Made in Calabria,
hewn with plan ‘a’,
honed by plan ‘b’
(Image: 1956 Sydney Australia, Me, my father Michele & Zio Pietro on the right)
Follow Me Backstage to the Making of Italia Joe
It was the winter of 1958, and my father Michele and I remained on the Gattuso farm outside of Cobram, rather than return to Mossman. As they are in central parts of land masses, the winter was freezing and I complained vehemently. Father was sympathetic, he did the best he could, to heat the bedroom with a makeshift wood burner, made from a leftover, orchard chemicals twenty-five litres container. About the cold, Father would preface his attempt at distraction with, quando io ero prigioniero di guerra…. He would recount how it was so cold in Germany, that touching metal was extremely dangerous. He would continue with the story; some fellow prisoner colleagues were seriously injured by inadvertently touching metal objects; skin would peel away from exposed body parts. It did not help; I still felt the cold and continued to grumble.
Our father Michele and uncles Bruno, Pietro and uncle-in-law Francesco Antonio were caught up in the events of WWII, a statement of fact, which taken at face value, is quite unremarkable. These were lowly draftees sent to North Africa and Greece, to fulfill the misguided ambitions of the fledgling Italian nation. Father’s and Zio Pietro’s wartime history and my childhood became entangled by the events of post-war immigration. I learnt of the war, mingled in with anecdotes of Father’s and Zio Pietro’s childhoods. The Australian, Charlie Gilbert, father of my high school friend, Steve, fought in North Africa and Greece. The war had brought Father, Zio Pietro, Zio Bruno, and Charlie within proximity of each other. The Gilbert family, like the Simonetti’s, settled in Yarroweyah, near Cobram, in Northern Victoria; remarkable was indeed in the making.
Whilst undertaking research, it became apparent that there was a need for a broader perspective of Europe to understand the events leading to WW1 and WW2. I married into a family with ancestry linked to Austrian-German immigrants to the Balkans, following the retreat by the Ottomans. The Vogel family’s oral history provides an exemplary setting to explore Greater Europe’s troubled past. Why was it so, coming alive through four generations of the Vogel’s situational progress in the Balkan’s political imbroglio to the arrival of three families in Australia post WW2?
Cameos in History: Attisani, Simonetti, Vogel Families
Welcome to this place, to share memories nurtured in the bosom of the historical events that shape each generation. To have felt the demeaning effects of being part of the peasant/contadini class, I wanted to know what hardships the hundreds of forefathers and foremothers faced in their times, to survive for me to come into being, ababy boomer in the turmoil of the post WW2 era. I have felt their innate drive to overcome adversity. The past is interpreted to be the tapestry upon which, oral history encompassing four generations of Simonetti-Attisani-Vogel families is interwoven over six books.
Update 1 October 2026: Series title changes from “Where Were We” to “Chained Reactions”
Sequentially:
CHAINED REACTIONS:
Book 1: Italia’s Bubble Burst
CHAINED REACTIONS:
Book 2: Italia Pained
CHAINED REACTIONS:
Book 3: Australia Beckoned
CHAINED REACTIONS:
Book 4: Chaos Pins Cobram
BACK IN TIME
CHAINED REACTIONS:
Book 5: Via Nova 1861 ‘Taliani
CHAINED REACTIONS:
Book 6: Via Nova 1961 ‘Straliani
(Book 6, Splices into the contemporary 1966 from Book 4)
This is an intro to the events that unfold following the decision by Michele and Maria-Concetta to create wealth in Australia. Our father is to return to buy more farmland in his hometown Francavilla.
Events unfold for this to evolve into the more complex “plan a” and in 1961 our mother initiated “plan b”.
Still Working on finding a publisher.
You may register as a beta reader to receive a free PDF copy of each of the books (conditions apply). Please use the “contact” page.
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