By his side were his wife and lifelong partner Gianfranca, his son Pietro, daughters Maria Rosa and Rita, sons-in-law Luigi Mazzarolo and Franco Mirtillo, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
A warm, convivial lunch at Club Marconi provided the perfect setting for the celebrations, bringing four generations together around a man who has left a profound mark on the history of Sydney’s Veneto community.
But Tony Fornasier is more than a grandfather cherished by his loved ones. He is a bridge-builder between two worlds—between the Italy he left behind and the Australia that welcomed him.
A founding member of the Veneto Club and the first president of the Trevisani nel Mondo Association in Sydney, Fornasier embodies a true success story of migration: that distinctly Italian ability to carry one’s roots abroad without ever losing them, allowing them instead to take hold and flourish in new soil.
His story mirrors that of thousands of Italians who crossed oceans after the war in search of a better future—yet with a defining difference in that Tony did not only build something for himself and his family.
Fornasier felt a responsibility to create spaces where the Veneto community could gather, keep traditions alive, speak the dialect and share the values and culture of their homeland.
His role in founding the Veneto Club and the Trevisani nel Mondo Association bears witness to this deep sense of belonging and service to the collective. To this day, these organisations continue to play a vital role for Italians in Sydney—places where generations meet, traditional festivities are celebrated and an enduring bond with Veneto is preserved.
At 92, looking at his six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren seated around the lunch table, Tony Fornasier can take pride not only in having built a large, close-knit family, but also in leaving an invaluable intangible legacy: a cultural identity preserved and passed on, and a community that continues to thrive thanks to the pioneering work of people like him.
Club Marconi remains one of the most important hubs for Sydney’s Italian community, a living symbol of an integration that never means forgetting who you are or where you come from.
And as Fornasier blew out his candles surrounded by the love of his family, something greater was being celebrated: a life dedicated to the common good, to unity, to memory and to the future of the Veneto community in Australia.
