Happy birthday dad. I had a drink for you tonight and to finish the day off there was the most beautiful sunset I have seen in a long while, which I was able to capture to treasure. All our love.
I’ve just had a major move/declutter of my desk (I lost my office to one of the kids) and in the process I found an old email dating from 2011 from Tony Piscioneri that I had in my to do pile (don’t laugh). Anyway, Tony had provided some more information about a photo uploaded in 2008. Sorry Tony for being so slack in adding the info. xx
I’ve added the information now on the original post, take a look back here.
P.S. I’ve added the background music back to the website, there is a pause button in the top right corner if needed.
Today marks what would have been dad’s 72nd birthday. He hasn’t been far from my mind today.
I’ve spent a bit of time setting my scanner up for use again to start scanning more photos. So here is tonight’s effort another photo from mum and dad’s wedding of them signing the register. I will try and scan the rest of the wedding photos and put a few shots up on the next post.
Signing of the register
On this day 50 years ago dad and mum were married in Red Cliffs, Victoria. So starts the next chapter of photos that I will be posting in dad’s life. This photo is the traditional parents of the bride and groom shot, featuring my Nonno and Nonna next to dad and Nanna & Grandad next to mum.
Wedding Day 1967, Red Cliffs, Victoria
L-R: Giuseppe & Giovanna Dichiera, Pasquale Dichiera, Helen Jensen, Helen & Roy Jensen.
I just wanted to take a minute to share and plug this website. Elevate Training & Labour is my brother’s business and I have just completed this website for him.
Elevate Training & Labour are available to train a large range of RII training courses for the mining and civil constructions industries (specialising in cranes & dogging / rigging). As most know Michael is located in the beautiful Whitsundays at Proserpine, so his business serves these locations; Whitsundays, Mackay, Townsville, Moranbah, the Bowen Basin mine sites and other areas as required.
I’ve been attending my children’s school assembly most weeks and they start by singing the national anthem “Advance Australia Fair“. Standing up and singing with the kids has brought back quite a vivid memory I have of the day Dad went to vote for what the new Australian national anthem would be.
It was 1977, there was a referendum with a plebiscite about the national anthem – I have since found that the date was 21st May, 1977. I was 9yo, Michael 7yo and I remember walking in with Dad at Irymple and him explaining what he was doing. It’s so vivid a memory, that I can see the red bricks of the building, remember the beautifully green manicured lawns and all the people that were milling around out the front.
Waltzing Matilda was also a choice and my favourite choice at that particular point for the anthem, and I remember being a little disappointed that it was defeated. But for the life of me, I can’t remember how Dad voted or if he even told us what he voted for. In a way, I hope it was Advance Australia Fair especially because of the anthem’s second verse that really is so significant to us given we’re the grandchildren of Italian immigrants (on one side anyway). Migrants who left their country in 1938 for a better life and found it here working hard in Australia.
I’ve spent today cleaning up this blog. The last time I went to update I found some major problems with images and the blog software – it ended up being too big a job to complete in one hit. But I’ve had more success today with all the images and links now working properly again. I even have the menu items across the top linking to the correct galleries again. I’m sure I could spend a lot more time on it, but for now will leave you with this image that I scanned quite a while ago. It’s a bit of a sneak peak into the next series of images I will be scanning…
Update: Upon looking at this image again, I’m not sure if it is at my parent’s wedding reception or my dad’s 21st. The tie my dad is wearing made me think it was his 21st, however looking at some more of the wedding photos I can see that his tie was changed to this style for the going away outfits. Mum is not sure, so I have sent a message to Jim Crisera to see if he can remember.
From L-R: Fred Frasca, Sam Dichiera, Jim Crisera & Pat Dichiera (Dad)
Happy heavenly birthday Dad. Today would have been your 70th birthday, we’re sure you would have celebrated. 🙂 We’ll all have one for you tonight. Love you always. xxx
I have pleasure in announcing the arrival of dad’s newest grand daughter “M”, who arrived in March. Congratulations to my brother Michael and his wife Kim on the birth of their second child.
Photo soon…
This is a postcard that Dad sent to me for my 8th birthday, while he was on his 1976 European trip. I was going to just add the front of the postcard only, but I thought it was nice to read something dad wrote to us way back then.
Condolences to Andrew, Sandra and Uncle on the passing of Aunty Tosti. A treasured family member. Aunty was very involved with dad’s family during the early days here in Australia as evidenced in quite a few of the earlier photos posted here. Her son Andrew mentioned to me once that she enjoyed reminiscing at the old photos.
Our thoughts are with you. xx
We’ve missed you as always and wish you were here to see your grandchildren grow. I’m sure they’d all love their Nonno, Grandad, Grandpa, whatever you would have liked them to call you and in turn I could imagine you doting on them. I can nearly remember what your voice sounded like now. 🙂
Happy 68th Birthday Dad. xxxx
I have pleasure in announcing the arrival of dad’s new grandson “D”, who was welcomed into our family in April, 2013. Congratulations to my brother Michael and his wife Kim on the birth of their first child.
Meet gorgeous “D” with his happy parents….
Here’s an image from my nonna’s collection, showing from left Tony DeLuca, Dad with his brother Sam and cousin Jim Crisera.
Thanks to Robert Crisera & his mum Cath Crisera for scanning the image (originally from nonna’s collection). UPDATE: Thanks James Crisera for confirming it was Tony, I had a bit of brain fade. 🙂
