ARMANASCO Doris  

Researched and compiled by Gordon Freegard January 2023
Acknowledging information gathered from many sources including an
interview with Doris Armanasco conducted on 7th September, 2016 by Jeanette Achurch assisted by Valerie Holmes on behalf of the
Kalamunda and  Districts Historical Society

Bortolo Armanasco was born in Tovo di Sant’Agata, prov di Sondrio, Lombardy, Northern Italy on 29th September 1895. It was a beautiful small village in walking distance of the Switzerland border. He joined the army and participated in the First World War. After the war he married local girl Domenica Armanasco, who was born on 3rd March 1899. They had both gown up in that village and got married there. Their first child, Rose (Eurosis), was born in early 1924.

Towards the end of 1924 Bortolo decided to move to Australia to try and make a good life for his family. He left his wife and baby behind. After arriving he went to Pickering Brook as his sister and brother-in-law, the Sala Tenna’s, lived there. He lived in a tent and obtained work cutting wood for the pumping station at Mundaring.
 

DORIS ARMANASCO      #1
 

He eventually bought land at Pickering Brook next to the Sala Tenna’s and cleared it by hand on the weekends. It was very, very hard work. He built a little two room cottage on the property and in 1929, his wife and five year old daughter came and joined him in Australia. It would have been very hard for her as she spoke no English, and there were very few houses in Pickering Brook. Sign language was the main means of communication.

Bortolo came home from working at Mundaring, only on the weekends. They had no running water, and no electricity. He eventually dug a well down in the gully a little way from the house. Domenica would go there and bring back the water. She use to do the washing down there in a tub. In the house they had a wood stove, no sink or anything like that. Just a table, chairs and a kitchenette.

The second daughter, Doris, was born at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Subiaco on the 30^tth October 1930.

The mother spoke to her children in Italian all the time so they knew very little English when it was time to go to school. Doris attend the little school at Pickering Brook with eight or nine other children. She left at thirteen and boarded at St. Brigid’s in Lesmurdie. Her older sister Rose only attended Pickering Brook School for one year.
 

PICKERING BROOK (CARILLA) SCHOOL   1934      #2

Doris hated high school and was very home sick. So as soon as she turned fourteen she left school. That was the legal age at which you could leave.

The Second World War broke out, and the Italians were not very well liked because they were against the British. But Doris’ Dad and Mum were naturalised so they were very lucky, and they were ordered to grow vegetables for the army - a lot of vegetables for the army. Bortolo said that was how he started to get on his feet. He grew a lot of vegetables for the army. During these years his fruit trees were maturing and starting to bear fruit.

PICKERING BROOK (CARILLA) SCHOOL 1936     #3

FROM BACK L - R;
BOB BERDART, TONY MAZZARDIS, ERNIE HARRIS, MERLE WESTON, JOSE SALA TENNA, RENE TENARDI, GRAHAM STEPHENS, AILEEN MORITZ,
PETER SALA TENNA, MAC BEARD, DORIS ARMANASCO

BORTOLO & DOMENICA ARMANASCO FAMILY 1936         #4
CHILDREN :  Rose, aged abt 13 (elder daughter, standing on right)
Doris, aged abt 7 (younger daughter, standing, front)
James (“Jim”) aged abt 2 (youngest son, left)

DORIS ARMANASCO AGED ABOUT 7     1936
AT THE HOME AT PICKERING BROOK  
    

DORIS ARMANASCO AGED ABOUT 16     1946       #6
ON THE FAMILY ORCHARD AT PICKERING BROOK
 

DORIS ARMANASCO 1947       #7
 

DORIS ARMANASCO IN EVENING DRESS 1947       #8

Bortolo bought one of the first trucks in Pickering Brook and he had a permit to allow him to transport the vegetables to Perth on certain days of the week. During those war years it was very hard. Nearly everything was rationed like butter, sugar, meat, clothes and so on.

After Doris left school she wanted to do sewing. Her mother had a friend in Perth who was a very good dressmaker so she arrange a job there for Doris. She worked for this lady five and a half days a week for ten shillings pay ($1.00). From eight in the morning till six o’clock at night and till lunchtime on Saturdays. After four months it became obvious that she wasn’t going to learn dressmaking there, because she only learnt how to do hems and sew beads and sequins on.

So she was sent to the Stanley School of Dressmaking and within nine months she got her Diploma. Doris obtained a job at a dressmaking factory making frocks. She was given bundles of frocks already cut out and she would have to sew them together.
 

DORIS ARMANASCO 1947       #9
AFTER RECEIVING HER DRESSMAKING CERTIFICATE

DORIS ARMANASCO WITH OLDER SISTER ROSE  1949       #10
AT KALAMUNDA SHOW

DINO ARMANASCO WITH DORIS' PARENTS 1949       #11

It wasn’t long after that when she met Dino (Domenico) Armanasco. Then of course her mother said, “It’s time you learnt to look after a house!” She came home and married soon after on the nineteenth birthday.  On the 29th October 1949, Doris married her husband Dino when she was 19, after they met through family friends. They were married in the chapel at St Brigid's. Dino's family lived on a farm near Southern Cross which had been previously allocated to a former soldier through the Soldier's Settlement Scheme. After the farms in that area had been abandoned many Italians took them over. Dino's father worked in the mines at Southern Cross. After they were married in 1949, Doris and Dino went straight to the farm by the end of that year.
 

DINO & DORIS ARMANASCO ON THEIR WEDDING DAY 1949       #12
 

They lived on the farm and brought up their four daughters there. Judy, Annette and Phyllis all went to boarding school. Leanda was the only one that didn’t go to boarding school. The two eldest went to Sisters of Mercy at Coolgardie Boarding School.

They sold the farm in 1974 and moved to Kalamunda. Dino bought a house in Kalamunda before they moved off the farm. Later they bought the vacant block next door on which Dino built their new house and they moved into it on New Year’s Day 1977.

MOBILGAS FUEL SIGN      #13

Doris’ brother Jim, was still living on the original orchard at Pickering Brook and was operating an agency for Mobilgas Petrol.

PICKERING BROOK SCHOOL 80th ANNIVERSARY          1955       #14
LOU MARCHESANO, PETER FANTUZ, AMOS PETRUCCI, JIM AMANASCO, MICHAEL SCOLARO
 

JIM ARMANASCO'S MOBILGAS DEPOT ON PICKERING BROOK ROAD      #15
Armanasco family homes (old one on the left, newer one on the right), Pickering Brook.

JIM ARMANASCO'S MOBILGAS DEPOT ON PICKERING BROOK ROAD      #16
The original Armanasco family home, on their orchard in Pickering Brook.
 

DINO & DORIS ARMANASCO 1995       #17
 

DINO & DORIS ARMANASCO ON THEIR 50th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY      #18
 

In their retirement Doris enjoyed her garden which included 200 rose bushes. She also went to night school to learn craftwork like quilting and lamp shade making. While Dino enjoyed playing bowls and darts. He built a shed in the backyard where he created many things with his woodwork skills.

They did lots of traveling from 1974 till 2009. Visiting the home village in Italy in 1977. That was when they realised how hard it must have been for their parents when they came out to Australia. Moving from a little village that was like one big family, to the middle of the bush and not knowing the language.

Sadly Dino suffered from dementia for many of his last years and was cared for by Doris. Dino was very close to Doris’ brother and when he died suddenly from a heart attack in February 2009, Dino collapsed from the shock and was then put into a care home by December that year. Dino Armanasco passed away 16th October 2015.

Doris’ parents, Bortolo Armanasco passed away 21st January 1973 and Domenica Armanasco passed away 12th September 1989.

DORIS ARMANASCO 2016      #19
 

Every endeavour has been made to accurately record the details however if you would like to provide additional images and/or newer information we are pleased to update the details on this site. Please use CONTACT at the top of this page to email us. We appreciate your involvement in recording the history of our area.

References:                 Article:      Gordon Freegard
                                                 Kalamunda & District Historical Society

                                  Image:     1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19    Kalamunda & District Historical Society

Copyright :   Gordon Freegard     2008 - 2023