce the air gaps. Compara Costa was only there to supervise and smoke his pipe had Brother Joe mesmerised by the accuracy with which he could spit into the enamel spittoon on the floor almost a yard away. Over the years families were extended. At some of the Macinante picnics we had over one hundred family members present. My father kept in touch with his brothers and sisters and always helped to support Elettra all her life, but visiting was difficult and had to be on special occasions. Regrettably there were many we did not get to meet and know because of their location. I never got back to Leeton where we picked grapes and olives in 1920 and only heard of the Senti family relations "along the grape vine". Authors note: Completed 8th January 2010 |
Memories of Millison Beatson (nee Macinante) sent to Michael Macinante 19th. November 2004 These are some memories I have of the Hurstville branch of the Macinantes. Candido Macinante married Olivia Farrell in 1914. PAPA
Papa (Candido) had a hairdressing tobacconist business in George St. Sydney & Mum
had a school tuckshop opposite Hurstville Girls' High School where they both worked hard.
Papa would leave home early like 5AM, walk down the long lane to Allawah station to catch
the train to the city where he walked down the long subway & across busy George St
to his shop to let his barbers in.
What fascinated us children about this lovely home was, it had an attic where one could conduct an S.P.
betting ring on horses starting price. With a "look out" up there watching for a raid. MILLISON BEATSON Nee MACINANTE
* her friend OLIVIA
Looking back on my early life I think of it as really happy even if more difficult in some ways for some,
such as going to a family picnic with Mum & her sisters. This chosen place being Carrs Park where the water was shallow for a fair way out & plenty of trees all around, for shade.
MILLISON BEATSON |
Candido's parents: Salvatore and Anastasia |
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Candido's birth certificateThe certificate is hand written, Display the certificate in a new window with scroll barsWait - on a 56Kbps connection might be a few minutes |
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Olivia Macinante with son Salvatore and neighbour |
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Olivia Macinante with son Salvatore |
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Left to right:- Olivia, Anastasia Joe, Tory Candido, Millison |
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![]() 51 Forest Road, Hurstville looking towards Allawah ![]() This note on the back of the photo was written by Anastasia Cuddy nee Macinante Anastasia righting about her brother's early life at Hurstville : ".....grandma Wheatly ... and Tory became 'first best friends'. She taught him to use his Brownie camera ,... how to develop the film and make prints ... this was the beginning of his long career in photography and his valuable records of family history." [grandma Wheatly was a neighbour] |
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![]() Rear of Grandma & Pappa's home 51 Forrest Road, Hurstville |
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Left to right: Millison Macinante, Joseph Macinante, Dorothy O'Brien, Kathleen O'Brien, Mary Veronica Macinante (nee O'Brien), Salvatore Macinante, Anastasia (Annie) Macinante photo 1/1/1938 at Hurstville |
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Ann and Rowe |
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Joe and Teresa |
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Millison and Gordon |
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Candido and Olivia Macinante |
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Candido and Olivia Macinante with grandchildren |
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28 April 1957 |
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855 George St Railway Square Sydney about 1926 left: Zilpha Staples front right: Giocondo (Johnny) Macinante |
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There is a little shuttered timber shop in Forest Road, Hurstville, that few old pupils of Hurstville Public School can forget.
Until it closed ten years ago it was the "official" tuckshop, and while it functioned school authorities would not allow another to open in the school grounds. The shop is steeped in Australian history - the little bit of Australia that went astray on the rimof the "Green Hell" of the South American jungle. In the sitting-room of the shop, 77-year-old Mrs Olivia Macinante unfolded for Leader readers a story rich in Australian literature. As the daughter of the Australian poet John Farrell, this warm, human woman can talk vividly of the men and women who believed the doctrine of Karl Marx and went, 1000 strong, to Paraguay to form a New Australia. In the lounge-room of Farrell's home people such as Victor Daly, George Essex Evans, Le Brereton and her poet father discussed with the leader of the expedition, William Lane, their ambition to form a new colony based on the ideals of the brotherhood of man. The story of expedition, its support by the South American Government and subsequent failure is nowpart of history - but to Olivia Macinante it is still real and vivid. But it was to the home of the "penpusher" as he called himself - that that many returned from Paragguay. Among them was the young poetess Mary Gilmore whose friendship with the family remained deep and close ever sinc as he called himself -------hip and sought their help. "I shall always remember those days" said Olivia Macinante, "when my father sat for hours listening to the stories of the experiment and how it had failed because of the frailty of human nature.
"My father's best known poem was "The Last Bullet." |
"It is the tragic story of a settler who reserved the last bullet for his wife when they were attacked by a group of ferocious blacks. "He used the bullet just as the shouts of the rescuers reached his ears."
In the 30 years Mrs. Macinante's shop was the "official" tuckshop of Hurstville School, thousands of pupils scrambled across her counter for their daily lollipops and sandwiches. The school was marched across the road to the side street, and the wireless placed in the open window.
On the shop's old wooden door is carved the names of men and women now well known in the business world of St George district.
"Opposite the shop" said Mrs Macinante, "was the old Blue Port Hotel, which became the gathering place for Hurstville people.
Last week Mrs. Macinante was discussing with her daughter, Ann Cuddy, of Hurstville, the icing of Dame Mary Gilmore's Christmas cake. Mrs Macinante's most complimentary remark she kept to the last: "My life in Hurstville for 50years has been rich and full I would not have lived anywhere else in the world," she said. |
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Woronora Cemetery |
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Recordings by Joe MacinanteThis is Joseph Anthony Macinante recording in March 1995. My object is to record some reminiscences, instructions or whatever else may come into my mind that could be of interest to the family subsequently. The major part of this tape is a review of the kind of work I did at CSIR now CSIRO during the 34 years from 1944 to 1978.At first we were heavily involved in the inspection of machines in industry to ensure that materials for munitions were of specified quality. After the war we got down to our basic objective of establishing standards of for measurements of force, pressure and other physical quantities important in engineering. Later we became involved in the investigation of vibration problems for industry and this work became my major interest until my retirement. There is a tape recording of an interview that Ben Holloway made with me on Fathers Day 1993. This covers a broad sort of biography of my earlier years up to the secondary school times. Also Ben has written a document he called Good Vibrations which is a general and quite comprehensive outline of my earlier years and activities. I shall now try to recall some of the highlights of my professional activities. During the war years CSIRO engaged in activities to ensure that materials used for munitions were up to standard of specified quality as specified by the Navy, Army, Air Force and Government Department of Munitions. Now what did this involve? For example how did we test the strength of steel for use in munitions, aircraft and the like? A sample of the steel in the form of a rod about 1 /2" diameter 4-6 inches long was gripped in the jaws of a tensile testing machine capable of applying loads of 50 tons and more using a hydraulic cylinder to load the specimen and the load was increased until the specimen, broke. The machine indicated the breaking load and if that load was below the specified value, the batch of steel was rejected. In addition to testing these tensile testing machines, we tested hardness testing machines, pressure gauges, tachometers and various other engineering measuring instruments. My responsibility for the small group of staff was to travel to all the major engineering works in Sydney, Newcastle, Port Kembla, BHP, Small Arms Factory Lithgow, and factories in Victoria and Queensland. Our activity was referred to as the calibration to check the accuracy of the machine reading of load or the accuracy of the hardness testing machines, the impact testing machines, and any other instruments. Now how did we calibrate the machine load scale? In the jaws of the machine we fixed a device called a proving ring, which consists of a steel ring which was stretched by the machine thereby increasing the internal diameter of the ring. Micrometer reading of the diameter of the ring corresponded to the load. To relate this reading to the load applied to the ring, the ring itself was calibrated in another machine which applied dead load., Small rings for example 5" or so diameter were designed for loads of a 1 few hundred kilograms, the largest about 15" diameter could measure 50 tons or more. CSIRO NML Lindfield now have a 50 ton dead weight machine for this purpose. Another way of testing the quality of steel was by testing the hardness of a sample of the steel. This was done by making an indentation in the sample using a diamond indentor in a hardness testing machine which could apply a force of say 20 kilograms to the indentor. Indentors could be in the form of a pyramid, a cone or a steel ball. The size of the indentation was a measure of the quality of the steel. If the indentation was too large, the material was too soft and had to be rejected. An unusual demand for hardness testing arose in early 1950's from the manufacturers of ball point pens. How to make a pyramidal indentation in a ball only 1mm diameter, and calculate the area of that indentation. The technique devised for this is described in a paper published in 1953. In the course of our visits to engineering works to calibrate testing machines, engineers began asking for advice on various other problems, most common being the control of unwanted vibration. How to prevent a vibrating machine or engine from disturbing sensitive instruments and processes in the vicinity? At about this time 1945-1947 I was awarded a travelling scholarship from the University of Sydney. In 1948 CSIRO offered to send me as a paid officer on one years research overseas. Whether or not to accept this offer posed a real problem because Teresa and I had been married since 1945, we had 2 children Mary Clare 2 years old and Patricia Anne 3 months. All my expenses would be paid but I would be responsible for all other family costs - anyway we decided to give it a go. Through the good offices of Sir Henry Barraclough, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sydney, I was accepted as a Research Student at Clare College Cambridge to study the measurement and control of vibration. At the end of the academic year at Cambridge we moved to Teddington where I was engaged in acoustics research at the National Physical Laboratory. The story of our domestic life in England with our 2 children could fill a book. It is described in considerable detail in the weekly letters Teresa and I wrote home and which have been retained in my files. On return home from the 1950's onward while I still supervised the work on the calibration and development of improved methods of calibration I became more and more involved in vibration problems arising in the engineering industry. For example, at the Ordnance Factory Bendigo a machine producing the gearing for the frigates being built at Cockatoo Docks was on the same floor as, a forging hammer. At Cockatoo Docks a jig grinding machine was likewise disturbed by a forging hammer in the vicinity. At Austral Bronze a large roll grinding machine was disturbed by the sheet metal stamps and presses also in the vicinity. John Sands the printers had a large and costly map S copying camera installed in an old timber framed building. The camera was capable of copying maps 4 ft by 4 ft in area. The camera was in an old timber building in Druitt Street, Sydney and the camera was quite unusable because of the building vibration. A spring mounting was devised for use until the camera could be installed in a suitable basement site. Details of this have been published in 1966. The difficulty in all these problems, is that it is difficult to arrange in the layout of a factory site for the sources of vibration to be installed well away from the vibration sensitive operations. To investigate these mountings it was necessary to measure the characteristics of the source of the vibration and also measure the response of the machine tool or instrument that was being disturbed. Initially in the early 1950's we had no vibration measuring instruments. During the next few years we developed our own optical, electromagnetic and other types of vibration pick up as described in publications in 1953 and 1955. Concurrently it was necessary to calibrate our own instruments especially the electronic ones. When a vibration pick up is put on a vibrating object it produces an electric signal or a wave form that can be displayed on a cathode ray oscilloscope. To calibrate the vibrometer it must be subjected to a known vibration and the electrical signal related to the amount of vibration. A major difficulty here is the smallness of the vibration. We are all familiar with the vibration experienced in motor cars and aeroplanes but these are very very large vibrations compared to those which are important in the engineering industry where a vibration of a few thousands of an inch could be most important. So how to calibrate our own instruments to measure such small vibrations? Fortunately at CSIRO there were colleagues who were using optical interferometry to determine the standard of length measurement. By vibrating one of the optical components of an interferometer we were able to measure vibrations of millionths of an inch. How this was done is described in a letter to Nature in 1950. Nature is the Science Journal published in London in which scientists stake claim to their breakthroughs in any field of science. From the 1960's we no longer had to depend on our homemade vibrometers. Commercially available piezo electric pick ups and other kinds of electronics were much more effective. Methods we devised to calibrate these are described in publications in 1953 and 1974. Also about this time commercially available vibration analysers were acquired which by means of electrical filtering analysed the vibration into its harmonic components. This enabled us to find out where the vibration was coming from. On the results of our testing of vibration isolating mountings installed in the 1950's and 1960's for large machine tools, it was clear that there was little understanding of the basic principles for the design of the mountings. The practice was to install the machine on metal springs, rubber, cork or other soft material. The only criterion was that the natural bounce frequency of the machine on its isolators for example 3 cycles per second should be lower than the frequency of the vibration causing the trouble for example 10 cycles per second. This was a gross simplification because the machine on its springs could vibrate sidewise and could rotate in rolling, pitching and yawing motion as in a boat in water. To design the mounting it was necessary to know the frequencies of these vibrations. We devised a simple method of calculating these natural frequencies as published in 1962. Another way in which the simple design criterion was an over simplification was that it did not take into account the part of the machine whose vibration was causing the trouble e.g. the tool spindle or the grinding wheel. We devised design data to enable the designer to select a suitable natural frequency for the mounting taking into account the response of the critical part of the machine as well as the characteristics of the vibration to be isolated. The results were published in 1973. The foregoing has referred to the isolation of vibration sensitive machine tools and instruments from site vibration. Another group of problems demanding our attention concerned the vibration isolation of sources of vibration in high rise buildings. Some decades ago the air conditioning and other machinery was installed on a solid floor in the basement. In modern high rise buildings this space is too valuable to be wasted on the machinery and the plant room is installed on an upper floor. Vibration from the machinery can disturb occupants of adjacent floors. For example, the stand -by electrical generating plant on the 45th storey of a Sydney building had been installed on overloaded rubber isolators and disturbed the occupants of adjacent floors whenever it was operated. Again the simple design criterion was inadequate mainly because the flexibility of the floor was not taken into account. We developed design data showing how the designer could select the required natural frequency for the mounting taking into account the flexibility of the floor as well as the frequency of the machinery vibration. Results were published in 1977. After my retirement from CSIRO in 1978 my major pre-occupation was the writing of my book Seismic Mountings for Vibration Isolation which was published by John Wiley & Sons, New York in 1984. The book presents the basic principles of vibration isolation, vibration measurement, vibration criteria, types of mountings, natural frequencies and all the design data for the design of mountings. Concurrently with our interest in the isolation of vibrating machinery, from the late 1950's we were involved in the dynamic balancing of rotating wheels, shafts and rotors which caused vibration if they were not properly balanced. We assisted Cockatoo Docks, Garden Island and others to balance large turbine rotors. We developed methods of calibrating balancing machines so that the machine could indicate the amount of correction required to eliminate the unbalance of the rotor. The details were published in 1956 and l960. In the 1950's also there was demand for the accurate measurement of rotational speed of engines and machinery. We developed stroboscopic methods published in 1953 and 1960 but there was no further development of these complicated techniques when photo-electric techniques became commercially available. Now getting away from our work on standards of measurement and on vibration isolation, the vibration group became involved during 1962 and 1965 on a vibration investigation of the 210 ft radio telescope at Parkes N.S.W. This was undertaken at the request of the CSIRO Division of Radio Physics as part of their study of the radio telescope. At the request of the United States, NASA (National Aeronautics & Space Administration), our task was to determine the modes of structural vibration. How this was done and the results obtained are described in a mechanical engineering science monograph published by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London and in papers in 1967 and 1969. This concludes a review of my scientific and technical activities as an officer of CSIRO from 1944 to 1978. In concluding I must acknowledge that the advances we made and the results that we achieved were the result of a team effort by the vibration group of the Division of Applied Physics. My colleagues were John L. Goldberg whose major contributions were in the development of interferometric methods of vibration measurement, and in the analysis of structural vibrations , as well as in other independent research projects. My right hand man in vibration isolation work was Barry Donen Brown who also specialised in the measurement of vibration of large structures. Jim Mouttou was involved in one way or another in all our research. Norm Clark and Bill Cresswell, Bruce Meldrum and Paul Drew were all involved in the calibration of vibration measuring systems and in the various vibration investigations. There is a list of publications which have been mentioned briefly in my review, from which it can be seen there were joint authors of many of the publications. Over the years a number of ad hoc investigations interrupted our basic programs of research. I now recall some of these - perhaps the most noteworthy was our vibration study of the radio telescope at Parkes N.S.W. I well recall my first visit climbing up through the centre of the structure and out onto the 210ft diameter dish which collects radio signals from outer space. I felt really scared when I first crawled out to the rim of the dish with the ground about 150ft below - to find suitable positions to fix our vibration measuring instrumentation. How were we going to vibrate this enormous structure for the purpose of testing? On the suggestion of the Controller of the Telescope this was done through the driving system which tilted or rotated the dish as required to point it to the part of the sky from which they expected to receive radio signals. They inserted an oscillating electrical signal into the driving system and this could be adjusted in frequency to make the structure vibrate in one or other of its natural modes of vibration. This vibration annoyed the users of the radio telescope because they were afraid that it would distort the shape of the dish. I recall an incident which immensely annoyed the radio astronomers one night who were set up to observe a certain very important phenomena. At the critical time James Waldersee arrived at the site in his old Morris Minor and the transmissions from his spark plugs destroyed their observations. Another ad hoc demand for vibration measurement came from the Navy. They wanted us to measure vibration on HMAS VOYAGER during her trials. Although our instruments were suitable only for building and ground vibration we were able to modify them to measure ship vibration. For the trials Voyager was driven at full speed over a measured mile on Sydney Harbour. At the end of each run the ship made a U-turn and made another run. This was an exciting and memorable experience for our vibration group. My most vivid recollection is that while squatted on deck watching vibration wave forms on a cathode ray oscilloscope I became sea sick. One of the ship's officers gave me a concoction of milk and I don't know what else and after bringing this up I felt o.k. and I was back in business. Another ad hoc demand came from Australian Oil Refinery at Kurnell N.S.W. They requested vibration measurements on a cat cracker, that is a catalytic cracking tower through which passed hot flammable materials. This had developed something like hiccups caused by some internal malfunction. The tower lurched sidewise every few minutes, and because this plant was in a high fire risk area the operators had walked off the job. As Australian Oil Refinery Consulting Engineers did not have suitable instruments we undertook the measurements. From the results we gave the opinion that the plant was unsafe to operate. Because closure would have represented very heavy production losses the plant continued to operate until the cat cracker expert was brought in from the United States who told them to close it down. In 1969 CSIRO sent me overseas for ten (10) weeks to study recent development in vibration measurement and isolation at selected laboratories in Europe, Britain, Canada and the United States and to describe our work in these fields. Also I attended a vibration conference in Newport, Virginia and presented a paper on our vibration study of the Parkes Radio Telescope. I now recall some items of more general interest. The first concerns a most unusual application of vibration. While the Sydney Harbour Bridge was under construction the weight of the incomplete halves of the arch had to be supported until they met in the middle. This was done by using strong steel cables attached to the arch and anchored in the ground. There were 128 twisted steel wire cables about three (3) inches diameter and a thousand feet long, stretched with a tension of about 100 tons. It was necessary to adjust the tension in the cables so that they shared the load. This was done by using hydraulic jacks to adjust the tension. The adjustment was made using the method that is used to adjust the pitch of stringed musical instruments. Each cable was "plucked" by striking it with a sledge hammer and measuring the time taken for the cable to make a hundred vibrations. Direct visual counting was possible because such heavy cables made only 2 or 3 vibrations per second. The tension was calculated from the vibration frequency using a formula appropriate to the length, size and material of the cable. Full details are on file in the State Archives of NSW in the Sydney Harbour Bridge files. My appointment with CSIRO in 1944 was with the National Standards Laboratory which by an act of parliament is responsible for maintaining the Australian Standards of measurement that are necessary for commerce, industry and scientific work. It may be of interest to look back and comment on what those standards were then and what they are now. It is important to be clear on what is meant by a standard of measurement. As an example from prehistoric times, probably the first standards of length were based on limbs of the human body. The length of the foot, the width of the palm or the forearm and so on. When it became necessary to resolve disputes among tribesmen, the length of the chief's foot was taken to be the standard of length. In more recent times more definite standards were used in the form of metal bars. In the 1940's the Australian Standard of length was the yard which was defined as the distance between two lines scribed on a metal bar of a special cross section. Because of errors involved in measuring the distance between scribed lines, since 1960 the metre is defined as a length equal to a defined number of wave lengths of a certain radiation from a krypton 86 atom. The standard that has been most directly involved in my engineering work at CSIRO is the kilogram. This is now the only standard that is in the form of a material, tangible artefact. Standards for the other physical quantities involve complex atomic and scientific phenomena. The standard kilogram is a cylindrical piece of platinum uridum about 40 mm diameter and 40 mm high which is kept under strictly clean conditions on a glass covered stand and handled only with special tongs. Our kilogram is copy no. 44 of the international standard of mass kept by International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Paris. Incidentally on my return to CSIRO from overseas in 1949 I was responsible for seeing that our kilogram was brought safely to Australia. The kilogram is of basic importance in engineering because it determines the force standard. When we speak of the weight of a certain mass we mean the force of the earth's gravitational pull on the mass. Apart from my work outlined already I was involved in a number of related and time consuming activities. These included participation in Applied Mechanics and Vibration Conferences of the Institution of Engineers Australia. I well remember an occasion in 1976 when I was organiser and chairman of a Noise and Vibration Conference. It was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. at the Sebel Townhouse in Sydney. I was waiting at Penshurst Railway Station for an early train when I became aware of the unusually crowded platform. There were no trains because of a strike. I left the station and tried to get a taxi but with no success. A car stopped seeing my plight and the driver, a complete stranger offered to drive me to the nearest taxi rank. No luck - he finished up driving me all the way arriving just in time for me to open the conference. This most thoughtful and generous man's name is Jack Dein of Peakhurst. Another commitment which involved a lot of paperwork was my work for the Standards Association of Australia and for the ISO - International Standards Organisation. Also as a member of the Editorial Board for the Institution of Engineers and of the United States Shock and Vibration Digest. I was engaged in refereeing of papers for publication. Also I gave post graduate courses on vibration isolation at Monash University and the University of New South Wales. I was involved from the outset in the development of NATA - National Association of Testing Authorities. For many years research and technical staff of CSIRO had undertaken the inspection and calibration of materials testings machine and engineering instruments. The increasing demand for this work stimulated a move to set up NATA which would organise the approval and registration of outside laboratories competent and equipped to do this work. Nowadays there are NATA approved laboratories for a very wide range of testing requirements. Two to three times a year senior research staff of CSIRO and of the Department of Supply, and Melbourne and Monash Universities, and the Australian Atomic Energy Commission would meet at one or other venue to discuss and inspect current work and exchange information with the object of arranging co-operation and avoiding duplication. There is a risk in this cards on the table presentation. One division of CSIRO needed a method of hardness testing individual grains of metal specimens. I devised a prototype instrument which used a high powered microscope to select a grain on an etched metallographic specimen, then to align a hardness testing machine to make the indentation on the grain, then return the microscope to measure the indentation. Later I found that a micro hardness tester based on my prototype had been published as the work of this other division. Events can change the course of one's life, I came to a crossroad in February, 1935. Throughout my secondary schooling I was in a group of pupils who were being trained to become manual training teachers, that is to teach woodwork, metalwork and technical drawing. On the basis of our attainments in Technical Drawing at the Leaving Certificate Examination some of us received an invitation to apply for a position as an apprentice draughtsman at the P.N. Russell School of Engineering, the University of Sydney, a vacancy which only occurred once every four (4) years. I didn't want to alter my intention to become a teacher. However, my father could see the possibility of this opportunity, leading to a more interesting career. So I applied for the job and I was called for an interview. It was then that I met Geordie, Professor George Fyfe Sutherland who was to become my mentor and adviser over the following many years. I was appointed to the job on the 25th February, 1935. I was to work as the apprentice during the day and attend the Mechanical Engineering Diploma Course at Sydney Technical College in the evenings, four (4) nights a week. As 25th February was the closing date for enrolments Geordie took me to the tech and ensured my enrohnent. As part of my training I spent about a quarter of my time i11 the workshop on fitting, machining and gaining experience in the operation of machine tools. I was also allowed to attend selected lectures on engineering, drawing and design. Geordie seeing the possibility that I might subsequently be able to do the Degree Course in Engineering made it possible for me to matriculate. In those days a foreign language was one of the requirements and I had not studied one at school. He arranged for me to attend Italian lectures with Arts students and I matriculated early in 1939. 1 enrolled in Engineering - financially this was practicable only because I had a scholarship from Sydney Technical College and also a P.N. Russell scholarship. As Australia became involved in World War II late in 1939, in 1940 there was recruiting for military training - we engineering students joined the Sydney University Regiment. We began our training with a three (3) month camp at Ingleburn N.S.W. beginning December, 1940. h1 1941 as part of six (6) months practical, training that formed part of the 3rd year engineering course I spent three (3) months in the drawing office of the Department of Railways N.S.W. on the design of crating for the transport of radar and other equipment to the war zone. Incidentally it was here that I met Henry Rowe Cuddy with whom I have enjoyed a life long friendship and who subsequently married my sister, Anne. The second, three (3) months of this six (6) month period was with Sydney University Regiment and the Australian Army Ordnance Corps in Sydney engaged in workshop and motor transport work. About this time I applied for admission to an Officer Training School. On two (2) occasions I was interviewed by a Colonel Wright but heard no more about this. I would like to follow this up through freedom of information channels to find out why I heard no more. List of publications by Macinante and colleagues 1944 - 1978 Bruce, C F, Kelly, 1 C, Macinante, J A (1950). Vibration Measurement by Interferometry, Nature 167, p. 520. Macinante, J A, Peres, N J C (1953x). Diamond Pyramidal Hardness Testing of Spherical Specimens, Div. of Metrology, CSIRO, Tech Ppr No 1, pp. 11. Macinante, J A, Dollar, W (1953b). Stroboscopic Images and the Determination of Angular Speed, Engineering, 175, No 4540, pp. 132-135. Macinante, J A (1953c). Adjustable Mount Using Differential Screws, J Sci Instrum, 30, No 3, pp. 98-99. Bruce, C F, Macinante, J A, Kelly, J C (1953d). Calibration of Sensitive Vibrometers by Interferometry, Aust J Appl Sci, 4, No 1, pp. 28-46. Macinante, J A (1953e). J A (1953e). Electromagnetic Vibration Pick-ups with Simple Seismic Suspension, J Sci Instrum, 30, No 5, pp. 155-158. Macinante, J A (1954). J A (1954). Vibration Isolation, Aust Mach and Prod Engg, 7, No 69, pp. 4-11, No 71, pp. 4-7. Macinante, J A (1955x). Survey on Vibration and Shock Isolation, NSL CSIRO, Tech Ppr No 7, p. 42. Macinante, J A (1955b). Measurement and Isolation of Vibration; JIEAust, 27, No 12, pp. 323-337. Macinante, J A (1956). Calibrating Dynamic Balancing Machines, Engineering, 182, No 4718, p. 174. Macinante, J A (1958a). Vibration and Shock Isolation - a Survey, NSL CSIRO, Tech Ppr No 10, p. 39. Macinante, J A (1958b). A Smaller Haringx-type Vibration Isolating Table, J Sci Instrum, 35, No 6, pp. 224-225 Macinante, J A (1960x). Seismic Mountings for Large Machine Tools, Engineer, 210, No 5470, pp. 880-883. Macinante, J A (1960b). Calibrating a Compensating-type Balancing Machine, Engineering, 190, No 4915, p. 33 Macinante, J A (1960c). Using a Stroboscope Beyond its Frequency Range, Engineering, 190, No 4919, p. 166. Macinante, J A (1961 a). The Optimum Number of Non-linear Isolators for a Seismic Mounting, Aust J Appl Sci, 12, No 1, pp. 1-10. Macinante, J A (1961b). Spring Mounting for a Large Camera, Engineer, 212, No 5527, pp. 1080-1081. Macinante, J A (1962). The Natural Frequencies of Spring Mountings, Engineer, 213, No 5540, p. 572. Macinante, J A, Waldersee, J (1963). A Vibration Isolating Mounting for a Sensitive Balance, J Sci Instrum, 40, No 2, pp. 77-78. Macinante, J A, Waldersee, J (1964x). The Vibration Isolation of Knife-edge Balances, J Sci Instrum, 41, No 1, pp. 1-6. Macinante, J A (1964b). Vibration Isolation, NSL CSIR0, Tech Ppr No 21, 30 pp. Macinante, J A (1967x). The Dynamic Behaviour of a Large Steerable Radio Telescope, Proc Appl Mech Conf, Adelaide, pp. 28-34. Mech and Chem Engg Trans IEAust, MC-3, No 2, pp. 147-155. Macinante, J A, Dorien-Brown, B, Goldberg, J L, Clark, N H, Glazier, R A, O'Toole, K M (1967b). A Vibration Study of the CSIRO 210-ft Radio Telescope, I Mech E Lond, Mech Eng Sci Monograph, No 6, 36 pp. Macinante, J A (1969x). Simple Way,to Field Balance Rigid Rotors, Engineer, 228, No 5910, pp. 36-37. Macinante, J A (1969b). Design Model Based on Observed Modes of Vibration of Australian CSIRO 210-ft Radio Telescope, Shock and Vib Bull, 40, Pt-4, pp. 155-161. Macinante, J A (1972x). Vibration Control in Current Engineering Practice in Australia, Proc Ann Engg Coq Papers, Canberra, pp. 108=112; Mech and Chem Trans I E Aust, MC8, No 1, pp. 84-89. Macinante, J A (1972b). J A (1972b). Vibration Measurement, J I E Aust, 44, No 3, pp. 6-8. Magnetite, J A, Walter, J K (1973). The Isolation of Machine Tools from Site Vibration, Proc Harold Armstrong Conf on Prod Sci in Indy, Monash University, Melbourne, pp. 199-212. Mech and Chem Trans I E Aust, MC9, Nos 1 & 2, pp. 19. Macinante, J A (1974x). Recent Developments in Accelerometer Calibration, Proc Intnl Noise, Shock and Vib Conf, Monash University, Melbourne, pp. 381-392. Macinante, J A, Clarke, N H; Cresswell, B H (1974b). A Resonance-type Back-to-Back Calibrator for Accelerometers, Shock and Vib Bull, 44, Pt 4, pp. 123-130. Macinante, J A, Clarke, N H, Cresswell, B H (1974c). A New Transverse Calibrator for Accelerometers, Shock and Vib Bull, 44, Pt 4, pp 131-138. 11 Macinante, J A, Simmons, H (1975). Vibration Isolating Mountings for Sensitive Equipment - a More Realistic Design Basis, Mech and Chem Trans I E Aust, MCI 1, Nos 1 and 2, 1975, pp. 22-32. Macinante, J A (1976x). Vibration Isolating Mountings for Sensitive Equipment - New Design Criteria,-Shock and Vibr Digest, 8, No 7, pp. 3-24. Macinante, J A, Simmons, H (1976b). Design Criteria for Vibration Isolating Mountings for Machinery on Suspended Floors, I E Aust, Nat Conf Publ No 76/9, pp. 46-50. (Canberra). Macinante, J A (1977x). Vibration Isolation, Symposium on Noise and Vib in Indy, Perth, I E Aust, W A, Div, pp. 99117. Macinante, J A, Simmons, H (1977b). Vibration Isolating Mounting for Machinery on Suspended Floors, Mech Eng Trans I E Aust, ME 13, No 1, pp. 27-35. Macinante, J A (1977c). Vibration Isolation Mountings - Discussion, Shock and Vib Digest, 9, No 5, pp. 3-4. Macinante, J A (1984). Seismic Mountings for Vibration Isolation, (John Wiley & Sons, New York). |
Welcome to this celebration of Dad's life. Particularly to Dad's sister, Aunty Ann, Dad's sister in-law, Aunty Trease, Dad's grand children and great grand children. Welcome also Dad's nieces and nephews from both the Macinante and O'Brien sides of our family. Welcome Dad's friends and friends of Mollie Ann, Maree and me. To help us celebrate Dad's life and in keeping with Dad's ideal of keeping things efficient and short as possible I want to highlite just a few things in Dad's life: Dad was born in Narrandera in 1915, the first child born to Candido & Olivia. To get a picture of Narrarands at that time lets listen to part of a wonderful description recorded by Dad's grandfather, Salvatore Macinante in the early 1900s;
Later in his youth Dad and his family moved to Sydney and for most of his youth lived at Hurstville. He graduated as a teacher and his first appointment was to Moree where he met Mum, they married in 1938. After a few years they moved to Wollongong where they built our family home. Mollie Ann came into the world, three years later me, and 15 years after that Maree. During his working life at Wollongong Dad was a teacher at Wollongong High School and his attitude to his work and his hobbie is best summarised by the saying "if the job is worth doing - do it properly" which for him meant do it as best as possible. Dad was a great innovator, I remember a sofisticated photographic enlarger he made from bits & pieces including billy cans. Dad being human had faults, one which annoyed Mum was his habit after travelling to Sydney to visit relos of looking at his watch as soon as we arrived to hint that it was time to journey home. Probably the most important thing that Dad and Mum passed on to my sisters and me was a basic set values. At the time we took these for granted but I'm sure that Dad, as he sat every morning before anyone else awoke reading the news papers not only knew that these values are so critical but also that these values are lacking in the world, even by world leaders. Mollie Ann, Maree and me continue to try to live these values. Lets begin the celebration |
We are here today to celebrate the life and achievements of HENRY ROWE CUDDY, loving husband of Ann. Rowe had 5 children, 11 grandchildren and 12 great- grandchildren. He lived a long and successful life surrounding himself with the people and interests that he loved and believed in. Rowe was born at Camperdown on the 16th March, 1917. He was the only child of Percival and Cecilia Cuddy (nee Peard). In his early years he experienced the struggle and hard times of the depression. His father worked on the tramways, a fact of which he was very proud, and he passed this interest on to his family. He had a tremendous love of sport from an early age and went on to excel in both Rugby Union and, of course, cricket, playing at first grade level in his youth and A grade well into his forties. In his love of team sports he developed and demonstrated a strong sense of fair play. Many a Saturday evening Ann was greeted with the spirited declaration: "We were robbed". In later life Rowe wrote his memoirs and researched and collated records of family history, which he proudly shared with the family. To him it was very important to give his family a sense of his own life experiences and identity. We share with you today a few aspects of this history. He completed his apprenticeship as a mechanical fitter while working for the New South Wales railways. This was the foundation for the Mechanical Engineering diploma he later achieved through hard work and study. In February 1940 he married Marie Michel and they moved to Werris Creek where their child Francis was born in 1941. Shortly after this, they returned to Sydney where he transferred to the Railways design office, radar design group, with a young Joe Macinante, and was involved in the infancy of the development of war-time radar. The blueprints of his work on the Lightweight Early Warning Radar are displayed in the RAAF base at Williamtown. In July 1944 Marie passed away and left him a widower with a young child. At this time his parents and friends supported him, in particular Rae and Jess French who have remained life-long friends. A chance meeting on a train with Joe Macinante, who was now working for CSIRO, led to a family dinner invitation where Rowe was introduced to Joe's sister Ann, who later became his wife of 57 years. After their marriage on 22 April 1946 they built their home at Bexley surmounting great difficulties as materials were scarce after the war. Rowe was very proud of this home that he and Ann had designed and built and in which they have lived for over 50 years. Living in the same house for this length of time contrasted with his earlier experiences of living in 21 houses by the time he was 21. After the war, house construction was difficult due to material shortages and rationing. Rowe was meticulous in design and in the way things were finished. In later years the family was often informed of his need to do what was referred to as "tech calcs" for various renovations and design projects. At Waratah Street, Rowe and Ann's family expanded to include Peter, Cecilia, Elizabeth and Lawrence. As the family grew, so did the house. With the restructuring of the railways, Rowe transferred to the NSW Electricity Commission. There he became involved with the design and supervision of construction of the early power stations to the north of Sydney. He loved to share these experiences with the family, including lengthy slide nights looking at every aspect and angle of the recently visited power station under construction. Rowe also used his drafting skills to plan extensions for this church, the infant's school and homes of family and friends. After his retirement in 1977 he shared an active life with Ann. He continued to enjoy golf, bowls and social interaction with his friends at Probus and other organisations. His love and appreciation of classical music and opera was well known and it provided great joy and comfort to him throughout his life. His greatest pleasure in life however was to have his now extended family gathered around him at every opportunity. Among his many endearing qualities, Rowe was a keen wit and had a trademark sense of humour. He was prone to the giggles, a trait inherited by many family members. We all have our own special memories of what Henry Rowe Cuddy has meant to us, a hardworking family man with a great spiritual faith in the God with whom he is now at peace.
He will be missed by all who knew him - especially his
family.
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WELCOME EVERYBODY to this Mass that we are going to offer to the repose of the soul of our much beloved Anastasia Elisa Cuddy. Ann once said she considered herself fortunate to have been part of the 20th century; though one great regret that she had, was that God, as she put it, 'seems to have been put on the "backburner". Well, God may have been on the backburner for some people, but He wasn't for Ann. He was omnipresent: a faithful and forgiving friend who could be turned to at a moment's notice, and relied upon through thick and thin to come to her aid, and to the aid of all those whom she loved and prayed for, with grace, and much more besides. When I came to Sydney for my ordination to the priesthood in July 1963, among the first people that I met were Joe and Therese Macinante, and Ann and Rowe Cuddy, and their children. Joe and Ann were my father's first cousins, and the first relatives of my father's whom I'd ever met. They and their families have remained dear friends ever since. Ann 's death at the age of 94 has taken from us a remarkable woman whose modesty and down-to-earth practicality would make her most uncomfortable at being so described. Yet remarkable she was. She was born in Nerrandera in 1916. She was baptised Anastasia - a family name - and Elisa after her grandmother Elizabeth Farrell. Her mother Olivia was the daughter of John Farrell, the Argentinian born bush balladist, poet, journalist, Social reformer, and friend of all worth knowing as his obituaries described him when he died in 1904. Her father, Candido Macinante, was the sixth child of a family of eleven from Salerno in Italy. He had been taken when a boy of twelve by three of his brothers Giuseppe, Emilio and Antonio to Glasgow where he learnt to be a hairdresser. A profession that he was to follow throughout the rest of his life when he moved to Australia with his brothers in 1908. In time, as Ann notes, she found herself with seven uncles and three aunts, and grandparents who had migrated from Italy -- most of them living around Sydney and many of their descendants are with us today. She also remarked that she was one of four Anastasias and her brother Tory was one of five Salavatores, among the Macinantes in Sydney. The only holiday that Ann remembered having as a small child was visiting relatives who had an orchard near Gosford, with a weatherboard house that was unlined, where they had to sleep on hessian bags filled with corn husks. 'It was a wonderful holiday,' she said. And while there she and the other children saw their first aeroplane -- 'a moving dark speck in the sky'. As many of you know I have lived for almost 50 years in the monastery at Kensington, and am not often called upon to conduct funerals or weddings or baptisms. When I was reflecting on what I was to say on this occasion that would be appropriate to life and character and beliefs of Anastasia Cuddy, I found myself marvelling at the richness and variety of the relatives and friends by whom she had been surrounded from her earliest years. She certainly inherited from her grandfather John Farrell an extraordinary facility with the written word. She had a keen analytical mind, was a fine poet, could write economic, colourful and clear prose, and had an historian's feel for detail and the wider picture. She was broadminded, tolerant, and yet modest and realistic with it all. Like so many of her generation, she was practical, and not one to give up when the going got difficult. When she left school aged 15 she was dux of her school, and was given a copy of Shakespeare's works, that she carried in one hand, and she said, in the other hand she had a wet handkerchief from tears shed at the parting of friends. She really wanted to become a teacher, but her father, as she put it, 'traditionally biased,' decreed the daughters should stay at home, so she worked in the family tuck shop until she married Rowe Cuddy, a widower with a young son, Francis, in April 1946. They lived in Bexley where they literally built their home, and raised their five children Francis, Peter, Cecilia Elizabeth and Lawrence. Her brother Salvatore [Tory] had wanted to be an engineer, but as he obtained a scholarship to Teachers College, he became a teacher. Joe was dux of Hurstville Technical College, went on to Sydney University, studied Mechanical Engineering and subsequently went to Cambridge and became head of the vibration section of the national standards laboratory of the CSIRO within Sydney University. Millison, the sole remaining member of the family, was to marry Gordon Beatson and, like Ann who said of herself that 'as a typical housewife and mother the family is more than enough to fill my life' devoted herself unstintingly to her family. Dame Mary Gilmore, herself a long-term beneficiary of literary advice and friendship of John Farrell, Ann's grandfather, noted in a letter to Percival Serle the well-known biographer and art-curator that John Farrell's granddaughter was typing the MS of her forthcoming book More Recollections.
She added: 'She is the only one of his descendants who reproduces John in his temperament and fancy. Had Ann lived another day she would have died on the fifteenth anniversary of her brother Joe's death. As it was she would have arrived in heaven in time for the celebrations with all those loved ones that preceded her in death. Including Dame Mary. St Paul reminds us that 'none of us lives or dies for ourselves alone'. Our lives have an impact on others - and even the humblest and least known of God's creatures has a role to perform: as a significant part of the jigsaw that we call life. None of us is unimportant - and all of us can be assured that our lives have meaning in God's sight. If Ann has a lesson for us this morning it is that we should make the very most of the gifts that God has given us. She had a genuine mother's heart, with all the love and compassion, and even at times confusion and perplexity, that that role implies. She is also a shining example of the benefit that has come to our native land from the millions of courageous and talented people whose families have migrated here over the past hundreds of years. She in her life reminds us that we all are the children, and the grandchildren of migrants; and that the faith that through all the ups and downs of their lives sustained them, has been handed down to us as a precious heritage that should be protected and treasured; and not squandered or neglected. May I conclude these brief remarks about the life and faith of a truly Catholic lady, with the prayer that St Augustine composed for his mother. She died almost 1,700 years ago - in 387 in Ostia, the Port of Rome at the mouth of the Tiber, while she and Augustine who was aged 33 at the time, and his brother, were waiting for a ship to take them back to Africa. She told Augustine not to worry that she was dying, or about where to bury her. All that she wanted him to do was to remember her soul at God's altar during the Mass. Her advice to her sons, and Augustine's prayer for his mother, are all to be found in the book of his Confessions [Book 9, chapters 8-13]. The prayer is as follows, and I'd like to apply it to Ann whose family is gathered here at Mass to pray for her soul, and to all mothers who have died: 'Forgive her now her faults, if she succumbed to any during the course of so many years since she was washed in the saving waters of baptism. She desired only to be remembered at Thy Altar which she had served without a single days intermission'. [What he doesn't say here because he had noted it elsewhere, is that she attended Mass every day, and prayed for his conversion. Her death occurred on their return from Milan, where St Ambrose had just baptised Augustine]. The prayer concludes: , We can be sure that Ann's prayer, recorded in her Annie's Story, has been heard: 'When the Divine Hand turns out the light, and closes the door for me, I hope that there will be a Celestial Tuck Shop where I can find my folk working busily inside, and join them'. After all those years working in the family tuckshop, God would surely not have been surprised to find her putting her own spin on the familiar Gospel metaphor of the heavenly banquet. Our sympathy goes out to Ann's surviving sister Millison, to Francis and Toni, to Peter and Jenny, to Cecilia and Darryn, to Elizabeth and Ed, and to Lawrence and Geoffrey to all of Ann's grandchildren and great-grandchildren, to all her many other relatives and friends and to all who loved her, and will miss her.
May eternal light shine upon you, Ann good friend, and may you rest in the peace of Christ. Amen. Paul Stenhouse, MSC |
Marianne was born into a poor family as Australia was recovering from the great depression and the Second World War. Her parents Mona and Victor Lyons rented a house at 24 Gordon Street, Randwick. The block is known as the Worker's Cottages. Her father was a postman and her mother a machinist. She was the eldest child with two brothers Les and Max of whom she loved them both dearly. Marianne was given the responsibility at a very young age of raising her two brothers and doing much of the domestic chores. It was not until she was seven years of age that her uncle Reginald Blunden spoke about her to one of the surgeons at Prince of Wales Hospital where he worked in surgery managing the surgical instruments. The surgeon said to bring her in. It was then that her condition was diagnosed; her renal tubes were not connected to her bladder. As she would not live past the age of 10 if nothing was done. Dr Gee performed the first operation in Lewisham Hospital to connect her renal tubes to her bladder. It was a very painful operation under morphine as there was no general anaesthetic in those days and this treatment haunted her for the rest of her life. This operation was not a real success due to the lack of understanding of kidneys in those days and lead to constant kidney infections. Through her perseverance and physical suffering she allowed the doctors to study her case through many observations and experimental tests to ultimately understand kidneys in their design and function in the human body for all of mankind to benefit. With this benefit of understanding and knowledge the doctors now had, she was able to have another operation to rectify the problem once and for all at the age of 32. However too much damage had already been done to her body and she ultimately suffered renal failure at the age of 56. A very special moment in her life was when she saw a baby only a couple of weeks old diagnosed with exactly the same medical condition that Marianne was born with and the doctors knew exactly what to do, they fixed the baby that week so he could lead a perfectly healthy life without the baby even realizing what might have laid ahead of him. At the time of her death her hospital records came in eight volumes. Marianne's education was poor due to the loss of her early school years. But what she lost in education she made up for in common sense and her dedication to be the best possible in whatever she did. She looked for a job at 16 and secured work in the leather trades making ladies handbags at RONES HANDBAGS in Dixon Street, near China Town. She paid half of her wages in board money to help support her family. She loved it when celebrities such as Dita Cobb would come to buy their handbags direct from the factory at which she took great pleasure in serving them. Marianne loved to dance and party. She was an excellent dancer and the life of the party. You had to be fast to get her hand to dance before someone else got her. She could talk about anything to anybody regardless of what their position was in life. Nothing phased her. She just said that if they didn't like her then they could just walk away. Marianne met Graham at the Penshurst Catholic Youth Centre and they clicked at first sight. They attended dances on Friday and Saturday nights and thoroughly enjoyed each others company. They found that they could talk on the phone for hours even if they had little to say. On their first date at Luna Park Graham managed to knock her four front teeth out when he released the bar on the Zipper ride. He really had to marry her after that. He realised how important she was in his life when she went on a cruise on the Himalaya without him, and he was there on the dock waiting for her return. Marianne married Graham Beatson at St Josephs Catholic Church, Oatley on the 27 January 1968, in front of Father Jensen. They proceeded to build their dream home at 17 Jane Place, Heathcote on the block of land that they had saved for. Marianne had three children however, the first, Peter John, died 14 hours after premature birth as a result of Marianne's kidney's rejecting the baby at 6-1/2 months. She elected not to go out to work so she could give her children the best possible upbringing and chance in life with 100% of her attention. There was nothing that she would not do for her children. She had had many years of experience in raising children after being given the responsibility of raising her two brothers. But like a golfer who practices after a round of golf, Marianne always took that one extra step listened to her elders for any tips or pieces of advice on any matter with raising her children that might be able to assist in a successful upbringing. Her success can be seen in her two children, John and Elizabeth, through to her two grandchildren Lauren and Mitchell, who are all here today. Her greatest joy was just to be with them. Marianne was always the first to volunteer. She worked at the Bosco canteen, Mothers day stalls and school fetes. She was the host of many parties, from Christmas every year with lemon meringue pie her specialty, to having disco parties every weekend when the children were teenagers, with a never ending supply of soft drink and more meringue. She didn't take any garbage and she chased out any gate crashers with her tea towel. I can still see today three big male gatecrashers coming down the stairs with Marianne and her tea towel right behind them saying "now get out and stay out". Marianne was a wonderful wife and mother, the best anyone could possibly have. Her love was enormous even when she suffered her strongest disappointments. Her only fear of death was not being able to be with her family, she said her final farewell on a number of occasions, however on all past occasions she would bounce back with a smile saying "I'm back, God doesn't want me yet. Marianne loved her Probus Club and all of the members in it. She loved the fact that there were no issues, politics or that you might say something that may be taken to wrong way. Everyone just had a good time, talked a lot of sense and enjoyed life to the fullest and spoke the same language. Probus was what Marianne considered her "Garden of Eden" on earth as the closest that she has ever come to total contentment and peace of mind. Maybe heaven is just one big Probus Club. It was a blessing that out of all of the difficulties of those early days her final farewell was in happy company of her many friends and family. Marianne led life to the fullest. If she was sick then she went out. She would say "I might as well be sick out than laying around at home feeling sorry for myself". She loved a train trip to the city for therapy. If she made someone else happy then she was happy. She would always say that there are people much worse off than me and with this attitude she was most likely the best off of all. She touched the hearts and soul of everybody who met her. May her legacy of pure love live on in all of us for the betterment of all. She was my saint and now my saint in heaven. God bless. |