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The following is the author's original work
(because I have witnessed original writings corrupted by professional journalists,
except for "typos" no changes have been made). Mick M |
REMINISCENCES of SALVATORE
(Son of Aurelio Macinante-Deceased)
Commenced Sunday 29th. February, 2004.
Not in actual chronological order due to an 81 year old memory being slightly worn and weary, but asked to do this because of being one of the few who remain alive from the 3rd. generation of Macinante family members.
One of my earlier memories is when a child living with my parents somewhere in the PYRMONT area of SYDNEY and of sitting on the gutter of a street where a couple of the Macinante brothers (my uncles and my father, Aurelio) had a fruit shop, and I have an idea that one of those uncles was Uncle Nino, though not certain of that. One thing I do recall, is that those were the days of the razor gangs of SYDNEY as we must have lived close to the waterfront of PYRMONT where most ships came into SYDNEY HARBOR to unload goods and passengers arriving as immigrants to AUSTRALIA in those early years. And those years would have been my early years of 3 or 4, I do know that I didn't attend school as yet.
Believe me about the razor gangs, for I saw my father being attacked by a couple of them inside that shop one time and he was not intimidated by them for he grabbed a very large knife that was used for cutting up the pumpkins and that pair went for their lives. Those years must have been prior to the BIG DEPRESSION, around 1926 or 27 because I was born on 10th March, 1923 in a house at WATERLOO in SYDNEY and my birth was assisted with the aid of a midwife, which was the prevalent way of birthing in those times and I did know the name of the street, but memory fails me now. And, yet, I can remember, though not born then, that my older sister Anne was born at CHARLIER STREET BONDI 2 years prior to my birth in NOVEMBER, 1921.
The next memory is of living in a shop at a place called The Cosey Corner at the suburb of KOGARAH and by then younger sister Josephine was a part of the family and the three of us were taken to Kogarah Hospital to have our tonsils removed because of some scare or other about a sickness called Diphtheria. It was a common thing that if one child got some sort of ailment we were all bundled into one bed so that we all got the sickness at the one time, Measles, Whooping Cough. Chicken Pox. Must have been some tradition or what ever they brought with them from ITALY.
We had an upstairs living quarters above the shop and I recall we had a rocking chair which was the way mothers in those days breast fed their children and we kids, all three of us, were prone to get on that rocking chair and rock away as though we were at a fun fair. Oh! What fun we did have. One day, though we got carried away and rocked so hard the chair bounced towards the stairway and we went tumbling down to the bottom as it was a straight down stairway. Needless to say we were well and truly belted in the traditional ITALIAN way, with dads belt. That same rocking chair eventually went to me sister Annes' daughter, KAY. Where it is now, I do not have a clue.
From KOGARAH we moved to Bowral on the central tablelands, where dad went into business with an American called Ernest Hyllier where they had an upmarket restaurant which was called the AMBASSADOR and they tried to make this into a night club type establishment for the playboys of the times who were the owners or big bosses of the leading department stores of those days in the city of SYDNEY.
This was because there were the Night Clubs of the day in SYDNEY city and KINGS CROSS that were controlled by the hidden so called mafia of the times and the underworld celebrities that had the police departments in their pockets.. Anybody who may want to know for certain of these facts I record here can get hold of a book called " RAZOR". I have a copy myself, but I think it is available in your local library.
This night club was a delight to we children for we loved seeing the socialites falling into a very large pool that took up the center spot of the whole area. This falling in occurred when these women got so drunk they couldn't stand and so did a lot of the men fall in too.
The reason my dad and Ernest Hyllier went in to this enterprise was because the SYDNEY area was getting too hot for these socialites and friends as the press was beginning to make a lot of newsworthy items in the newspapers and the police were also starting to feel the heat from the politicians, even though they too were enjoying lots of privileges the night clubs offered them.
Anyway, those socialites didn't come to BOWRAL and there wasn't enough population there in those times to make it a profitable venture, so dad and Hyllier went bankrupt. Hyllier went to MELBOURNE and now has become a very well known chocolate purveyor and his stores are more well known than Darrel Lea Chocolates in SYDNEY. Hylliers Chocolates are sold mostly in the classy stores such as David JONES and MYERS.
And speaking of David Jones stores, that's where my dad worked after we returned to SYDNEY from BOWRAL. And our return was just prior to the opening of SYDNEY HARBOR BRIDGE, which I walked from the SYDNEY side to NORTH SYDNEY and back on that fateful day when Major De Groot sliced the ribbon to open the BRIDGE.
Getting back to it, there was one heck of a thunder storm when we arrive at Central Station SYDNEY and we got drenched in an open type of tram going up to North Rose Bay to stay with Uncle Nino and Aunty Carmella until a place was found for us at Watsons Bay, where once again dad got a fruit shop which he consequently lost as it was in a very bad position for business and he had to go to work with Uncle Nino at David Jones store on the corner of Elizabeth and Market Streets in Sydney city.
In those days D.J.s. had what was called an AMERICAN SODA FOUNTAIN, like a huge milk bar that is not known of today. It took up the whole of the lower ground floor and was really spectacular and there has never ever been anything like it ever since. It was such a popular place that the socialite women of SYDNEY made it their place of rendezvous whenever they came from the outer suburbs or even the country on visits. The chocolates and lollies and any goodies that titivated the taste buds were there. We got samples when dad and Uncle Nino were able to afford to bring us some for they were very costly for those times when the basic wage people earned was only the equivalent of $4.45 a week for an adult. Uncle Nino was in charge of that feature of D.J.s and that's how he was able to employ his brother Aurelio, until Aurelio got some sort of disease in his hands from handling the ice creams of the day and had to give that job up.
From that time onwards Aurelio never had any decent employment for many years. Working on the dole a couple of days a week to get just coupons for food, groceries, clothes. He went down hill very fast and became a heavy drinker and smoker and also a very mean and nasty father and husband. There are things I could narrate about that but it will serve no purpose. Actually the Macinante seniors of that 1st. generation and the 2nd. in particular were very strict and in some ways extremely cruel adults. Some of you younger generations may not like that what I say about that 2nd. Generation of Macks, but I kid you not.
One story I will relate and that's about the time my family lived in the same street as Uncle Joe Macinante, who was the eldest of the immigrant family Macinante way back at the turn of the 1900s. Uncle Joe was married to an aunt Millicent and she did a lot of work for a firm called SNOWS which was a millinery firm, she made sheets and pillow slips for them at her home in IDA STREET SANS SOUCI where she and uncle Joe owned 6 houses that they rented out for income. We were tenants in one of those houses and to help pay the rent we children, the three of us.
Anne, Josephine and myself had to work for auntie Milly for nothing until all hours of the night fulfilling her orders for SNOWS. Our job, because we had small fingers, was to poke out the corners in the pillow cases so that they looked smart.
I never forgave aunty Milly because every Xmas she gave wonderful presents to ALL the cousins of the family, but in particular she loved all of the boys, except me and I never knew why and still do not know why she never ever gave me any sort of a present at Xmas time when all the others got beaut train sets and things like that. And even when she died I was made to kiss her dead face in the coffin prior to it being closed. I 'm sorry if the cousin named after Aunty Milly takes offence at this story of mine but it is absolutely true in every respect.
And I also have never known why that same cousin and her sister Anne still call me to this day "froggy". What an insult that has been to me all of these years. I've never given anyone names like that. It's not a nick name as there are
7 Salvatores in the Macinante families and all of them are nick named " TORY " so why that name of "Froggy " for me from that one branch of the family. I would dearly love to know the reason for that name.
Incidentally, that same family, when they lived in the school shop at Forest Road ALLAWAH should recall the days when a couple of their father CANDIDOs' brothers came visiting and they had some home brews to sample it was a job of getting out to the back door, aiming the bottle out into the yard and open, then the fluid would fly out of the bottle into the yard before settling so that it could be consumed. And my father, Aurelio and the youngest of them all, Uncle Johnny would be the main contenders for those opening ceremonies. And Uncle Candid (as we knew him) would love to see us service men from World War 2 when on leave in SYDNEY we'd call in to see him in the barber shop at George Street at the railway and he'd insist on taking us to his favorite watering place at the AGINCOURTE HOTEL a couple of doors down from the shop.
And we, who had grown up and were serving our country during that war time were being respected by the Uncles who we had respected when we were growing up. It may have had its ups and downs and hard times etc; but what a family the Macinante Family has been and I am so very sorry that so many of my wonderful cousins have gone and left me so alone on this planet for I do miss them all, so much, for I went and visited all of my cousins, loving the all, and one of these days I may write some more for there is more that I can relate and more of the young ones I would like to get to know and tell them more of the family they do not seem to know very much about.
Arriverderla mia famiglia. ::::::::: sono Salvatore from GOSFORD
Salvatore Macinante
Salvatore Macinante died 2nd June 2005
FURTHER REMINISCENCES OF GOSFORD SALVATORE MACINANTE
Commenced on 8th. March, 2004 & continuing on from No. 1 on 29th.February, 2004
In my previous reminiscing, I finished at where we Military Services youngsters would call in to see uncle Candid at his barber shop in Railway Square, George Street, as it was named in those days.
It's time also that the younger Family members knew that there were several cousins of the family in various services. Plus, I must digress here for a moment to tell you that there were 7 of the first sons borne in each of the 2nd. Generation individual families called Salvatore, and 6 were fondly nick named "TORY'' excepting one who was the son uncle Joe & aunty Lucy Onorato & he was nick named " Silvy". Where ever that name came from, we never did know. More to be told about that Salvatore later.
First one into the war services for Australia was cousin Anthony, son of Amelio & then came Bartholomew, son of Uncle Anthony (not to be confused with the Anthony above) Then came another Anthony, brother of Silvy, son of aunty Lucy. Gets confusing doesn't it ? & then along comes this Froggy bloke, (Salvatore) son of Aurelio followed by Salvatore, son of Nino, & then comes the two youngest of the Family, Terence, who was a Salvatore, but changed his name by deed poll & his brother the absolute youngest of all & also dearly loved & revered by the whole of that generation and more, of the Macinante family, & that was young Joseph, both these boys were sons of Uncle Johnny & aunty Rose, who we all loved so dearly.
There was one other we all loved & I was one who visited him continually when he worked with Professor Messill on some sort of Nuclear program at the Sydney University & he never called me Froggy. So that Joseph did his bit for this country of Australia & was involved in many other projects that I was not privy to. You would have thought that the Macinante Family wanted to win that World War 2 on their own. We also had a very talented cousin who was instrumental in calling me Froggy. She is the sister of Professor Joe, previously mentioned, & wrote articles for the Sydney Morning Herald, as I recall. I'm not very certain what cousin Millicent did except assist in naming me Froggy.
We do have a very talented family & from what I can gather, there is still a great amount of that talent still floating around in the newer generation that gives me a certain amount of pain by not knowing them & being able to associate with them or visiting them as I did when my generation were so young, I went and visited all of my cousins and loved them all and miss the ones who have passed on so very much. More so, now that realization has come to me that, as Mick Macinante tells me, I must pass on to the family all that I can recall of my generation of Macinante Family as there are not too many more left either & I would like to regain contact again with they who are left before I too pass into the great beyond.
My reminiscing could more than fill so much of the Family Macinante Odds & Sods Page. I go with a Vietnam Ex – Service Personnel to his psychologist, as I'm on a panel that assists those veterans; & this psychologist continually beseeches me to write my complete memoirs & he's certain it could become a best seller.
Back to this reminiscing I said I would come back to Silvy Onorato. Well he worked for the Dept. of Tourism when they had a building in Martin Place, Sydney & he & his wife, eventually were the managers of the Caves House Hotel in the Blue Mountains & were there for many years with great success. And just a bit more of interest of the Onorato family, Silvys' brother Anthony finished up as the Commodore of the New South Wales Coastal Patrol & was an extremely popular man with the whole of Coastal Patrol staff in N.S.W. One other cousin I have forgotten was Frankie Erbetto, son of Maria. He was on the tourist ship Niagara working as a steward when it was torpedoed off the New Zealand coast during W.W.2.
Frank had a brother, Leo & he was chief sound engineer for A.W.A. Australia & when the drive in movie theatres were being built, Leo was the one that installed all of those pillars with the ear phones etc. that enabled you to hear the movie. Prior to all of that when I was a small boy after we came back from the failed business my dad had, we lived next door to the Watson's Bay Public school & our back yard fence had a gate which we were able to access the school yard & there was a rocky outcrop with a cave beneath where large Goannas lived & we children purloined potatos, onions & even meat & would create a B-B-Q near that cave & the Goannas would come out & chase us away because we were afraid of them.
Getting back to it, in those days Leo was the projectionist at the Watsons Bay Theatre which had a lady who played the piano at & below the level of the stage as there were no talkies in those days, it was all silent movies until 1930 when the Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened. Leos' sister Nita would dress me up & even put a neck tie on me & take me to the Saturday matinees, give me a hand full of musk sticks (which I cannot tolerate these days) & she would sit up the back with the boys while I had to remain down near the front (something else I cannot tolerate these days when at the movies) & if I tattled on her when we got home she would chase me into the chook house & drench me with the hose. Needless to say I didn't rat on her too much or I wouldn't get to go to the movies. & I've never forgotten one movie I saw in those days, & it was colored some how & it was called "The Student Prince" it was a musical & I have loved musicals ever since.
Nita eventually became some type of boss working for the Woolworths Company, & I was a constant visitor to her at the various stores she worked at. & she still spoiled me up until the day she went into a coma & never recovered after many years in hospital.
Another cousin who was a favorite of mine Was Nina, daughter of Carmella & Nino. Her brother was affectionately know throughout the family, in particular the children, as Uncle Chip Tory for he worked for Smiths Potato Chips as a salesman on the road & he always had what was called his sample bag which the children were given by him & they loved that & him for it & so did we adults like that too for Smiths Chips were always in great demand prior to the days of the American take over of our Australian Icons. Now the mother of Chip Tory, Nina, Elletra & little Annie as she was nick named & long deceased was the cousin of my mother Lucia & they were both of the Grimaldi family of Monaco & these two cousins married brothers of the 2nd. Generation of Macinantes', thus making those two families much more closer than others of the Macinante groups.
As stated in my first Reminiscing, all of these are not in exact chronological but they are fairly close & the main purpose of these edicts is to let the newer generation know where we the 3rd.generation existed in this country of Australia & none of you can imagine the hassles we went through because we had that strange surname & our peculiar Christian names. These days it's considered hip to have names like we were born with. It's amazing how many girls are now named Tory or some derivative of it.
Back to the main story as far as I can recall; Nina is quite a big girl now, but I wonder can she recall how she couldn't get her tongue around Tory, even for her brother, so she called us Orty & whenever we visited them at North Rose Bay we children were told to buzz off & take a walk so that the grown ups could have their conversations with out the children stick beaking sort of. & Nina always insisted I had to piggy back her, I wouldn't like to try to do that now a days. In those days Uncle Nino had a fruit & vegetable shop on one side of Old South Head Road & he had the theatre shop for the North Rose Bay Kings Theatre on the other side & a little lower down the hill. It is so wonderful remembering all of these past life enjoyments & the downsides too, but we mostly had a good, though sometime it was tough because of that Great Big Depression created by the mighty Americans.
The memory comes back in the wrong order at times. Though I must tell you that in those early days we did have family picnics at Carrs Park near Tom Uglys' Bridge, but I cannot recall much about those events other than that we did have them. & I also forgot to tell of one other who did his bit for Australia. It was during World War 1 that uncle Joe Mack, as we called him, did a great amount of inventing things, which I cannot remember, though I do know he invented something for the Australian Sub-Marine Fleet of those times that made the Subs better for ventilation, I just can't recall it all, because there was something else, but being a Froggy I was never really made aware of it all. Why did you call me "Froggy" Anne & Millicent ??? even your mother aunty Polly called me it because of you girls.
Though I've had 3 open heart surgeries, plus 7 by passes, cancer & various other ailments due to my war service & still require urethra dilation every 6 months in hospital I can still function much better than a lot of my peers as proof of my prowess with the computer which I utilise for the benefit of the elderly & war veterans. Even to the extent of being asked to assist in a Political Party to acquire senate seats to try to make & as Don Chip said "make the B******s honest" for we do have lost the Democracy that this country was once very proud of & we were the envy of the world & the group of Macinante boys went away to help preserve.
That's about all that comes to mind at this time around & hopefully I will be able to reminisce some more & jot down more at a future time. & again I say, " Arriverderla, mia famiglia " do any of you of the newer generation understand any of the Italian language.?
And I would like to hear from any of my generation to know how you are & even to know you are still alive for my sister Anne kept me up on all of that, but she has gone now & it has become a bit of a forlorn life. It would be nice to hear from children of my generation parents who could bring me up to date on their parents who could be a cousin of mine. I was hoping to catch up at the 2004 Family Picnic but was given miss information as to its venue, which I could not find after a 3 hour journey down in horrific traffic conditions and a 2 hour search for an address that didn't exist when it was changed from The Olympic Park due to such bad weather conditions.
Salvatore Macinante
Salvatore Macinante died 2nd June 2005
NO.3 REMINISCINGS COMMENCED 10 / 03 / 04
Here it is my 81st. Birthday, 4:00 a.m. in the morning, unable to sleep, as per usual & out to further update some reminiscing. In the previous chronicle I mentioned the relationship between the Nino family & the Aurelio family & their closeness through marriage. At that same time in my life there was also a close connection with the Edmondo family with the above two, for we three families lived in close proximity to each other in the Rose Bay, WatsonsBay area. Plus in another reasonably close area of the Eastern Suburbs, at Randwick, there was aunty Lucy Onorato & the ones I do not have a very clear memory of, Nonno & Nonna Macinante, the foundation of the Macinante Family in Australia from the middle to late 1800s'. Here is where I must digress a little once again. The Macinante generational personnel of that original migrant family would come from where ever they lived in N.S.W. to visit & pay their respects to their parents with each family knowing by some sort of bush telegraph that those visits were about to take place. Instead of only one son or daughter coming to visit Nonna & Nonno, there would probably be two or three of them visiting. The two of our younger generation, grandparents lived about a half a kilometer in two different directions from Aurelio & Lucy. When any of the others were visiting Nonno, my father Aurelio would visit his parents also. What stuck in my memory was that the three males would make certain they had chewed some breath cleanser of those days called SEN - SEN & this was to eliminate any odour that may be lingering on their breath from smoking or even of alcohol, as their parents did not condone those habits. When those preliminaries were dispensed with, every one would walk up the street to aunty Lucy where she lived above the fruit shop she & uncle Joe Onorato owned. There would be where the meals for that day would be consumed & family discussions would be conducted. Once again the grand children would be told to go take a walk & not get into any mischief. My, how I would love to see that happening again in the family. The annual family picnics do cover a certain amount of what I would like to see, but there just doesn't seem to be the cohesion any more. Or have I become too much of a fuddy - duddy? We kids all loved Uncle Johnny so much for he played tricks and told us funny stories & he would grab our cat when visiting our family at Randwick. He would place that poor cat underneath one of his arms & squeeze & that cat would scream & as he ,or she, I don't know what sex the cat was, anyway as the cat screamed uncle Johnny would squeeze on & off & the cat would sound like the Scottish bag pipes. It was so strange that after the cat had suffered this humiliation a couple of times we always knew when Uncle Johnny was about to visit for on the morning of the day he was to come that cat knew some how & would not be anywhere to be seen until the visit was over, What a cat ! And this must have been where cousin Joe, Johnnys' son became so beloved also for the way he could tell funny yarns for hours on end without repeating a story. How I miss that cousin is unimaginable, for when their father passed away I became his & his brother, Terrys' big brother for I was so much older than them. In fact they both couldn't wait to become old enough to follow me into the armed services . And their mother always said it was my fault she lost her sons for the period of the 2nd W.W. There were times we visited Uncle Eddy & aunty Maria at the Rose Bay barber shop which also had a billiard salon alongside the shop which was part of that business. And as was natural in those time the billiard salon was also an S.P. Booky Shop (staring price betting place for off course betting for the races & all sorts of other gaming pastimes). Aunty Mary was an excellent administrator of figuring prices etc. Plus there was a certain amount of phone betting. And I am not too certain about them being raided by the police for those nefarious actions, but do know that when there was to be a raid there would be a warning given the people running the shop & they, in turn would have some one selected to be arrested, go to the police station & cop the fine, as the saying went, & on their return to the shop they would receive a bonus sort of amount for being the fall guy for that day. Other things I recall are the dinners we had in those days ( they were dinners & not lunches as know to-day). These were dinners that began at midday & continued until all hours of that evening. There would be the usual "vino" consumed, though never to any great excess for those men could surely hold their liquor. As children we were made accustomed to the partaking of wine by having a small amount of wine in the bottom of a glass which would be then filled with water. As we grew older the amount of wine in the glass increased until it became two thirds full of wine & that was then the limit for the youngsters. Another feature of those dinners was entertainment by an Italian tenor who would sing all of the popular ballads, arias, the famous songs by the various big name tenors of the operas of the world, Tito Schipa, Tino Rossi, Begniamino Gigli, Richard Tauber, & even the great Enrico Caruso. There were so many wonderful recitations given by that man & his name is as we knew Mr. Altivillo. This too is one of the reasons I love all sorts of music except the hard rock & the terribly lude songs, & at my age would love dearly to be able to see an Opera at our famous Sydney Opera House which is out of reach price wise of the ordinary people who that place was originally intended to be enjoyed by. There was a time during that GREAT DEPRESSION my family was living in Fig Tree Avenue Nth. Randwick & I contracted Rheumatic Fever & was carted across the road from the house were we were living in to another one over the other side of the street on a stretcher for I could not walk. After a couple of days in that newer home I was moved out to what was called the Infectious Ward at the Coast Hospital for infectious diseases, & remained there for 3 weeks. In those days very little was known about Rheumatic Fever & no one realized it would come against me in later years where I would have 3 open heart surgeries with 7 by passes & 3 different replacement Aortic valves & 7 by passes of arteries. Plus now the latest addition to my body is a Heart Pacemaker. The wonders of modern medicine is magnificent, & is keeping me in reasonable health even though being now told I should never have gone through the rigors of war as an Engineer in the military forces where such extremely hard work had to be performed. And this is why I receive a Severely Disabled War Veterans Pension from the Australian Government. Not a great amount to exist on but it is reasonably adequate for to-days lifestyle of pensioners of all types, not just war veterans. And that brings me to a close on my third issue of Reminiscing. There may be more of them for after the W.W.2. years of my experiences that the youngest generation of the Macinante Family knows very little of if not nothing since W.W.2 ended.
Once more it is ::::: ARRIVERDERLA MIA FAMILGIA
From GOSFORD SALVATORE
Salvatore Macinante
Salvatore Macinante died 2nd June 2005
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