Community & Business
14 January, 2023
Celebrating the Costa legacy
ON an Autumn day in 1922, Giorgio and Carolina Costa left the Piedmont region of northern Italy to find a new life for themselves – a decision still appreciated a century later by their descendants.
To celebrate 100 years since the great journey, 120 members of the Costa family and their friends gathered in Atherton to reconnect and reminisce.
Giorgio and Carolina boarded the “Orient Line” ship on 8 October 1922, with their children Luigi (Lew), Margherita (Rita) and Mario (Maurie) and Carolina’s half-sisters Agostina (Neta) Tusa and half sister Maria (Mary) Tusa who they cared for at the time.
On 19 October 1922, they arrived on the shores of Sydney where they then boarded the coastal liner “Canberra” and sailed to Brisbane. They celebrated Mario’s first birthday on their first day in Brisbane.
Five days later, the family travelled north to Cairns, where Giorgio found employment in the cane fields in Mirriwinni before moving to the Atherton Tablelands to join Carolina’s brother Secondo Tusa in Tolga.
They moved in with Secondo for a short time and later in the year 1926 their youngest son Angelo (Ace) was born to complete their family.
They leased farms around in the Tolga and Kairi region where they worked extremely hard and lived in old houses on the farms with only dirt floors and their water supply came from windlass winch over a hand dug well.
In 1945 they moved to Margaret Street, Tolga where they enjoyed a long and well-deserved retirement.
Lew, Maurie and Ace Costa followed in their parents’ footsteps, purchasing farms in the region, and raising their own kids.
Their children very much loved their grand-parents and spent many hours listening their stories.
Giorgio passed away on the 19 June 1979 at age 92 and Carolina passed away on the 23 May 1983 at age 88, leaving behind a great legacy.
