There was a lot to write about, as this life down under was truly a topsy-turvy world, writes Claire French-Wieser, the daughter of the South Tyrolean sculptor Heinrich Wieser, in her memoirs. In 1951, she emigrated to Australia with her family out of economic necessity. After the turmoil of World War II, the Wieser family, as South Tyrolean expellees, faced a bleak future in Innsbruck. The mother’s sister, who had emigrated to New Guinea as a missionary nurse in 1929, ultimately enabled the family to start anew in Nuriootpa, a German enclave in southern Australia. The culture shock was inevitable. However, Klara Wieser soon worked as a secretary and lecturer at the University of Melbourne, eventually married, and became the Australian citizen Claire French-Wieser.