Stasys Šeduikis was born in October 1924 into the family of Pranas Šeduikis and Elena Graužinytė in the beautiful town of Anykščiai near Utena. He had four brothers and two sisters.
His immigration papers to Australia show his year of birth as 1922. In addition, the year of birth on his application for naturalisation is 1925. We are accepting the year used in his obituary, which also says that he was 80 years old when he died.
Life in Lithuania
After graduating from Anykščiai elementary school, he entered and graduated from Anykščių secondary school. His selection papers for Australia record only 6 years of primary schooling, however.
During the German occupation of Lithuania, on Lithuanian Independence Day (16 February 1944) General Plechavičius made a radio appeal to the nation for volunteers. Some 19,500 men responded to the appeal. Amongst them was Stasys and his four brothers. Instead of the Germans allowing cooperation, the Lithuanian units disbanded and Plechavičius and his staff were arrested.
Stasys and his brothers were taken to work in Germany. His Australian migration selection papers skip over that, though, recording him as someone who “fled from Russian regime” in August 1944. He had been working as a tailor for 6 years in Lithuania.
 |
| Stasys Seduikis' 1947 photograph from his selection papers for migration to Australia Source: National Archives of Australia |
Life in Germany
After the end of the Second World War, he lived in a Lithuanian refugee camp in Germany. It must have been in the British Zone of Occupation, as it was called Camp Churchill. It was in the Lower Saxony town of Lehrte. Given that this town had become an industrial centre after it became a railway junction in the late 19th century, the camp may have been established in apartments built for factory workers who had been displaced at the orders of the occupiers. That is certainly how it worked in the American Zone of Occupation.
After emigration began in 1947, Stasys initially indicated his desire to move to the USA but found himself on the First Transport to Australia, on the ship General Stuart Heintzelman. His brothers returned to Lithuania.
Stasys works in Australia
Stasys completed his contract to work in Australia at the brown coal open cut mine in Yallourn, Victoria, living in the North Camp there, which means that he gets a place in Josef Šeštokas’ book, Welcome to Litte Europe. Josef says that he was “remembered by his North Camp peers for playing soccer, having simple tastes and modest ambitions”.
 |
| Stasys is second from the right in the middle row of this group of Lithuanians pictured in the North Camp at the end of their day's work Source: Welcome to Little Europe, p 123 |
Josef adds that, “after operating a milk bar in Carlton he worked at General Motors Holden Fisherman’s Bend plant, for 30 years or so, as a toolmaker”. We know that he worked there until his retirement.
Newspaper reports have him living Yarraville, a western suburb of Melbourne, though Josef writes that he lived in West Footscray. In reality, they are the one neighbourhood, although an 8-lane highway now slices through diagonally
Marriage, Family, Citizenship
He married fellow Lithuanian, Ona Utaraitė, on 17 May 1952, in the church of St John the Evangelist, on Victoria Parade, a church which the Catholic Lithuanians had adopted as their own.
Ona had completed medical school and worked in Australia as a nurse in northern Melbourne’s Greenvale Geriatric Centre. Stasys’ occupation at the time of his naturalisation application was described as machinist. Toolmaker or machinist, that would have been with the car manufacturer, General Motors Holden as previously mentioned.
They had five children, two daughters and three sons. Life was harmonious and happy for them. After the children grew older, they had eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Stasys was naturalised, granted Australian citizenship, in the suburb where he and his family lived, Footscray, on 12 February 1970. At a guess, the person granting him the citizenship would have been the mayor of Footscray.
Stasys' Later Years
On 3 October 1988, Ona passed away from a sudden heart attack, at the age of 60 and after 36 years of marriage. Stasys then became lonely, but met Elena Petrulienė, a Lithuanian widow who had arrived recently in Australia. They married on 20 January 1990, with fellow First Transport arrival, Benediktas Kaminskas, as Stasys’ best man.
Stasys developed lung and heart disease and had to stay in hospital for a long time. Elenutė, his wife, cared for him until his weakened heart stopped beating. He died of heart disease and pneumonia in hospital in the early morning of 16 February 2005.
The mourning mass was offered by Fr. Algis Šimkus at a church to which the Lithuanians had moved, St. Mary Star of the Sea in West Melbourne. The Melbourne parish choir and soloists Rita Mačiulaitienė and Birute Kymantienė sang at the mass.
Stasys' children, paying their last respects to their father, carried the coffin on their shoulders. He was buried next to his first wife, Ona, in Altona Cemetery. After the funeral, the participants were invited to Melbourne’s Lithuanian House for the wake.
The two sisters survived from his large family in Lithuania.
SOURCES
Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne, St Patrick’s Cathedral, ‘Saint John the Evangelist East Melbourne’ https://www.cam1.org.au/cathedral/en-au/History/Saint-John-the-Evangelist-East-Melbourne, accessed 26 September 2025.
Funeral card, ‘Stasys Seduikis’, Australian Lithuanian Archive.
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; 266, SEDUIKIS Stasys born 10 October 1922 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4260285, accessed 27 August 2025.
National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch; B44, Immigration case files, annual single number series with 'V' [Victoria] prefix, 1955-; V1969/48207, Seduikis, Stasys, 1948-1970; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=25979622, accessed 26 September 2025.
National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch; B44, Immigration case files, annual single number series with 'V' [Victoria] prefix, 1955-; V1969/48208, Seduikis, Ona, 1948-1970; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=25979623, accessed 26 September 2025.
National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch; MT848/1, General Personal Files, 1955-1955; Seduikis, V1955/42471: Seduikis, Ona born 1928, 1955-1955; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9546663, accessed 26 September 2025.
National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; SEDUIKIS STASYS, SEDUIKIS, Stasys : Year of Birth - 1922 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 662, 1948-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203696971, accessed 26 September 2025.
Šeštokas, Josef (2010) Welcome to Little Europe, Displaced Persons and the North Camp, Sale, Vic, Little Chicken Publishing, pp 91, 123.
Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) (1988) ‘A.+A. Ona Šeduikienė’ (‘RIP Ona Seduikis’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, 8 November, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1988/1988-11-08-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 26 September 2025.
Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) (1989) ‘Iš Mūsų Parapijų’ (From our Parish’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, 7 November, p 7, https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1989/1989-11-07-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 25 September 2025
Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) (1990) ‘Iš Mūsų Parapijų’ (From our Parish’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, 30 January, p 7 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1990/1990-01-30-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 25 September 2025.
Tėviškės Žiburiai (The Lights of Homeland) (2005) ‘Australija, A.A. Stasys Šeduikis’ (Australia, In Memoriam Stasys Seduikis) Mississauga, Ont, 26 April, p 7 https://spauda.org/teviskes_ziburiai/archive/2005/2005-04-26-TEVISKES-ZIBURIAI.pdf, accessed 26 September 2025.
Wikipedia, Lehrte, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehrte, accessed 25 September 2025.
Wikipedia, Povilas Plechavičius, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Povilas_Plechavi%C4%8Dius, accessed 26 September 2025.
Wikipedia, St Mary Star of the Sea, West Melbourne, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary_Star_of_the_Sea,_West_Melbourne, accessed 26 August 2025.
Žmona Elena, Stasio Šeduikio vaikai (Wife, Elena, Stasys Šeduikas’ children) (2005) ‘Padėka’ (‘Thanks’, in Lithuanian) Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) Melbourne, 30 March, p 7 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/2005/2005-03-30-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 26 September 2025.
No comments:
Post a Comment