Jonas Urbonas (1921-1994): Another Lithuanian Scout Leader in Australia, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

We’ve met Jonas Urbonas several times already, nearly always in connection with scouting activities.

Jonas Urbonas' photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  Bonegilla Migrant Experience

This is particularly because of the article he wrote for a Lithuanian-language scouting publication in June 1948, with a title translated into English of, This is How the Meetings were Held: The Third Meeting of the Scouts. We’ve translated the whole of the article already in this blog.

Looking specifically for more material on Jonas, Rasa has found a significant contribution from him to the Lithuanian camp at the first Pan-Pacific Jamboree at Yarra Brae, Victoria. The Australijos lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) newspaper reported that, the (Adelaide) Advertiser had noted that a Lithuanian troop was participating, proud to be "New Australians”.

Many of them had already been working in Australia for 12 months. Being devout Catholics, they erected a cross made of eucalyptus branches featuring a figure of Christ in the centre; this figure was carved with a pocket knife by Scout Jonas Urbonas, who worked for the South Australian Railways.

There’s more on the camp in our earlier blog entries on Borisas Dainutis and Bolius Kunciunas.

While the newspapers’ reports show that Jonas had moved to the SAR, he had been one of the 64 or 65 from the First Transport sent to work initially for South Australia’s Department of Engineering and Water Supply (E&WS) on 7 or 8 January 1948, who camped at Bedford Park.

His Bonegilla card reports this but also notes, sadly, that the names and addresses of any relatives, particularly outside Lithuania, were “unknown”.

The report of his interview by the Australian selection team in Germany says that he was one of those who had “fled from (the) Russian regime”. At the time of the interview, he was living in a DP camp in Würzberg, presumably the city in northern Bavaria rather than the small village in Hesse.

He had had 5 years of elementary school in Lithuania, plus 5 years study of electrical engineering. This would be why the American Expeditionary Force DP Registration Record stated that his usual occupation was Technician.

The Adelaide Office of the Department of Immigration kept one of its useful record cards for his changes of residence and employer – but it is in the one handwriting of someone who did not include dates …

We see the card starting with Jonas living in Wakefield Street, Adelaide, and working for the SAR as a Labourer, then moving to the SAR Hostel at Tailem Bend, next to Lake Alexandrina which forms at the mouth of Australia’s largest river, the Murray.

The following move was to work with the Kelvinator Company, manufacturer of refrigerators, as an electrician. He was back in Adelaide then, living on Melbourne Street in North Adelaide.

The final move recorded was to Eureka Street, in Kelvin Grove, a suburb of Queensland’s capital city, Brisbane. At least the front of the card gives us an idea of the time, since his file was transferred to Immigration’s Brisbane Office on 24 September 1952.

The front of the card also records his release from the “two-year” contract to work where sent on the normal date of 30 September 1949.

The name and number of the file were changed to suit Brisbane’s filing system, so Jonas’ original Application for Registration as an Alien on 1 January 1948, while still in the Bonegilla camp, is there. Also filed is his original Alien Certificate, a passport-like document. It dates the move to Tailem Bend as being notified in March 1949 and the move to Melbourne Street, Adelaide to December 1950. The move to Brisbane was notified on 13 September 1952, while 2 more suburban Brisbane addresses are noted.

The certificate was surrendered when Jonas obtained Australian citizenship, which was on 13 June 1957. He no longer was an “Alien”.

Apart from writing about a gathering on the shore of Lake Hume, where the Bonegilla Camp was located, and that carved figure of Christ at the Pan-Pacific Jamboree, what did Jonas do for Lithuanian scouting in Australia to earn a special mention by Bronius Žalys, writing 49 years later?

The Lithuanian scouts in Queensland had begun to organise in 1949. Alfonsas Alčiauskas in early 1952 founded the co-ed Kęstutis Troop, which later reorganized into the Venta Local District. This was led from 1952 to 1972 by Jonas.

Also in 1952, he became the Assistant Patrol Leader to Rimgaudas Budrys of a Rover Scout unit named after Dr Vincas Kudirka, which had first met on 5 May.

During the next year, he was involved in a motor accident when a car hit the motorcycle on which he was a passenger. Alfonsas Alciauskas (the scout troop founder), 23, single, of Gordon Street, Stone's Corner, was the motorcyclist, who received a lacerated scalp, but Jonas suffered a fractured right arm and an injury to his leg. An ambulance took them to the General Hospital.

The car swerved across the road, mounted the footpath, snapped a wooden awning post, then crashed into a shop window. Despite this, its driver was not hurt.

Luda Popenhagen wrote, in her book on Australian Lithuanians, that more than 400 present in Brisbane in 1950 restructured and became officially the Brisbane Lithuanian Community.  Its office-bearers during its first decade include J. Urbonas and 2 more whom we have come across above, A. Alciauskas and R. Budrys.

There may be more to Jonas’ life, but what is missing is an obituary. Someone who moved from Brisbane to rural Gympie, 150 km north, was removed from those who might be inclined to report to the Lithuanian press. Indeed, he did not even get a notice there when he died on 11 November 1994.

We know his date of death only from a Find A Grave photograph of his grave in the Gympie cemetery. We know from this also that he married to Maria Fredericka, but we do not know anything more about the marriage. For one thing, Queensland’s Births, Deaths and Marriage Registry allows public access to its records only 75 years after the marriage.

Jonas' gravestone in the Gympie cemetery

Source:  Michelle on Find A Grave

We only know Maria's first name from the gravestone, so perhaps the person who added her middle  name to the Find A Grave website was granted access to the cemetery’s records.

That the headstone records Maria’s details also suggests that there was someone to look after this once she had gone, perhaps a child or children. The Find A Grave website for “John” Urbonas also records the names of Jonas' mother and father, hinting even more strongly that someone with a deep knowledge of the family was involved in the burial.

Jonas had been born in Kuršėnai city, Lithuania, on 10 November 1921 to the former Teklė Sutkevičiūtė and to Pranas Urbonas Urbonavičius. The church recorded that the parents were from the Lithuanian nobility.

Urbonavičius is a Polonisation of the original Urbonas, to which our Jonas had reverted by the time he was in Germany.

CITE THIS AS: Jonas Urbonas (1921-1994): Another Lithuanian Scout Leader in Australia, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

SOURCES:

'AEF DP Registration Record, Jonas Urbonas’ Folder DP4339, names from URBANCZYK, Berta to URBANAS, ZENONAS (2), 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File / Postwar Card File (A-Z) / Names in "phonetical" order from U, DocID 69561988, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/69561988, accessed 11 October 2026.

Australijos lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) (1949) ‘Naujienos iš Skautų Jamboree’ (‘News from the Scout Jamboree’, in Lithuanian) Adelaide, SA, 3 January, p 20 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/280321548, accessed 11 October 2026.

Australijos lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) (1952) ‘Įsisteigė Vyčių Būrelis’ (‘Knights Group was Established’, in Lithuanian) Adelaide, SA, 14 July, p 12 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/280312509, accessed 11 October 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card and Memory Collection ‘Jonas Urbonas’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203722171, accessed 11 October 2026.

Brisbane Telegraph (1955) ‘Miscellaneous’ Brisbane, Qld, 11 May, p 39 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/293874825, accessed 11 October 2026.

Cemety, ‘Teklė Urbonavičienė, Born: 1884, Died: 1950’ https://cemety.lt/public/deceaseds/1171380?type=deceased, accessed 10 October 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1957) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, ACT, 5 December, p 3780 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232987549/25083504, accessed 10 October 2026.

Courier-Mail (1953) ‘Two injured, Collided; Hit Window’ Brisbane, Qld, 29 September, p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/51081733, accessed 11 October 2026.

Elektroninis Archyvų Informacinė Sistema (Electronic Archives Information System), ‘Kauno dekanato bažnyčių gimimo metrikų knyga’ (‘Birth register book of churches in the Viekšniai deanery’, in Lithuanian), Kuršėnai Church Nr 235 of 1921, p 78 https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-viewer/?manifest=https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/view/267315746/280169181/lt/iiif/manifest&lang=lt&page=78, accessed 10 October 2026.

Find A Grave ‘John Urbonas’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/169436814/john-urbonas, accessed 11 October 2026.

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, 1947-1947; 684, URBONAS Jonas DOB 10 November 1921, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118103, accessed 11 October 2026.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Queensland Branch; BP25/1, Alien registration papers, alphabetical series by country of citizenship, 1939-1966; LITHUANIAN URBONAS J, Urbonas Jonas - Nationality: Lithuanian - arrived Fremantle on ship General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1954 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5087388, accessed 11 October 2026.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; URBONAS JONAS, URBONAS Jonas - Nationality: Lithuanian Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1952; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7171935, accessed 11 October 2026.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; URBONAS JONAS, URBONAS, Jonas : Year of Birth - 1921 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1058, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203722171, accessed 11 October 2026.

Popenhagen, Luda (2012) Australian Lithuanians Sydney, NSW, UNSW Press p 115.

Wikipedia ‘Würzburg’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%BCrzburg, accessed 11 October 2026.

Žalys, Bronius (1972) ‘Po svetimu dangum, L.S.S. Australijos Rajono Jubiliejiniai 25 – Metis’ (‘Under A Foreign Sky, Lithuanian Scouts Association Australian District 25th Anniversary’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, NSW, 16 October, p 5 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1972/1972-10-16-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 11 October 2026.

Žalys, Bronius (1996) ‘Pėdsekys, LSS Australijos rajono 50-mečiui artėjant‘ (‘Pathfinder, As the 50th Anniversary of the [Lithuanian Scouts] Australian District Approaches’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, NSW, 25 November, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1996/1996-11-25-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 19 September 2026.