By Millie Schillick
If you are passing by Brooklyn, stop by the Reserve on Nolan Avenue and learn about some of the area’s rich migrant history.
Right near the Community Centre you’ll find Brooklyn’s first historic panel featuring some of the locals who helped write the suburb’s cultural narrative; post-WW2 European immigrants who settled in Brooklyn and in the west in the 1950s and 60s.
These displaced persons, refugees and migrants had to leave their homelands, families and belongings behind, most of them arriving with just a suitcase and a trunk to begin a new life. In Australia, they became an essential workforce, taking on the dirtiest and toughest jobs in Melbourne’s industrial west, where there was an abundance of labor work.
These ‘New Australians’ as they were then called, were admirable hard workers, with rich cultural heritages, many important professional, culinary and artistic skills. They greatly contributed to the advancement, prosperity and enjoyment of this young country. Their enduring and valuable legacies should be remembered.
One of the photos featured in the panel captures a gathering of post-WW2 East European migrants celebrating a Christening, taken in the mid 1950s.
Another, from the late 1950s, shows Ivan from Siberia, a refugee migrant and house-and-garden-proud owner of his weatherboard home in Stenhouse Avenue. He worked in Gilbertson’s Meatworks in Altona for 30 years. His Ukrainian wife, Sonia, was a popular barmaid in Footscray hotels for 25 years. Their daughter Millie, born in Italy, writes this story in their memory and of her years growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950–70s.
A third photo shows Nissan huts at the Millers Road entrance to the Brooklyn Migrant Hostel which was opened in 1948. The existing woolsheds were converted into flimsy accommodation for the incoming post-war British migrants. Later the Nissan hut shown here housed migrants from mainland Europe. The Hostel closed in 1970 and reverted back to wool and goods stores much like it is today.
So, if you’re looking for some local history visit Brooklyn’s Reserve and check out some of the remaining 1950 and 60s houses while you’re at it. Many still have their original families living in them.
