Adomas Ivanauskas (1912-1980): The grandfather I never knew by Rasa Ščevinskienė with Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 9 November 2024 

Adomas Ivanauskas was born on 11 February 1912, in the village of Pazapsiai, in the Seiniai district in Lithuania, only a couple of kilometres from the modern border with Poland. On one official Australian form, he gives his birthplace as the city of Kovno, now known as Kaunas, but we know that he was only serving there with the Lithuanian Army, before he left for Germany. 

As he turned 18 in 1931, he would have been called up for military training during the first half of the 1930s. 

Adomas in Lithuanian military uniform, 1935

Before WWII, he was a landowner in Pazapsiai. In 1938, he married Monika. They had a son, Alvydas, in 1940. Alvydas, who is my father, still lives in Lithuania, as do I. When WWII started in Lithuania, Adomas again joined the Lithuanian Army. 

If he gave an accurate date of arrival in Germany, July 1945, on his 1957 application for Australian citizenship, then it is likely that he somehow managed to escape Lithuania after the Soviet forces re-occupied it, in October 1944. Either that, or he omitted time spent in other countries, such as Czechoslovakia, en route (NAA: MT874/1, V1956/21973). 

In Germany, he lived in Displaced Persons camps in the English zone, including the “Riga” camp in Lübeck. He was living here on 6 October 1947, when interviewed by the Australian selection team operating in the German camps and accepted for resettlement in Australia, based on his previous farming experience (NAA: A11772, 377). He left Bremerhaven for Australia with 842 other Baltic refugees on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman on 30 October 1947. 

Like the others in the group of 839 allowed to leave the Heintzelman in Fremantle, Western Australia, Adomas stayed there for four days before continuing eastwards on the HMAS Kanimbla. The group then travelled by two chartered trains to the former Bonegilla army camp. Below is the front of the card recording Adomas’ presence at the new Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre. 

Adomas Ivanauskas, Bonegilla card, NAA: A2571, 110

Despite the desperate need for people with farming experience in Australia, to grow more food for the military returning from WWII and the ‘baby boom’ which their return was creating, Adomas was sent first to a sawmill. He was sent on 20 January 1948, after 6 weeks in Bonegilla, to Rylstone, a small town in the Central Tablelands region of New South Wales. There was also a desperate need for timber to build houses for the new families.

He returned to Bonegilla on 12 April 1948 but, three days later, was sent to Iron Knob in South Australia to work with a company then known as Broken Hill Pty Ltd – but now simply BHP. Like all of the Displaced Persons, he had agreed to stay in Australia, working, for at least two years. He was assisting the mining industry, however, rather than farming.

Adomas relaxes at the barracks, Iron Knob

By March 1949, Adomas has managed to leave the outback town of Iron Knob for South Australia’s capital city, Adelaide.

An Aliens Registration Card returned to the Commonwealth of Australia when Adomas received Australian citizenship shows a first address of 56 Maple Avenue, Goodwood. Goodwood is a suburb just south of the Adelaide Central Business District (CBD). This address was notified on 17 March 1949, so after less than one year in Iron Knob (NAA: B78, 1957/IVANAUSKAS A). 

The next address, Railway Hotel, Islington, was notified on 4 October 1949. Further evidence of the move to Islington is a classified advertisement in the Adelaide Advertiser of 25 October 1949. It read, 'New Australian couple require bed-sitting room, with use of kitchen in metropolitan area. Apply A. Ivanauskas, Railway Hostel, Islington.'

Adomas' advertisement, Adelaide Advertiser, 1949

The only Islington now in Australia Post’s postcode directory is a suburb of Newcastle, New South Wales. A Wikipedia article about the South Australian Islington says that it is the site of the main workshops for the South Australian Railways. The suburb in which they are located is now Kilburn. As the Islington workshops opened in 1883, they may well have had a job to offer a ‘New Australian’ from Lithuania, with BHP experience, in 1949.

However, October 1949 also is the date Adomas gave for his move from Adelaide to Melbourne on his citizenship application form. His Aliens Registration Card gave an address with a near illegible suburb, but the most likely reading is 3 Mackenzie Street, Melbourne. This is an address almost at the northeast corner of the CBD. The date on which he advised this address was 12 November 1949.

Later addresses were Dalgety Street, St Kilda, advised on 23 December with an illegible year, Waltham Street, Richmond (7 January 1952) and Vaucluse Street, Richmond (24 October, again with an illegible year). All addresses were in inner Melbourne. They suggest someone forced by circumstance to move from one rental property to another, but he might have been moving to improved accommodation on each occasion. He was at the Vaucluse Street, Richmond address when he applied for Australian citizenship on 29 May 1957.

Adomas and Beryl captured by a Melbourne street photographer, 17 October 1950

The Aliens Registration Card should have been recording Adonis’ employers too. For some reason, those records did not start until 17 January 1952. Then it was noted that he was working as a welder at a company in South Melbourne. Again, this is in inner Melbourne but to the west of Richmond.

The next employment remark is dated 24 October 1955. Then, Adomas was working with Renault on Burnley Street, Richmond, much closer to home. The remarks include ‘Eng’, possibly ‘Engineer’ or ‘Engineering’.

He was a welder again with the Gas and Fuel Corporation as of 29 March 1956. The address given, Flinders Street, Melbourne, was that of the head office of this Victorian State Government instrumentality.

The final occupation information before Adomas received his citizenship calls him a welder again. This time, on 14 November 1956, he was working with a company called Goodwin’s Ltd, at the Shell Refinery at Newport. Newport is on the other side of Melbourne’s CBD, with the Yarra and Maribyrnong Rivers also impeding travel. There would not have been direct public transport, so Adomas undoubtedly was driving himself to work.

Perhaps on his farm in Lithuania, perhaps while exercising his survival skills in Germany and perhaps even at Iron Knob or the Islington Workshops in South Australia, Adomas had learnt welding. This is a highly skilled occupation, using gases at high temperatures. He could have gone back to farming, initially as a labourer or share farmer, but must have preferred the opportunities which welding offered.

A surviving photo shows Adomas sitting behind the wheel of a car, with Ocean Grove and 17 October 1950 written on the back. Co-incidentally, 17 October 1950 is also the date of the street photograph with Beryl, above, so the date may not refer to the day on which the photographs were taken.

From 1950 onwards, many families from Europe started to settle in Ocean Grove, a coastal town to the southwest of Melbourne. While at least 100 Km distant on the winding roads of the time, it was only 25 Km from the industrial town of Geelong. Geelong would have offered much employment and it is likely that the Ocean Grove land prices were cheap, just right for new arrivals wanting to build their own homes. Adomas must have had friends to visit in Ocean Grove.

Adomas shows off his car in Ocean Grove, Victoria, 17 October 1950

The car in which Adomas is seated looks remarkably like a 1925 Star Model F-25 Sedan, made by an American company which manufactured only between 1922 and 1928. Have a look at the restored example in the photograph below.

1925 Star Model F-25 Sedan, from Classiccarweekly.net

Later addresses for Adomas in Melbourne are Manton Street, Burnley, and Elgin Street, Hawthorn. While living in Melbourne, Adomas participated in gatherings organized by fellow Lithuanians, contributed help to compatriots and supported the construction of Lithuanian House in Melbourne. In the Lithuanian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė, I found a number of records of money donated by Adomas Ivanauskas during 1954-1956.

Adomas and friends, date unknown, place likely to be Melbourne
judging from the VB beer bottle near the centre of the table;
Adomas is second from left, the woman on the left is likely to be Beryl

Voting is compulsory in Australia, so once Adomas acquired his Australian citizenship on 22 November 1957, he was required to be on the publicly available electoral roll. He was also required to keep the Australian Electoral Commission notified of all changes of address.

Of particular interest is the 30 November 1963 issue of the electoral roll for the Subdivision of Hawthorn, Division of Yarra, since it records Jean Ivanauskas at the same address. This suggests that Adomas was married but we don’t know when or whether they had children. Jean’s occupation was stated to be ‘process worker’, someone employed in a factory or warehouse where she carried out routine tasks, perhaps on an assembly line. Again, Adomas’ profession was welder.

Pages from 1963 electoral roll for Federal Electorate of Yarra,
Sourced from the Australian Electoral Commission via Ancestry.com.au

Despite the requirement to notify all changes of address, the image above is the only one on Ancestry.com.au in which Adomas' name has been identified.  Ancestry.com.au has made available images of Federal electoral rolls to 1980, which ought to cover Adomas' movements until his death that year (see below).

During the 1950s and 1960s, Adomas wrote to his brother Vacys, another Displaced Person who had been resettled in England. He wrote also to his wife Monica and son, Alvydas, in Lithuania until 1961. The family doesn’t know why he stopped writing. The back of a postcard sent to wife and son from Melbourne is reproduced below.

Adomas' postcard to his son and wife in Lithuania

Photos sent to Vacys refer on the back to Beryl rather than Jean. One explanation for this mystery is that the one woman in Adomas’ life had been given the names Jean Beryl, but preferred to use her middle name. Jean appears on the electoral roll because the officials compiling it were interested in her first name only.

In 2013, I learned that my grandfather had died on 19 February 1980 in Perth, Western Australia. He is buried there in the Karrakatta Cemetery. When and why he settled in Perth is unknown but Department of Immigration records indicate that he was known to its Perth office in January 1972 (NAA: MT874/1, V1956/21973).

He died in the Swanbourne Hospital, Mount Claremont, in suburban Perth. The cause of death was partial pneumonia that lasted for a week. The death certificate states that he was a widower. It therefore leads to the conclusion that his wife Jean died even earlier than Adomas. The name on his death certification had been anglicised to Adam Ivanauskas.

He was buried in Perth's Karrakatta Cemetery.  Sadly, his grave is unmarked.

This was the grandfather I never knew.

REFERENCES

Adelaide Advertiser (25 October 1949), ‘Classified Advertising’, p 10, obtained through the National Library of Australia's Trove service, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36693972.

 

Classic Car Weekly (2014), ‘1925 Star Sedan’,  http://www.classiccarweekly.net/2014/08/21/1925-star-sedan/, accessed 7 January 2022.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]: A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; 110, Iliew, Marin to Ivankovic, Stanko.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Central Office: A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947; 377, IVANAUSKAS Adomas DOB 11 February 1912.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch: MT874/1, European migrants general personal files 1956; V1956/21973, Ivanauskas, Adomas.

Wikipedia, 'Islington Railway Workshops', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islington_Railway_Workshops, accessed 12 September 2021.