Alfredo ‘Fred’ Gallo: June 6, 1938 to March 19, 2013.
FRED was a simple man – and by that I mean he had simple ways. He believed in living a simple life in which you worked hard and could show something for your efforts. And even though he didn’t choose to be a farmer it was a natural fit for him because: he loved the land; and growing food or raising cattle on it.
His focus was maintaining that simplicity in life and not being preoccupied by some of the distractions of modern life. I think many of the modern day distractions were just that for Fred. Sport, technology and travel were all distractions that got in the way of living a simple life.
Mum used to joke that Dad would be comfortable sleeping on a bale of hay in the shed. But that was no joke – that was Dad.
Fred came to this country when he was 10 at a time when it wasn’t fashionable to be Italian. His anglicization began at school with his sister and brother when Rosina, Raffaele and Alfredo became Rosie, Ralph and Fred. Italians back then were dagoes, eye-ties, or wogs and I think this encouraged Dad to leave Italy behind and integrate into his new adopted country. Dad took an English wife and didn’t see the need to teach us, his kids, Italian - because this was the county he and his family were going to make their future in.
I always wanted Dad to return to Italy – that was a priority for me – but it wasn’t for Dad. Although he was very proud of being Italian, Dad seemed more comfortable in the ‘bush’ of his adopted country than anywhere else. In 1997 Dad and I did a road trip together through Western Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia and it seemed strange to me that this Akubra wearing wog was in his element in the Mitchell Grass Downs, the Gulf Plains and the Channel County rather than a Calabrese coffee shop – but that was Dad.
On that trip, we were in Western Australia at Halls Creek and I managed to convince Dad that rather than travelling back up to Darwin and then down to Alice Springs that we should simply cut across the desert. After some persuading, he agreed but said I have to get some money out of the bank first. I said Dad “it’s a desert. We are not going to need cash”. Well, 8 hours in to the trip we discovered Lake Gregory had swelled because of the summer rains and the track stopped requiring us to go around it. We started popping tyres till we had gone through all 4 of our spares tyres. We finally hit civilization (and you should read that with a question mark and exclamation) in Yuendumu. Where we needed to buy tyres but had no cash. I blamed Dad because he broke his golden rule – “don’t go anywhere without cash”. We all remember that golden rule and that is why Dad goes on his way with $10 in his wallet.
When Dad and Mum first got married they grew potatoes in Atherton. Then later corn.
They moved to Mareeba in 1967 and continued to grow vegetables of all descriptions. Around 1967 he partnered with his brother Mario and they started expanding. Together they grew peanuts and then ventured into tropical pasture seeds.
Then came Dad’s real loves - apart from Mum, Dad loved Caldera, Julius, Wylandra Eagle and many others. I am of course talking about the Wylandra stud champions.
In 1977 Dad and his brother Mario started Wylandra Holdings with just 22 cows from the Glenrae Stud. Eight years later, in 1985, and as relative newcomers, they topped the national sales at Rockhampton with an average of $5,600 a head for 10 bulls. At the time $5,600 was a significant amount of money for one bull let alone as an average price for 10. That average across that number of bulls in 1985 was unheard of. Dad became passionate about the stud and later the Wylandra Stud topped the Rockhampton national sales for females three years running and had the Rockhampton Beef expo junior champion and Brisbane Ekka reserve champion at the same time.
Of all the business enterprises that the brothers got into it was the Stud that captivated Dad. If you look at the photo on the inside cover that is Dad at his most comfortable – dirt on his hands at the cattle yards.
I could go on to talk about the residential development at Wylandra Estates which was the first of its kind in this area and his brother – but as successful as that has been – I know Dad would not rate it as highly as the cattle.
