NEMORE BREGOLI

24 Jan NEMORE BREGOLI

Nemore in Australia, 1952-1956

Nemore Bregoli
Nemore Bregoli was born in Alberone, a small village within Cento on 25th July 1921. His parents were Guglielmo Bregoli and Benilde Abelli.

He lived with his parents, his brothers and his sister Teresina on Guidetti Road in Alberone.

He drove a cart pulled by a horse as did his father and brothers Gino and Leardo.

Soon after the war, back from prison in a concentration camp in Germany, he resumed driving the cart carrying sand, gravel, straw and hay; in moments of lack of employment he worked as a laborer.

Because Nemore wanted to marry and needed money to support his family, he applied to work abroad. When his application was accepted, in October 1952 he sailed from the port of Venice, on the San Giorgio ship, with a third class ticket for Australia. He travelled with three other workers from Cento but we do not know their names.

Once arrived at the port of Sidney, after four weeks of travelling as he searched for work he was recruited among the road laborers, that is, among the workers involved in building roads, bridges and important communications routes.

He remained in the Sydney area for several months and then his team was sent to Melbourne, a few hundred kilometers away, still working on the roads and building large craft areas.

In the first period of his stay in Sydney, the foreign workers were placed in wooden shacks where at most they could sleep with four people in a room, while in Melbourne they had brick houses previously built by other immigrants, with independent rooms for two people and the possibility to wash themselves in common showers.

He came back from Australia in the Autumn of 1956 and in January 1957 he married Maria Luigia Balboni, with whom he had three daughters; he went to live on Pirani road in Alberone. He stopped being a carter and with the money he earned he bought a small farm, where he undertook the work of a direct farmer working until his death in 1997.

Among other people from Alberone that emigrated to Australia is remembered Angelo Ghisellini, known with the nickname “canguro” (kangaroo).

thanks to Oriano Tommasini