Surprise drop in leads to love
A YOUNG suitor’s bold solo visit to his prospective belle has proved to be the catalyst for 50 years of wedded bliss for a Mareeba couple.
Aldo and Elizabeth Rogato’s families moved from the small town of Fanano Castello in southern Italy all the way to Mareeba.
The couple knew each other and had shared a few dances at weddings and parties but their love didn’t spark until Mr Rogato visited his now wife in September 1971.
“We sort of knew each other but didn’t really have anything to do with each other,” Mrs Rogato said.
“Aldo asked me to dance a few times, but then one day he just came over to our house without saying anything.”
Mrs Rogato did not expect the unexpected visit to be the beginning of their love story.
“I didn’t know that he was coming over, he just turned up,” she said.
“He told my mother he had come over because he wanted
to go out with me and that’s what happened.
“In those days if someone came to the house it was taken for granted that you were getting married.”
Just a couple months after that visit, the couple were engaged on January 22, 1972, and married on May 13, 1972.
They had a huge wedding of more than 700 people at St
Thomas of Villanova Church in Mareeba.
The couple raised three children, Pasqualino, Rosina and Michele, in a small house on the Paddy’s Green farm while growing tobacco and later diversified into fruit and vegetables including watermelons, tomatoes and zucchinis.
Mr and Mrs Rogato sold the farm and moved to Mareeba where they are today.
Mr Rogato still finds himself in the garden planting trees and landscaping a small property while his wife works at the agricultural and yard equipment store Casali’s Mareeba.
Mr Rogato was born in Italy and moved to Mareeba when he was nine, five years after his father Pasqualino settled in Australia in 1952.
Mrs Rogato was born in Australia, after her parents Vincenzo and Maria, immigrated in the 1950s. Her mother was left to raise a family of four on a farm in Bilwon just outside Mareeba after her husband died in 1961.
The couple plan to celebrate their milestone anniversary on Saturday with family and friends.