Victoria #2

Last week's post touched on the migrants of the 1920 and 1930s, and I'll continue on that theme with this post.

The majority of arrivals in Victoria with origins in Lithuania during this period appear to have been Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks) who clustered around inner Melbourne where a Kadimah (cultural centre) had been established in Drummond Street, Carlton, for example:

• Judelis BEKESEFAS, known as Judah BEKESEFF; his 1942 naturalisation certificate shows that he was born in Vištytis on 7 July 1903; he was recorded as a single man, employed as a draper, living at Drummond Street, Carlton;

• Mr I LEVINAS, a watchmaker from Lithuania, was on the passenger list for the Oronsay from London in 1930; his destination was Alma Road, East St Kilda;

• Nathan NOSSEL, from the Kaunas region, notified his intention to seek naturalisation in the Argus of 6 November 1933; he was living at Barkly Street, East Brunswick;

• Aisikas SEGALIS, known as Isaac SEGAL; his naturalisation notice in the Argus of 4 September 1935 shows that he was born at Žagarė, had arrived in the late 1920s, and was then living at Park Street, North Carlton.    

However, ethnic Lithuanians were also making their way to Victoria between the two world wars.  They did not necessarily settle in Melbourne; an earlier post noted Juozas Ruzgas and his son Balys who lived in regional Victoria before moving to Tasmania in the late 1940s. 

Another example was Vincentas and Kazimiera ZVIKEVITCH who arrived in Melbourne with their three children (daughters Kazimiera and Vincentina and son Albertas) in April 1929. A second son was born in Australia in late 1929, and the family then moved to Bayswater, east of Melbourne, where Vincentas became a market gardener. This family's story is special in that it is one of the very few so far uncovered where we have photos of both partners; the photos reproduced here are from their applications for alien registration in 1939.

Vincentas Zvikevitch was born in Joniškis on 15 August 1888, son of Kazimieras, a farmer, and Anelia. He married Kazimiera (nee Klemkutė) in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA, in February 1916 where he was employed as a mill operator. Kazimiera had also been born in Lithuania, in 1889.

Some time after the birth of Albertas in 1922 in the USA, the family made its way to Europe. In 1929 they sailed to Australia aboard the Ville d'Amiens from Marseille, France, via Colombo. We don't know why they were coming from France, although the internet does suggest a possible answer; there was a Zvikevitch family living in Marrakesh, Morocco. Perhaps Vincentas had planned to settle there?

The family did settle at Mountain Highway, Bayswater. Vincentas received his Australian naturalisation certificate in July 1941, which covered himself, his wife, and his two sons. Both daughters had been trained as tailoresses, the sons became mechanics. Albertas, who called himself Herbert, moved back to the USA as a young man, enlisted in the Air Corps during World War 2, then married and settled in Ohio but died there in 1976. Vincentas died in 1956 and his wife Kazimiera in 1971; both are buried at the Box Hill cemetery, Melbourne. At least one of their children is still living in regional Victoria and they are still remembered in the local Bayswater community; I noticed that prayers are offered at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church on each anniversary of their deaths.


    

    

Tasmania #2

Last week we looked at nineteenth century arrivals in Tasmania.  Here are a few from the first half of the twentieth century; in contrast to the earlier arrivals who were primarily mariners or convicts, the later arrivals were a more diverse group.

William KALIN/KALINOVSKY/KALINAUSKAS), a Lithuanian Anzac who had been born in Žagarė and trained as a tailor, enlisted in Queensland in 1916.  After the war, he led an itinerant life for a few years which including working as a court translator in Tasmania for a short while.  I doubt that the translating involved the Lithuanian language given the extremely small numbers of Lithuanians in Tasmania at any one time; most likely he was utilising his knowledge of other European languages developed during his service as as a interpreter in France 1917-1919.  He later established a tailoring business in Brisbane (see my post of 23 April 2015 http://earlylithuaniansinaustralia.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/lithuanian-anzacs-on-western-front-1.html  and Elena Govor's Russian Anzacs blog post at http://russiananzacs.net/Kalinovsky for more details on William Kalin).


William SUSCAVAGE, born in Vilkaviškis in Lithuania, submitted a notice of intention to seek naturalisation which was published in The Mercury (Hobart) on 4 August 1927.  He stated that he was a Lithuanian national living at Catamaran, southern Tasmania, and had been resident in Australia for 13 years.  On the other hand, the UK outward bound passenger lists on Ancestry.com show a William Suscavage bound for Australia in November 1925 on the Jervis Bay; he was listed as aged 40, retired, with an address in London at the 'Jews Temporary Shelter' in Whitechapel.  One explanation for this apparent discrepancy could be that he had been already resident for 13 years in the British Commonwealth as opposed the Australia.  


Stanislaus Paul SURVILLO, born in Kaunas, submitted his notice of intention to seek naturalisation in The Advocate (Burnie) on 28 September 1933.  He stated that he was a Lithuanian national living in Burnie and had been resident in Australia for 8 years.  In that same year his name also appears in The Advocate in relation to proceedings in the Launceston Divorce Court; records on Ancestry.com show that he had first married in Queensland in 1928 and had remarried in Tasmania by 1936.  The electoral rolls show that he was an electrical engineer; by the early 1940s he was living in Sydney and a partner in a business manufacturing thermostatic expansion valves.  His later years appear to have been spent in Queensland.


Juozas and Balys RUZGAS: Metraštis No.1 (p11) records that a post World War 2 migrant had encountered this father and son living at Gretna, Tasmania, operating a sawmilling business:

• Juozas Ruzgas, born in Sėla on 1 February 1890, married, arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia, in June 1930 without any family members.  The passenger list for the Oronsay listed him as a farm worker and bound for Inglehope Siding, via Pinjarrah, Western Australia. That area was known for its timber industry and it seems possible he was on his way there to obtain work in the timber industry. Unfortunately for him the Great Depression was well under way and competition for jobs would have been stiff.  Interestingly, Juozas travelled with three other Lithuanians aboard the Oronsay - K Zakas, J Vainilavičius and I Levinas - but these three men continued on towards the east coast.  After some time in Western Australia, Juozas also made his way to the east coast and made arrangements to allow his son to join him in Australia;

• Balys Ruzgas, born 6 February 1914 in Lithuania, arrived in Melbourne, Victoria, in February 1938 on the Orion.  Both he and his father appear to have lived in Victoria for the next several years; Balys is recorded as having resided in Abbotsford (a suburb of Melbourne) and also having been associated with the timber industry in northern Victoria.  By the late 1940s he is in Tasmania, known as William Ross, and operating the Ross and Triffitt Sawmill at Rosegarland (near Gretna); that business partnership was dissolved in 1949 and the business subsequently was renamed the Derwent Valley Timber Company.  

• Both father and son appear to have remained in Tasmania.  The 1954 electoral roll shows William Ross and his wife Lena still living at Rosegarland, with William employed as a sawmiller.  Juozas (Joseph) Ruzgas, who continued to use his Lithuanian surname, had a house at nearby New Norfolk.    

 

Juozas Ruzgas - from his Lithuanian passport.