By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
FOR 50 years Peter De Cinque called Dandenong home.
The Italian migrant – who passed away this month on Tuesday 19 January at the age of 82 after a long battle with motor neurone disease – was loved not only by his family but by the local community, which he always held dear to his heart.
An active member of the Catholic Church who ran for the local council in 1986, Pietro – his birth name – first came to Australia from Italy in 1951 in the wake of World War II.
Peter’s son, Tony, spoke to Star News about his father’s decision to leave Europe to start another life.
“He came out when he was 19 from Italy, after it was ravaged by the Second World War, to build a new life and start a family in a safer environment than what Europe had been,” Tony said.
“He went out to Morwell to live with his uncle and got a job on the railway building bridges.”
Not long after Peter was married by proxy and his wife, Nicolletta, soon joined him in Australia in 1955.
The couple built a life for themselves and their three children – Tony, Robert and Anna – in the Dandenong area, beginning in Bowman Street, Noble Park.
“It was just cow paddocks back then, the road wasn’t even made,” Tony recalled.
Peter soon got a job with Rocla Pipes, a company he worked at for 27 years, as his affinity for the Dandenong region grew and stayed a part of him long after he moved to Safety Beach in his later years.
Peter was a founding Parishioner at St Gerard’s Catholic Church in Dandenong North and also started up an Italian chapter of the St Vincent de Paul Society.
“It was everything to him. He spent most of his life in the Dandenong area and he would always gravitate back to it,” Tony said.
“He’d run New Year’s Eve dances and he was always running charity fundraisers.”
Tony said his father’s affinity to Dandenong and the surrounding suburbs could be linked to his farming roots, having grown up in rural areas in Italy.
“He had a close connection to the country because he was born on a farm and Dandenong was a gateway to Gippsland,” he said.
As he raised his children, Peter worked three jobs to “put down a foundation for our family and future generations”.
“He would never buy anything if he couldn’t afford it,” Tony said.
“Just reflecting on it, I’ve never really thought about it but Dad was always selfless, always doing things for others – he’d give the shirt off his back to someone in need.
“He was the perfect person but you don’t think about it ’cause he’s your Dad.”
