Drive-in to beautiful life
Dating didn’t always go to plan for Giovanni and Nella Quintieri (above), who celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary today.
DATING didn’t always go to plan for Giovanni and Nella Quintieri, who celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary today.
Both from the small town of Fagnano Costello in the mountains of Calabria in southern Italy, their love would blossom in another small town 14,000km away.
Nella Cosentino was just 14 when she came to Australia with her mother in December 1962 and immediately went to work on a tobacco farm on the outskirts of Mareeba.
Encouraged to move to Australia by relatives, Giovanni immigrated in July 1965, aged 21, and also settled in Mareeba where he was introduced to Nella by mutual friends.
Nella recalls one date in particular while they were still in the early stages of dating.
Giovanni asked her out on a date to the drive-in at Mareeba and duly arrived in his ute.
You can imagine his surprise when he discovered that Nella’s mother would be joining them on their date.
So they spent the night at the drive-in, settled in the back of the ute with Giovanni on one side, Nella on the other, and her mother in the middle.
The couple were married on October 14, 1967 at St Thomas’s Church Mareeba and honeymooned locally in Kuranda, Innisfail and Cairns.
Following their honeymoon, they went sharefarming on a tobacco property, Paddy’s Green, just outside Mareeba.
Over the next few decades they continued sharefarming in the Mareeba area, working hard to provide a comfortable life for their family.
The first of their three children, Genio, arrived in 1968, followed by Frank in 1972 and David in 1977.
Being immigrants, they say not knowing English was a challenge in their early years of marriage. However, they overcame this challenge, as well as others, like the demands of farming life, raising three children, financial and health issues, and also the loss of loved ones along the way.
The couple are proud of the longevity of their marriage and the family they have raised.
“After 50 years of being together, and all the tough times, we are still together,” Nella said.
“We are also proud of watching our boys grow to be men and to start families of their own, and succeed in their own individual ways.”
The couple also have four grandchildren: Zoe 16, Milan, 14, Matthew 14, and Sophie, 11.