The national tribute now bears almost 36,000 names. On November 22, during two official ceremonies, a further 814 stories from 56 countries were added to this collective archive of memory and identity.
Among them was the story of the Valente family, shared with heartfelt emotion by Amanda Baker, granddaughter of Raffaele and Susanna Valente, who migrated from Italy in 1965.
Amanda opened her address by recalling her grandparents’ journey, leaving Italy with a one-year-old child and a ticket into the unknown.
“It’s hard to imagine what it meant to be confined on a ship for months with a small child,” she said. “I’ve travelled far less with my own son and arrived exhausted.”
The voyage on the ship Sydney was challenging but sustained by a strong sense of community, Amanda recalled: “People truly believed it took a village to raise a child, and they helped one another in every possible way.”
It was a way of life her grandparents carried with them throughout their years in Australia. After disembarking in Melbourne on October 12, 1965, the Valentes travelled on to Adelaide, where they shared a small house with five other migrants.
A new country to navigate, demanding work shifts and young children to raise marked a difficult beginning, one that mirrors the experience of many Italians of that era.
Grandfather Raffaele quickly found work with the South Australian Engineering and Water Supply Department, proof that the “opportunities” he had left Italy for were real.
The family soon grew, but hardship followed. When their four children were still young, Raffaele suffered a severe nervous breakdown.
“That’s when my grandmother Susanna became the backbone of the family,” recalled Amanda.
“She took on two jobs to make sure everyone had what they needed.” Susanna worked in the fields, cooked for the community, and supported neighbours and the parish—holding the household together while her husband faced a long and difficult recovery.
Together, they rebuilt their lives. They turned their home into a market garden, which soon became a reference point for the Italian and Greek communities in Payneham.
“Nonno was the vegetable man. Everyone went to him for their weekly shopping,” shared Amanda with pride.
In 1974, the family became Australian citizens. Amanda remembered how proud her grandfather was of that moment. “He was an Australian—or ‘Skippy’, as he used to say.”
Years later, when he returned to Italy to show his children where he came from, he realised where home truly was. “As soon as he landed back in Australia, he kissed the ground and swore he would never leave the country again.”
The market garden, later expanded in Bolivar, became a multicultural workplace employing migrants from many countries.
Amanda described her childhood there as a rare privilege: “I was a lucky child, growing up among the soil, the plants, the tractors—a world full of imagination.”
She smiled as she recalled one of her grandfather’s quirks. “He used to put my soft toys in the trees because he was convinced they would scare off the parrots.”
Raffaele and Susanna Valente passed away just six weeks apart in 2023. For Amanda, telling their story was a way of bringing them close again. “Preparing this speech helped me feel near them, and this memorial ensures their story will not be forgotten,” she said.
And so, in the light of Pyrmont Bay, the Valente family’s story now becomes part of Australia’s shared narrative—a story shaped by work, community and a quiet, resilient kind of love expressed through everyday actions.
