The Australian Women's Register

Margherita Stefani migrated with her mother and her sister Maria to Western Australia in 1940. The family had waited for nine years for their father to send money for their migration. Margherita’s mother, aged 38, had four more children in the eastern goldfields mining town of Gwalia, Western Australia. Margherita was forced by her father to remain at home helping her mother with the children and do ironing and washing for single miners until she was 21 when she went to work at the Leonora Hospital as a domestic. She married ex-miner and internee Romeo Stefani in 1953. He had bought the Kalgoorlie Wine Saloon and, after changing the name to the Amalfi, he and Margherita fed, cleaned and cared for young migrant Italians, visitors to Kalgoorlie and those wanting a good home-cooked meal. Margherita worked from 4 a.m. until 9 p.m. seven days a week, leaving her little time for politics or socialising. She was assisted by her mother, who helped in the kitchen and cared for her grandchildren, her sister Maria who worked as a waitress and other married women who needed part-time work and young single girls. Margherita’s work and that of the women who assisted her was essential to the operation of the mines of the Golden Mile because the many miners without family support would not have remained in the town without it. Margherita retired to Perth in 1983 after twenty years of hard work.