Barisa Batinich was born on 24th August 1884 in Makarska, Dalmatia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now in the Republic of Croatia).
He arrived in Sydney on the steamship Bremen in 1901 and made his way to Baldo Cunich’s ‘Peachvale’ property, where he worked as a labourer in the orchards.
Cunich had sponsored the teenage Batinich, as their families were known to each other in Dalmatia, continuing a tradition of chain migration that had started with Nicholas Jasprizza’s sponsorship of the three Cunich brothers in the 1880s and '90s.
While the Batinich family were involved in the fruit industry in Dalmatia, they were also involved with the fishing industry along the Adriatic coast.
A typical cherry-picking day at Cunich’s would start at daybreak and go to four o’clock in the afternoon.
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According to his grandson Noel, Batinich ‘had one kerosene tin on the front of him, one kerosene tin full of cherries at the back of him and a basket on each shoulder.
They’d load him up and he’d walk into the sheds’.
The four-gallon kerosene tins held about 20 pounds of cherries each.
Batinich proved to be ‘a very fast and a very clean picker’, establishing a record one day during the peak season in November/December, when he picked twenty-three 60-pound baskets.
Batinich married Julia Apps in 1911 and acquired a small mining lease near what is known as The Common, on the outskirts of Young.
Their sons Norman (born in 1911) and Ernest (1912) are pictured with them in the photo above.
Their other children were Mary (born in 1915), James (1921), Mona (1923), Rita (1924) and Patricia (1934).
Batinich was naturalised in 1913.
Batinich continued to work part-time for Cunich until 1925, when he could work permanently on his own orchard which he called ‘Common View’.
He and his two oldest sons, Norman and Ernest, cleared the land of scrub: ‘He used to clear… about an acre, every year and pull it out, pull the stumps out with horses, cut the roots. Then he’d work the ground up and he’d sow melons’. The melons provided the family’s income while the young cherry trees matured. Even after starting out on his own, Batinich maintained a friendship with Cunich: ‘He used to play a lot of cards with Mr Baldo and drink some wine down in the cellar where they used to make their wine.’
Batinich died on 19th December 1944, aged 61, at Orange Base Hospital.
He was on a visit to his daughter, Mary Simpson, when he took ill and passed away, a week after being admitted to hospital.
He was buried in Young.
Karen Schamberger – Young Historical Museum
