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£30,000,000!
A Queensland pensioner who
isn't interested in money may
share in this vast fortune.
By MARJORIE STAPLETON, staff reporter
If Mrs Palma Albani,
of Mount Larcom, near
Rockhampton, Queens-
land, can prove she is the
sister-in-law of a Sicilian
who rose from rags to
riches, she stands to
inherit a share in a
£ 30,000,000 fortune.
But — believe it or not —
she doesn't want the money!
The 65 year old Mrs Albani
is so confident she is a relative
that her blood pressure has
troubled her ever since she
heard that a world-wide search
was on to find heirs of Giu-
seppe Privitera.
Giuseppe is the man who
left a poor Sicilian home in
1908 and found fame and im-
mense fortune in the Argentine.
After amassing this fortune
in an oil and real-estate busi-
ness he died in Buenos Aires
in 1937.
Since then the executor of
his will, Mr Pietro Pappalar-
do, has been looking for heirs.
And, though a "reluctant
heiress", Mrs Albani is cer-
tain she is one of these heirs.
"Guiseppe Privitera wassa
my brother-in-law," Mrs Al-
bani told me in "Shifting Heart"
English, as she cooked
fish for lunch in her neat
fibro cottage.
"Coursa there's no doubta.
You think I doan know my
own family?"
Three husbands.
She gave me a good-
natured wink as she slapped a
fish on its back and thrust
breadcrumbs over it.
"Three husbands I have.
This Giuseppe was the brother
of my firsta husband - Sal-
vatore Privitera."
"I remember Salvadore
talka about Giuseppe going
away to maka his fortune."
"Do I want the money? No,
I doan wanta da money. If I
none Help
Senior Constable Ted As-
pinall, the Mount Larcom
policeman who put Mrs.
Palma Albani on the
track of great fortune.
get it, I give it to my children.
Young people need money."
"But me? — all my life I
work, work, work. I not need
much money."
The fish was laid gently
into a baking-dish, and Mrs.
Albani poured garlic sauce
round it. She talked away
quietly as she worked.
"What I do with mucha
money? I doan wanta be
rich."
She put the fish into the
oven. "A little, perhaps, would
be nice. You lika da cup tea?"
I said I would like a cup of
none Help
MRS. PALMA ALBANI, who may inherit a share
of a £30,000,000 fortune amassed in the Argentine,
with her husband, Angelo, a Swiss-born Italian.
tea, especially out of the
sparkling clean teapot which
my hostess took down from a
spotless shelf.
She set out two fine china
cups and some rainbow cake,
and called my taxi-driver into
her hospitable kitchen.
"Forty years I live here in
Mount Larcom. Forty years I
work hard. I reckon I get this
money it finish me off."
She beckoned up to the win-
dow. "Cemetery not far
from here. They won't have
far to carry me."
"You doan believe me?
Honest, I doan want to be
richa. I let my children try
for money. They can have it."
"I live on da pension."
It was her application for
the pension which brought
Mrs. Albani into the public
eye.
When she turned 65 a few
months ago she went along to
Mt. Larcom Police Station.
There she handed over the
necessary documents and nat-
uralisation papers to Senior
Constable E. J. (Ted) Aspin-
all, who looks after all such
things-and much more—for
the little township with its 350
residents, 50 miles from Rock-
hampton and 36 miles from
Gladstone.
Ted took down all the de-
tails and filed them away in
his cupboard — and in his
memory.
It isn't necessary to describe
Ted Aspinall, if you can think
of Chips Rafferty in "Smiley"
and turn him fair.
The police station is also
straight from "Smiley."
"In a small township like
this a policeman does a little
bit of everything," Ted said.
"And he needs a good
memory."
"'When I read in a cabled
news item that Pietro Pappa-
lardo was looking for relatives
of Giuseppe Privitera, for-
merly of Catania, Sicily—well,
the similarity of names made
me take another look at the
Albani pension application.
"There it was. Palma Pap-
palardo married Salvadore
Privitera, in Catania, Sicily.
"Salvadore Privitera died of
war wounds in 1919, and his
widow came to Australia,
bringing with her the two chil-
dren of the marriage."
These two children are still
in Queensland. One is now
Mrs. Victoria Privitera Ger-
hardt, of Rockhampton, and
the other Paul Privitera Rossi,
of Gladstone. And both have
children of their own.
But a lot of water rolled
under an old British troopship
before the young Sicilian war
widow bundled those little
children ashore in Australia in
1920 to seek a new life.
She borrowed the passage
money from her sister, and
says this is the only money she
has ever borrowed.
The young widow was of-
fered temporary work in
Mount Larcom and she is still
there—39 years later.
To care for her family she
took on whatever peasant
work was offering.
''I walka da roads, wheela
da spring cart, sell vegetables,"
she told me.
Any odd job
"l milka da cows, garden,
menda da fence. I do any-
thing to bring in money to
educate my children."
In Mount Larcom she met
Mr. Rossi, who became her
second husband, and whose
name the Privitera children
adopted. This marriage ended
unhappily.
She later married blond,
blue-eyed Swiss-border Italian
Angelo Albani, who is her
adoring husband today.
And while she cooks and
cleans her pretty cottage, Mr.
Albani, once a cane-cutter
in Tully and Innisfail, does
casual work to supplement her
pension.
Solicitors in Gladstone and
Rome are now working on
Mrs. Albani's claim to riches,
and she has told her son, Paul,
and daughter, Victoria, to go
ahead with their claims.
In favour of her chances are
the following facts:
. Mrs. Albani has her Italian
birth certificate - something
which was very hard to ob-
tain in those days - showing
her family line.
. She also has the marriage
announcements and photo-
graphs of her wedding to
Salvadore Privitera, and his
certificate of discharge from
the Italian Army.
. Old family letters and news-
paper clippings about the
Pappalardo and Privitera
families have been treasured
carefully during Mrs. Albani's
40 years in Australia.
Old evidence.
Her chocolate box full of
souvenirs was the only connec-
tion she wanted to keep with
her old home, Catania. She
wrote no letters, became
naturalised, and put the old
life behind her.
On the pessimistic side are
these factors:
. Privitera is a very common
name in Sicily.
. Pappalardo is ditto.
. Catania is a big city.
It may be rather like look-
ing for the heirs of a Robinson
who married a Smith, of New-
castle.
. . . Except that Mrs. Albani
KNOWS they are related —
and couldn't care less about
money.
"I think there's every chance
in the world they'll prove their
kinship," Constable Aspinall
told me.
"And I hope they do, be-
cause they're a hard-working,
good-living family, exception-
ally good citizens who deserve
good fortune."
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