Ostrich feather fan

This beautiful fan, with a tortoise-shell handle, was brought from Italy by a young bride, Natalina Gastaldo, when she migrated to Australia with her husband Damiano. Theirs is a classic migrant story, of hard work, hard work, and yet more hard work, to establish a livelihood for their growing family. They lived in a small wooden house which they built on their leased land in Worsley, where they raised seven children. Damiano, known as ‘Gus’, carted his produce by horse and, later by car, to the Collie markets every week. A combination of creativity and self-sufficiency saw Gus make all his children’s toys and his own tools, using wood found in the local bush.