Giovanni married Giorgina Mifsud at St John’s Co-Cathedral Valletta on 11 February 1885, and had six children, two of whom died within one year, and one at the age of 27.
Their first child was Philip, born on 21 November 1885. He lived a long life until 16 July 1960, earning a knighthood and the moniker Sir Philip Pullicino. He married Miss Maude Samut in 1911, and you will find more information about him on other pages.
The second child, Beatrice, born on 2 May 1888, unfortunately died in infancy on 7 February 1889.
The third child, Alfred John, born on 3 January 1891, passed away at the young age of 27. Little is known about him. He attended St. Ignatius College at St Julian’s, and then the University of Malta. He was a top medical student.
He was a member of the Secretary of the Malta Athletics Club, as per newspaper reports. He may have left Malta to further his studies from January to October 1913. Passport records indicate he travelled to England in 1915. It was common for Maltese medical students to round off their education in England and Italy. Most likely, if he had not fallen ill, he would graduated fairly soon.
Around August 1915, he was godfather to Philo, Philip’s third child.
He died after a long illness, on 6 November 1918, at the Blue Sisters. He may have contracted tuberculosis. While he was dying, the newspapers were eagerly awaiting the end of the war. A week after his death, World War 1 ceased.
Their fourth child, Maria, died in infancy (c.1891).
The last two children, Emma (1894-1968) and Camilla ‘Lina’ (1895-1974) lived full lives. Emma married (Capt.) Philip de Conti Manduca (1894-1984) in 1923. Lina married Gioacchino dei Baroni Attard Montalto. Both husbands had claim on a noble title.
Both Emma and Lina were educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, where among other subjects, they studied the pianoforte.
Their mother had been educated at Trinita convent school in Rome, and she helped install the Sacred Heart nuns when they first arrived in Malta in 1903. I presume that Emma and Lina were boarders, because of the distance to Valletta.
The children grew up at 66 Strada San Paolo, Valletta, which is now a boutique hotel.
From the Malta Blue Books, we know Lina became a teacher.
You can also see Philip and his sisters in a 1911 family wedding photo.
Later in her life, Emma and her husband (affectionately known to the children as ‘old man Manduca’) lived at 21 Ghar-Id-Dud Street, Sliema, which was a grand old house with a spacious garden. This house is now gone, the land being taken up by the Preluna hotel. My mother remembers being invited in, because the bus stop was outside their house and she was a friend of Emma’s granddaughter. She remembers tasting Emma’s lemon curd.
