Some updates

Thanks to everyone who has written to me or commented on this blog site since it started in February 2015!  Here are a few of the updates, amendments or corrections that have come to light:


Joe BROWN, Perth (blog post of 12 February 2015).  Thanks to Žydrė Pember, I now realise that the man who had introduced my father to Australian horseracing in Perth way back in February 1948 was probably Joseph Brown, born in Scotland in 1915 and the son of Juozapas LAZORAITIS, who had lived in Scotland for around 35 years before arriving in Australia with his family in 1928.


Alexander (Ksaveras) SKIERYS (post of 12 March 2015).  Thanks to Rosemary (Petraitis/Peterson) Mitchell for forwarding this great photo of Alex Skierys and Ellen (Petraitis) Skierys with their first two children Alex and Nelly, taken in Sydney in 1917.  Rosemary has some great family stories which I hope to share in due course.

Nathan WATCHMAN (post of 19 March 2015).  Thanks to Dana Grigonis for alerting me to additional information on this Lithuanian Jewish Anzac and to Simon Hill for agreeing to share the following:

Nathan Watchman was born Notel-Kalman Pelts on 2nd February 1884 in Virmenai, Telsiai, Kovno, son of Aron (Orel) Pelts and his wife, Iudes. They were part of an extended family of Peltses who lived in Nevarenai and the surrounding area, having come there in the 1870s from Plunge. Before going to Newcastle [UK] (to embark for Australia – see 1911 UK Census), Nathan visited his second cousin, Shneyer Peltz, in Dublin. Shneyer had gone to Dublin in the 1880s to work for a Mr Wachmann, and had changed his name because it was easier, to Simon Watchman - after this, any members of the family who came to Dublin had to change their names to Watchman, to avoid awkward questions! Simon Watchman was my wife's maternal grandfather.  Nathan’s birth details come from the Telsiai records. 

Jonas BALAIKA (post of 27 July 2015).  Balaika had returned to Lithuania in 1925, taking out Lithuanian citizenship and thus losing his Australian (British) citizenship.  He married and raised a family, surviving the Second world and the Soviet annexation of the country, but in 1947 expressed a desire to return to Australia with his family. An anonymous contributor has advised that she is Balaika's great granddaughter and that three of Balaika's daughters are still alive; it would be valuable to learn more of that family's story (please!).


Norman McLEOD (post of 10 August 2015).  The Latvian Government appointed Norman McLeod (not 'J McLeod' as recorded elsewhere) as the Honorary Consul for Latvia in Sydney in July 1931.  McLeod also attended Australian Lithuanian Society functions in Sydney as a guest of honour and served as Latvia's Honorary Consul until his death in June 1958.

Who Were These People?

This photo from our family album is partly responsible for prompting me to start this blog:

Resident Lithuanians with new arrivals, Perth, 15 February 1948

It was taken in February 1948, a few days after my parents first set foot in Australia. They had arrived on 12 February as displaced persons (DPs) on the International Refugee Organisation's transport ship USAT General M B Stewart. My mother Bronė is second from the left, her friend Elena Kepalaitė is fourth from the left. Behind them is the city of Perth, Western Australia.

There may be other new arrivals in this photo as well - someone might recognise them? - but the intriguing thing for me was that they were met by Lithuanians who were already living here. My father noted in his diary that there were five families with Lithuanian heritage living in the vicinity at the time. Word quickly got around and the first contacts were made at Graylands Migrant Hostel on 12 February; three Lithuanian men, who had lived in Australia for 17, 15 and 12 years, came to meet the new arrivals. The Sunday outing depicted in this photo, a few days later, may represent one of the first recorded social contacts between earlier migrants and the new wave of DPs.

The new arrivals didn't waste much time in organising themselves. Four days after arriving in Australia, on 16 February, they celebrated Lithuanian Independence Day at the Graylands hostel, inviting the local Lithuanians and the hostel management to the event; the program was presented in Lithuanian and English, with a local girl - Adele Kurtinaitis - translating into English;

• Adele Kurtinaitis was born in Western Australia in 1927.  Her parents Liudvikas and Katarina had arrived in Australia after the First World War and settled at Northam, near Perth. Liudvikas described himself as a labourer when he obtained his Australian naturalisation certificate in 1939, but was able to send his daughter to the University of Western Australia (first year Arts, 1945). She may have had an affinity for languages, choosing to study French and German.        

A few days later, on Saturday 21 February, the locals organised an outing to the horse races;

• the diary records this as a strange experience, but notes that the races were extremely well organised.  They were taken there by a local, Juozas (Joe) Brown [Lazoraitis], who my father described as being a pleasant fellow.

By early March 1948 this batch of new arrivals had left the Graylands hostel for the eastern states; many of the men had been sent to temporary rural jobs while the women were sent to larger migrant hostels such as Bonegilla. They had new challenges, new futures to build. Contact with the local Lithuanians in Perth had been short-lived, yet it showed that the new migrants already had well-established compatriots in Australia.

My generation was brought up in the context of the DPs and their stories. There was little mention of the earlier settlers and their histories, who in most cases did not actively participate in the new community structures subsequently established by the newcomers. The following blog posts will seek to uncover some of that earlier history.  We may even be able to identify the other people in the photo!