Jonas Zeleniakas (John Green)

An earlier post [click link here] featured Kazys Brazauskas ('Key Braz', 1898-1980) who had served as a volunteer in Lithuania's independence movement after WW1 and settled in Australia from 1927.  A very similar path was followed by Jonas Zeleniakas ('John Green', 1898-1975) who arrived in 1929.  They undoubtedly knew each other, living in Sydney and Port Kembla, and both served on the committee of the pre-WW2 Australian Lithuanian Society.

Jonas Zeleniakas was born in Panemunė, Lithuania, but grew up in England. The family returned to Lithuania before the First World War and settled in Šančiai, a suburb of Kaunas.  He had two sisters and two brothers, Antanas and Karolis. After the declaration of Lithuanian independence in 1918, Jonas was one of the first to volunteer and join the new Lithuanian army which was trying to defend the new national borders (in the Lithuanian language he was a Lietuvos Kariuomenės Kurėjas Savanoris). His brother Antanas also joined the army and rose to officer rank, however he died during the Second World War.

By the mid 1920s Jonas had decided to try his luck elsewhere; he left London aboard the Orvieto on 31 August 1929 bound for Australia.  Almost immediately after arriving, in October 1929, he was elected to the founding committee of the Australian Lithuanian Society.  Initially he lived in Sydney, but later settled at Port Kembla where he worked in a steel mill with the intention of saving enough to buy a house and bring a bride out from Lithuania.  Unfortunately the Second World War interrupted those plans and he remained a bachelor for the rest of his life.

In October 1939, after 10 years residence in Australia, Jonas published a notice of his intention to take out Australian citizenship.  He gave his place of residence as Perkins Beach, Port Kembla.
 
After WW2 his brother Karolis, who had escaped the soviet occupation, came out to Australia with his family. Karolis had been born in 1901 in England, his wife Marija in Kaunas, and their son Algirdas in 1928 in Kaunas.  The Australian press reported in 1949 that both Karolis and Algirdas were commercial photographers who hoped to open a studio in Sydney; however by the mid-1950s Karolis and his family had moved to the USA.

When Jonas retired from the steel mill he bought a motor boat; he enjoyed fishing in the Pacific ocean and many Lithuanians would come down from Sydney to go fishing with him. He died at Port Kembla on 8 June 1975 and was buried at the West Dapto Catholic cemetery.  A cemetery record at http://www.interment.net/data/aus/nsw/southcoastillawarra/wdcatholic/catholic.htm shows he also used the name 'John Green' in Australia (seemingly an appropriate play on words for him as the Lithuanian surname Zeleniakas - while having no specific association in that language - was likely derived from Polish, where the word for green is zielony). 

The headstone for John Green (Zeleniakas) at the West Dapto Catholic cemetery, image courtesy of Wendy Nunan, 

 

Much of the above material is from the obituary for Jonas Zeleniakas written by Antanas Baužė and published in Mūsų Pastogė, Nr. 24 of 23rd June 1975.

Kazys Brazauskas (Key Braz)

Kazys Brazauskas was possibly the first savanoris (volunteer fighter in Lithuania's battles for independence 1918-20) to settle in Australia.

The Australian Lithuanian chronicle Metraštis No. 1 records the following about him:

Kazys was born on 15 December 1898 in the town of Serėdžius in Lithuania.  His father had emigrated to the USA earlier and Kazys and his mother followed in 1912.

Kazys returned to Lithuania, joined the fledgling Lithuanian air force in 1920 and served there for two years.  He was decorated with the Volunteers Medal in recognition for his service during the struggle for independence.

In 1927 he emigrated to Australia, first settling at Port Kembla where he was employed as a technician at the power station.  He was unemployed for a while during the Great Depression, found work as a taxi driver in Sydney, and after a while was re-employed by the power station.  In 1932 he bought 7 acres at Engadine, south of Sydney, and built a home; in 1950 he purchased a 3 acre farm also at Engadine from which he earned a living growing flowers.

Kazys and Jadvyga Brazauskas (Metraštis No.1 p 17)

Kazys served as president of the Australian Lithuanian Society in 1939, the year in which the Society celebrated its 10th anniversary;  the celebrations were held at the Brazauskas property at Engadine.   His wife Jadvyga was also a member of the Society.

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The Lithuanian volunteers site (http://www.versme.lt/sav_b.htm) has a few more details about his place of birth and military service:

• Kazys Brazauskas was born in Kalvių village in the district of Veliuona* and the county of Jurbarkas.  He served as a volunteer from 4 August 1920 to 5 January 1922, and was discharged as an American citizen.  [* Veliuona is only around 5km downstream along the Nemunas river from Serėdžius]

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Luda Popenhagen (Australian Lithuanians p 159) records a meeting Sydney Lithuanians had with a visiting Lithuanian priest Fr P Bučys in 1928:

The participants convened at the Port Kembla home of the Australian Lithuanian Kazimieras ('Keys') Brazauskas.  No action, however, was taken to create a Lithuanian parish in Sydney as the Lithuanian migrants (relatively few in number) did not live in any particular area of the city.

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Kazys Brazauskas died in 1980, aged 82, at Maclean in NSW; he was buried as Kazys Braz.  A public family tree on Ancestry.com.au records that:

• his wife was Jadvidga Ornatowicz, born in Kaunas in 1901.  She died in Maclean in 1984;
• they had at least one child born in Lithuania; Kay Kazys Braz (1922-99).

Sydney Lithuanians, 1934

This photo, courtesy of Metraštis No 1 (p15), is of participants at the 1934 Lithuanian Independence Day celebrations in Sydney, organised by the Australian Lithuanian Society:

Presidents of the Society included:

• Jonas Vedrinaitis (John Wedrien): 1929-31;
• Antanas Bauže: 1933-36;
• Jonas Vedrinaitis: 1937-38;
• Kazys Brazauskas (Key Braz): 1939; and
• Antanas Bauže: 1940-50. 

Luda Popenhagen (Australian Lithuanians, p22) records that:

The Honorary Latvian Consul, J McLeod, who was British by birth, was also the official representative of the Lithuanian government in Australia.  Consul McLeod and his wife began attending the Lithuanian Independence Day celebrations in 1934, and continued to be popular guests of honour.  From 1937 onwards the Estonian House in Sydney's city centre was used, as it was close to public transport and contained an auditorium suitable for banquets and concerts.

Popenhagen also provides this snapshot of the economic situation of Australian Lithuanians during the Great Depression [presumably based on Australian Lithuanian Society member records]:

• 23% were wage or salary earners;
• 14% were self-employed;
• 11% were employers;
• 12% were unemployed;
• 40% were not in the workforce

(source: J. Kunca 'Lithuanians' in J. Jupp (ed) The Australian people; an encyclopedia of the nation, its people and their origins, 2001, p570)  

What's in a name?

When I was growing up in Adelaide I was well aware that some Lithuanian DP families had shortened their surnames after arrival in Australia in order to make them easier to pronounce in a society and culture dominated by English speakers. For example:

• Stasiškis became Statkus;
• Vasiliauskas became Vaskas;
• Venslovavičius became Vens.

First name simplifications (Antanas to Anton, Pranas to Frank, etc) were even more common. I went through the Australian educational system being known as John rather than Jonas. It was only later that I realised there was also an economic dimension to such name changes; your competitiveness in the jobs marketplace is improved if you have a more local-sounding name.

What was also clear was the fact that many families chose not to dilute their identity and used their 'difficult' Lithuanian names in both the confines of the Lithuanian community and in wider society.

Early Lithuanians and name changes

As with the DPs, many of their predecessors also chose to simplify or anglicise their names. Some did so in Australia, others while they were resident in Britain, North America or elsewhere before arrival in Australia:

Kazys (Key) and Jadvyga Brazauskas (Braz), Sydney
 (source: Metrastis No. 1)

• Stasys Žygas became Stanley Zygas;
• Aisikas Segalis became Isaac Segal; and
• Kazys Brazauskas became Key Braz.

However, the pattern of name changes for early Lithuanians seems broader. There was likely more pressure on them to assimilate or disguise their cultural identity:

• Jonas Vedrinaitis became John Wedrien;
• Zigmas Baltrušaitis became Sid Bolt.

Jonas Vedrinaitis/John Wedrien, Sydney
(source: Metrastis No.1)

Others made more wholesale changes:

• Jonas Zeleniakas became John Green;
• Kazys Astrauskas became Charles Ashe;
• Juozas Plaušinis became Joe Miller;
• Zale Zapolski became Levi Zalman;
• Lozoraitis became Brown, Petraitis became Patrick, Ruzga became Ross.

Further complications for the amateur historian arise when people are known by or use several variations of a surname, for example:

• Piliulis/Paliulis/Phillules;
• Mikėnas/Makeness/Mekenass;
• Čepkauskas/Capouski/Cepkouski.

Also, even without simplified or anglicised names, some people alternated their names depending on the cultural context they were in:

• Max Lipschus (a german name) from Memel/Klaipeda was known to the Lithuanian community as Maksas Lipšius;
• Stanislaus Urniarz (a polish name) from Vilnius was known as Stasys Urniežius.