As sure as clockwork, an empty auditorium nestled in Victoria’s high country slowly begins to stir to life on a Thursday afternoon.
The vibrant bounce of Italian conversation reverberates through the large room as aged — but lively — feet trot in.
Rich smells of comforting meals from the homeland like gnocchi and minestrone hang in the air, and tombola cards are carefully laid out.
For many of these Myrtleford women, their fortnightly gathering for the past 40 years is like coming home.
Birthdays, Christmases, and Mother’s Days are spent together at the Club Savoy.
Thursdays have slowly rolled these former tobacco farmers — once isolated, a world away from their Italian homes — into a family.
And among the gum trees, their Italian roots remain as strong as ever.
Savoy Ladies Group president Gabriella Bettio has been part of the group for four decades.
“That’s what we do,” she says.
“Even the food here … we have to have Italian food.
‘We can’t go away with the tradition — we need it.”
A fortnightly ritual
Age rarely stops a Thursday visit to the Club Savoy for its members.
The Savoy Ladies Group has long been a fixture in 94-year-old Gina Cenedese’s life.
It was a social lifeline during lonely days as a tobacco farmer’s wife, spent raising children, cooking meals, and physically working the fields around Myrtleford.
Often, workdays would bleed into the early hours of the next.
“Of course [it was lonely],” Gina says.
“We come in 1952 and 53, and got the farm and grow tobacco for the boss and we got no electric, no water, no nothing.”
Her 92-year-old friend, Anna Borsi, farmed tobacco in the region for 40 years.
“It was hard,” she recalls.
But for many, the Savoy Ladies Group opened new doors.
A lifeline for women
The Club Savoy, where the group meets in Myrtleford, was established when many members who now frequent it daily were still in Italy.
In 1955, Domenic Defazio recognised a need for a local club catering to the Italian community.
The first club committee was formed in 1956, and the name Savoy was adopted in 1960, saluting a former Italian king.
The club received a liquor licence in 1964, becoming the first rural Victorian club to do so.
It became a haven for isolated Italian women in the 80s, when many began to meet for social events organised by Myrtleford Convent nuns, in a bid to build social cohesion and wellbeing.
The Savoy Ladies Group became more than just a place to play tombola: it stirred independence.
The women were given the chance to learn to drive, navigate complex Australian red tape and support services, and speak English, while coming together to talk about women’s health issues and their problems.
It became a place for them channel their creativity, hosting plays over the years that often reflected their lives and experiences.
It also offered them the chance to see the world beyond their farms and without their husbands.
Fit for future?
Anna Matassoni is a second-generation member of the Savoy Ladies Group.
Her mother was 16 when she moved from Italy to the region.
Anna would join her mother when she would meet the Savoy Ladies Group and play tombola.
She proudly celebrated the group’s 40th anniversary last year, alongside its 50 members.
But age is slowly reducing that number.
The youngest club member is now in her late 60s, and recruiting a new generation is proving tough.
‘They are all too busy with their sports and their kids,” Anna says.
She’s not confident of the group’s future.
“I don’t know about [another] 40 years — I think we will all be gone by then,” she says.
In the men’s domain
In the room next door to where the ladies gather, the clock hits 4pm.
Men wander into the cosy bar at the same time religiously each day.
“This is the home away from home,” says 90-year-old Eric Fanton, slowly sitting at a table with a card game spread across its laminated grain surface.
“The young people give it the cold shoulder more or less.
“All the clubs now, they eventually [close], even in America.”
Sebastiano Revrenna sits next to him, shuffling cards and savouring the daily ritual.
He moved from Italy to Myrtleford in 1964 aged 17.
“I didn’t know anything about tobacco,” he says.
“I was a young sort of a fella looking for a bit of adventure.”
Learning English was a challenge, but now 13 per cent of the town’s population has Italian ancestry.
“There’s so many Italians here, and they all speak Italian … and that’s why we got the club,” Sebastiano says.
“There were a lot of Italian girls or boys that are born here — but they speak Italian.”
Carmelo Cardamone remembers hard 16-hour days on the region’s tobacco farms, often feeling exploited by the big tobacco companies.
“There were poisons that were banned in the US but Australia was still using them,” he says.
“We had no education here, so we were extremely limited with what people could do.
“They used to give you peanuts, enough to survive on, [to eat] three times a day, and they used to make millions, and that’s what it was.”
Crime comes to town
Sebastiano Revrenna was driven out of tobacco farming by crime, a few years before the 2006 closure of the town’s $90 million tobacco industry, founded largely by Italian migrants.
The illegal tobacco market began running hot when excise on tobacco soared around the turn of the millennium.
“That’s why I sold the farm before I finished, because they steal the tobacco,” he says.
Sebastiano began noticing bales disappearing, with up to 10 taken during one theft, costing him thousands of dollars.
One evening, when security alarms were triggered, he had to face the criminals.
“I was a bit scared to go down, and when I went down they were driving out with a truck,” Sebastiano says.
“I wanted to sort of park in front, but I had nothing.”
Those days are now over, but the legacy of the hardworking tobacco families can still be felt throughout the town.
“They were the best part of my life, because it was hard work but plentiful money and a happy life,” says Sebastiano’s brother, Peter Revrenna.
“The company has been the best part of Myrtleford.”
