Guiseppina Saffioti

Giuseppina and Nicodemo’s early lives were shaped by the deep poverty that gripped Calabria in the years after the First World War. 

Nicodemo was born in Melicucca, Calabria, on 3 April 1925. The town, on the northern slope of the Aspromonte, was surrounded by forests, valleys and dramatic peaks. Despite its beauty, life was harsh. His mother died when he was only three, and he and his sisters were raised by extended family. Food was scarce, work was uncertain and the legacies of war, fascism and civil unrest weighed heavily on the rural south.

By 1952, Nicodemo longed for more than survival. With his father and cousins already in Australia, he seized the chance for a different future. Boarding the Toscana, he arrived in Fremantle and joined the ranks of young Italian men seeking opportunity. Settling first in Highgate and then North Perth, near community hubs like the Re Store and Pisconeri’s Fine Foods and Wines, he worked gruelling jobs clearing land, fencing properties and building stations. Some pastoralists treated him poorly, but he endured, determined to send money home and one day build a family of his own.

A decade later, Giuseppina, aged 21, left her hometown of Campoli. Sponsored by her brother Tony, she sailed on the Neptunia in 1962. The voyage was long and punishing – she was seasick throughout and wept at leaving behind her family, her village, and everything familiar. 

Perth was not yet multicultural. Food, language and customs felt foreign, and anti-Italian prejudice was raw in the postwar years. Giuseppina often had to repair her brothers’ shirts after they were torn in fights at dance halls. Yet, as more siblings and cousins joined her in Perth, her sadness softened, replaced by the comfort of family ties and the promise of a new life.

Fate brought Nicodemo and Giuseppina together. She was renting a house he owned with her brothers, and soon after, they married. In Roleystone, they purchased land and built a thriving orchard. Their daughter Rita remembers it as ‘like picking up a bit of Calabria and putting it into Roleystone’. The farm was not just a livelihood but a living symbol of transplanted traditions and enduring roots.
Family was at the centre of everything. Sundays were spent in the park with cousins who felt more like siblings. Annual rituals – making sausages, bottling tomato passata, and hosting noisy cousin gatherings – were treasured markers of the year. Giuseppina and Nicodemo often teased each other over whose hometown was poorer, Campoli or Melicucca, but beneath the humour was a shared pride in their heritage.

Festivals also bridged Italy and their new life in Western Australia. Fremantle’s Blessing of the Fleet, celebrated with deep devotion, joined other Italian religious and cultural traditions that kept community ties strong while sharing identify, food and song with the wider public. 

Nicodemo stood apart from many men of his generation, insisting his daughters receive the best education possible, convinced it was the key to opportunity. Giuseppina’s industriousness matched his resourcefulness, and together they built a home where humility, honesty and resilience mattered more than wealth or display. Their orchard, work ethic and devotion to family  remain their legacy.
Rita reflects that her parents and grandparents ‘worked hard to make sure we had education, opportunity and community. They didn’t show off, they weren’t flashy – but the greatness was in them’. 

Giuseppina and Nicodemo’s story is part of the broader Italian migration that helped shape Western Australia. Their sacrifices built not only a family but also a community, enriching the State’s cultural fabric with traditions, resilience and festivals that continue to unite generations.