Interview with Norma Camozzato (nee Ballestrin) [sound recording] / Interviewer : Madeleine Regan

Interview with Norma Camozzato for the Italian Market Gardeners Oral History. Norma Camozzato was born 4 January 1941 in Adelaide and begins by talking about her family background ahd her parents who cam from the province of Treviso in the region of the Veneto in northern Italy; the arrival of her father, aged 16 years, in 1927, with two Ballestrin cousins; his return to his village with the two cousins and their respective marriages and their return to Adelaide in 1934 with their wives. She talks about the different Ballestrin family relatives who were market gardeners in the Flinders Park area; the role of godparents; starting school at five years old without speaking English; the family house, whih she described as 'a shed'. Other areas covered: family life and customs such as speaking dialect at home with her parents and relatives; her parents' hard work in the market garden; family social life which involved visiting other familys and attending weddings, going to Henley Beach with her parents and other relatives in summer; experience of her father being conscripted into the Allied Works Council during the War; location of her parents' market garden on Hartley Road alongside her father's cousin and business partner, Ermengildo Ballestrin's land and the range of vegetables - celery, potatoes, and tomatoes, in glasshouses; annual ritual of making salami and wine, raising chickens, ducks and turkeys; family visit to Italy in 1963 and memory of the poverty in her parents' families; role of her father's sister, Ida Maddalena, in the family on Hartley Road; post-World War II Italian migrants who worked for her parents in the market gardens; two uncles (brothers of her mother) who migrated and lived with the family before they were married; Norma's schooling and getting a job at 14 years old, against her parents' wishes; social life with other young women from Italian Australian families in the area; meeting Lino, her husband, and the significance of marrying an Italian from the same region, and wedding in 1966; family from the Veneto who rented the old house once the Ballestrin family moved into their new house; her parents finishing the commercial market gardens around 1966/1967; father and uncle continued to work after they finished with the market garden, in the horticultural area for the Brighton Council; involvememt in the Association of the 'Trevisani nel Mondo' and the significance of maintaining ties with people who emirated from the Province of Treviso; reflections on what it means to have Italian heritage, the pride in the feeling of being half Italian and half Australian.

No restrictions on copying or publication except acknowledging State Library of South Australia OH 872/37 if published.