1939 Maria’s only daughter, Edith, arrived in Sydney with her husband Aristed (Dido) Ripka and their son Galliano (Galli). They had fled the German invasion of Czechoslovakia and escaped on foot over the Dolomites to Italy, from where they secured their passage to Australia. Dido went on to become Tony Melocco's right hand man and carried on his work with scagliola after Tony's death. On June 17, Remo Cicutto married Ivy Ruth Barnett but in November that year, he was tragically killed when a light aircraft he was piloting collided with another plane over the Georges River in Sydney’s south.