More about Flaavi Hodunov (1927-2023): SAR Train Driver by Tatyana Tamm

Flaavi Hodunov was born in Estonia in 1927. He was passenger 201 on the General Stuart Heintzelman, the first ship to bring displaced persons (DPs) to Australia to start a new life after the traumas of WWII. He had just turned 20 years of age when he boarded the ship in Bremerhaven and sailed to Australia.

We have learned something about Flaavi and his wife, Wasylisa, from John Mannion's post about his interview of them.

At the end of the war, Flaavi was unable to return to his homeland due to Russia’s occupation of Estonia. He had worked for the Germans while they occupied Estonia. He was fourteen when Germany invaded, and he began working for Germans mechanics. This would not have been viewed favourably by the Russians, so his parents encouraged him to leave. Sadly, he never saw his family again. At the end of WWII, he applied to Canada and Australia with the latter accepting his application first.

Flaavi's photo taken for an official document
(hence the rivet on the left and partial stamp on the right)
taken in Barmstedt, Germany in the 1940s

While travelling to Australia he began learning the English language. Flaavi was keen to succeed in his new home and took to his studies eagerly. He arrived at Bonegilla, the camp where the DPs were housed until they were assigned work. Flaavi only spent 47 days at the camp, with English classes on most days, before he was sent to work for the South Australian Railways (SAR). He was sent to Bangham along with sixty-one other displaced Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians.

The Bangham camp was situated on the south-east railway line between Custon and Frances. The camp was situated approximately 14.5 kms south of Custon. The countryside was scrub and sand, a far different environment from their homeland of forests and greenery.

This environment was not conducive to the men learning English and they reverted to German as this was a common language amongst them.

During a short stay at Bangham, 17 men were identified as being suitable candidates to attend the new railway school in Peterborough, South Australia, because of their good English. Ten were Lithuanian, four were Latvian and three were Estonian. Peterborough is 248 kms north of Adelaide and 506 kms away from the Bangham camp. Flaavi, despite his short time learning English, was one of those chosen.

Baltic men at Peterborough, 1948:
Flaavi is the shortest man (at 5' 6" or 168 cm), fourth from the right —
Click on this or any image below to view a large version

When the men arrived, they were housed in Nissan Huts and worked hard. Flaavi started off first in the cleaning shed then worked his way to a fireman. He would work all day and then at night he would survive on coffee and study hard at English so he could take the requisite tests to become a fireman. He gained his fireman's ticket in December 1949.

Flaavi thrived in the country and enjoyed his time in Peterborough. He celebrated his 21st birthday in 1948 at the Railway Institute Hall.

During those early months in Peterborough, Flaavi was writing back to Europe to a girl he had met in a Stuttgart Displaced Persons camp. She was a Ukrainian DP named Wasylisa Proszko. She had been with her family at the camp, so could not be resettled immediately as Australia was only taking single people with families to follow later. The Proszko family did not arrive in Australia until 1949. In Flaavi’s letters he wrote of life in Australia, wanting Wasylisa to convince her father to come to this land of plenty.

Flaavi made friends with the two other Estonians at Peterborough, Artur Klaar and Hugo Jakobsen. Flaavi and Artur, with the help of the Lutheran Church, moved from the Nissan huts to board with the Linke family on their farm west of Peterborough.

Artur Klaar and Flaavi Hodunov relaxing at the Linke home, 1948

Artur Klaar (left) with Walya and Flaavi in Peterborough, 1949

Once the Proszko family had been accepted by the Australian government for resettlement, they were sent to Bonegilla too. Flaavi with the help of the Lutheran community secured work for Wasylisa on a farm owned by Tom and Margaret Casey in September 1949.  (See the official evidence of that here.)

There were restrictions placed on all DPs by the Australian Government of the day. They had to work where sent for 2 years. They had to apply to get married and they had to wait 5 years before becoming an Australian citizen.

Flaavi and Wasylisa married on 26 December 1949 in the Lutheran Church in Peterborough, once permission had been granted. Wasylisa could no longer work once she was married, so she stayed home. Unfortunately, Flaavi’s work in the railways meant that he was away from home a lot leaving his young wife alone.

The wedding party (from left) with members of the Linke family on the verandah, then Mary Proszko (Wasylisa's middle sister), Dominika Proszko (their mother), Wasylisa, Artur Klaar, Raya Proszko (Wasylisa's younger sister) in front of Artur, the bridesmaid (probably from the Linke family), a Linke family member, another Linke family member and, on the right, Flaavi Hodunov.

When Wasylisa’s mother became ill in Adelaide the following year, she relocated to take care of her mother. She refused to go back to Peterborough as she hated the loneliness and isolation of the town. Flaavi had to apply for a transfer to Adelaide through the railways, which was not easy, but in 1950 he secured work at the Mile End yards and their life together in Adelaide began.

Flaavi was determined to succeed. He continued his studies and in 1952 he became the second New Australian to gain his Engine Driver ticket. The Adelaide News ran a story to say that he was the first New Australian, as repeated by John Mannion in one of his entries in this blog. The same story then appeared in at least 5 regional South and Western Australian newspapers as well as the Department of Immigration’s magazine, the New Australian.

The story was picked up from the New Australian to be repeated by the Adelaide Advertiser's columnist, who signed himself Wm Waymouth. The SAR contacted that paper to say that the first migrant engine driver was Andrij Wyshnja, a Ukrainian who had qualified one year before Flaavi. Waymouth ran an apology on the following day, but it was not picked up by the other press which had repeated the story.

Not the first DP engine driver for SAR

Becoming a train driver was a major achievement for a man who had only 6 years of formal schooling. This was not the only achievement that Flaavi was to have in those early years in Australia.

Once he and his wife were settled, living with her mother and father, they had their first daughter Irene, born in 1951. Flaavi obtained a block of land in Brooklyn Park and began building his home mostly by himself. He would work long hours to earn the money needed to build the house and then spend all his spare time working on his home. It took him about three years to do it. The family moved into their home in 1955.

An Adelaide newspaper article about Flaavi, his family and the new home:
it's repetition of the error about Flaavi being the first 'new Australian in SA to hold a rating', 
suggests it is from the News rather than the Advertiser and the date is likely to be 1955

Their daughter, Irene, was four at the time. The following year they had their second daughter, Tatyana, and then 18 months later their third daughter, Lena. Their family was complete and life for Flaavi Hodunov flourished in his adopted home.

Flaavi enjoyed working in the railways. Although released from his contract with the Federal Government, he remained employed by the SAR for 37 years before he retired at the age of fifty-eight due to industrial hearing loss.

Flaavi lived in his own home until June 2023, when frailty caused him to be placed into a nursing home until his passing.

In the end Australia was more his home than his native home of Estonia. He arrived on 28 November 1947 and just one day before the 76 anniversary, on 27 November 2023 he passed away. He never returned to the country in where he was born.

Note:  All images are from the collection of the author, Tatyana Tamm, Flaavi's middle daughter.

References

New Australian, ‘First new Australian train driver’ Canberra, August 1952 p 4.

News, ‘New Australian Drives Loco’ Adelaide, 21 June 1952, p 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130274483 accessed 24 April 2024. 

Waymouth, William (1952) ‘Good Morning! Good as new’, Advertiser, Adelaide, 11 September, p2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47408025 accessed 26 April 2024. 

Waymouth, William (1952) ‘Good Morning!’, Advertiser, Adelaide, 11 September, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47416433 accessed 26 April 2024.

Flaavi Hodunov (1927–2023): SAR Train Driver, by John Mannion

Updated 5 April, 12 May and 26 October 2024.

Estonian-born Flaavi Hodunov was another of the 18 with good English selected at the Bangham camp to be sent to be Peterborough. My three previous blog entries, on Australia's post-WWII displaced persons' program, Peterborough in general and Paul Deimantas in particular, refer. 

Flaavi's ID photo taken in Germany before departure to Australia --

Source:  Tatyana Tamm collection

Flaavi Hodunov's ID photo from his Bonegilla card
clearly a mistake has occurred!

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Flaavi was a keen railway man and eager to learn. He recalls the ‘Roundhouse Rat’, a V-class steam shunting engine that was fired with big lumps of coal thrown into the firebox by hand.

'The little engine that could', the Roundhouse Rat, is on the left of this photo;
built in 1877, it was already at least 70 years old when the First Transporters met it
for the first time; it is now on display in a Naracoorte park

Source:  State Library of South Australia

He spent over three years at Peterborough and celebrated his 21st birthday at the Railway Institute. Eventually he moved to Adelaide and built his own home. 

He recalled that a few weeks after the arrival of the ‘very first’ Balts at Peterborough, another group arrived, followed by many more. Many families were separated as a result of the work contract and accommodation. 

Flaavi and another Estonian, Artur Klaar, moved out of the hostel and found private board with the Linke family, through the Lutheran Church, on a dairy farm at Peterborough West. 

Two Baltic boarders, standing and kneeling on the left, with the Linke family

Source:  John Mannion Collection

The first means of transport for the Balts was on foot, push-bike and motor-bike. 

The push bikes could be used for recreation too;
here we have Juozas or 'Joe' Donela on the left with friends

Source:  John Mannion collection

It was difficult at first but these men later recalled the acceptance they received from Peterborough railway men including Ray Schell, Dave Rosser, the Brennan brothers, Lionel Noble, Peter Smallacombe and many others. 

Flaavi's girlfriend, Walya [Wasylisa Proszko], came to Australia with her parents and sister [on the Wooster Victory, in May 1949]. They too stayed at Bonegilla. She had to wait until Flaavi found her a job as a domestic with the Casey family on a farm east of Peterborough. 

Walya's Bonegilla card, with that assignment to the Casey family

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Walya recalls that, while she was at Bonegilla, some of the locals came to see what these Balts look like, just out of curiosity. The general opinion was that they ‘looked just like us!’ 

Walya remembered being given clothing, in particular a bright pink raincoat. ‘When you don't have much, you remember things like that’ she told me. 

Men and women were in separate accommodation at Bonegilla. 

Everybody had to work for two years so, in order for the couple to marry, the authorities agreed for Walya working near Flaavi. According to Flaavi, when they married, Walya's contract was cancelled. 

Walya's family were reunited after they came over from Sydney for the wedding at Peterborough Lutheran Church [on 26 December 1949] and found work in Adelaide. 

Walya recalls the trip from Bonegilla to Peterborough well. She was given a packed lunch of sandwiches and a couple of eggs. ‘All I had was a suitcase and a handful of papers. I was unable to speak a word of English’. She reckoned that she has never waited so long for a train. 

On arrival at Adelaide station, she could not ask questions, but a Lutheran priest advised her in German how to get to Peterborough. Walya remembered that the train trip to Peterborough was in the dark, so she couldn't see where she was going, but when she did arrive, there was no platform. This was unheard of in Europe. 

The Peterborough Railway station, 1974, still without a raised platform

Source:  Lionel Noble collection

‘I expected a street with houses and shops on both sides of the street but found a very, very poor street, very scary, with one big hotel dominating the long Main Street’. 

The Hotel Peterborough would have dominated Walya's first view of
Peterborough's Main Street

Source:  John Mannion collection

Peterborough's Main Street, with
a hotel in the distant centre, around 1950

Source:  Lionel Noble photographer, John Mannion collection

Many of the migrants, including Walya, didn't like country life, but Flaavi reckons he would still be in the bush if not for Walya. 

According to the men I spoke with, Heini Koch, a descendant of the original Petersburg settlers, did a lot of work for the ‘lads who could not speak very well English’. 

Before they married, Walya would visit Linke's on weekends. As a married couple, the Hodunov's rented a little tin house that Flaavi had renovated for the new bride, near the hostel on Telford Avenue. They eventually rented a railway cottage. 

Flaavi found out that it was very hard to get transferred to city, but once he did, he excelled on the job and was the first 'Balt' to graduate as an SAR driver at Mile End.

Flaavi's achievement of locomotive driver status was celebrated in the New Australian,
a monthly publication for migrants from the Department of Immigration, in its August 1952 issue; the fettler work actually was when he was based at Bangham, near Wolseley,
the cleaning job was after redeployment to Peterborough and initial training there

Source:  New Australian, August 1952

Flaavi (right) on the job as a fireman, before his 1952 promotion to driver

Source:  John Mannion collection

He liked his job in the railways and worked freight trains back to Peterborough after the broad gauge was extended from Terowie to Peterborough in 1970. 

He spent 37 years on the job, 37 years of shift work, and agreed that it was not easy for the women being alone when men away on shift work.

Flaavi and Walya in 2003

Source:  John Mannion collection

Flaavi was born in Estonia's easternmost coastal city of Narva on 21 September 1927, so was 20 years old on arrival in Australia.  He died in Adelaide very recently, on 27 November 2023, aged a hearty 96.  Walya predeceased him, in March 2014, just after her 84th birthday.

POSTSCRIPT by Ann  

Flaavi's life before his voyage to Australia is encapsulated in the document below, a DP Registration Record created in the American Zone of occupied Germany.  In addition to confirming his place and date of birth, it tells us that his parents were Teodor Hodunov and Liidia Kolk, that his usual occupation when the record was created in maybe 1945 was motor-car locksmith, and that his first choice for resettlement was Canada.

From one of Flaavi's daughters, Tatyana Tamm, I now know that those parental given names were misrecorded.  Flaavi's father actually was Feodor while his mother was Leida-Bižarde Kolk.

Flaavi's name has intrigued me since I first saw it on the Heintzelman passenger list 25 years ago.  Although his Estonian birthplace means that he had Estonian nationality until the time during WWII when that no longer had practical meaning, the name is not Estonian.

The -ov ending of Hodunov indicates clearly a Slavic family name.  The most likely source of Slavic names in Estonia is Russia, but a Russian would spell this name with an initial G, as in Mussorgsky's opera, Boris Godunov, about an early Tsar of Russia.  

A Ukrainian friend has confirmed that this is indeed a Ukrainian spelling of the name, where the initial G gets transliterated as an initial H.  It happens with many Slavic names.  An example is the female first name Halina, diminutive Halya, in Ukrainian, which become Galina and Galya in Russian.  I've used this example because I can tell you that this name sounds just the same in Estonian, but is spelt Galja.

Flaavi, my friend said, absolutely was not Ukrainian, so more research was required.  I found that Flavi is known to be a first name used in Rumania, derived from the Latin name Flavius, meaning 'golden'.  Rumania still has many links in its language to the Roman occupation some 2,000 years ago, starting with the name of this nation-state being derived from Rome (or Roma in Latin and Italian).

Flaavi with two a's is a typically Estonian spelling, lengthening the initial vowel sound in Flavi and adding to the normal stress on the first syllable of Estonian words.  The name turns out to be quite multicultural, even before this concept was invented by the Canadians.

As reported above, Flaavi's mother's family name was Kolk, which translates from Estonian into English as an out-of-the-way place or, a dangling piece of wood.  Regardless of the reason for its application to his mother's family in the 1830's, when Estonians first got family names, it is authentically Estonian.  Her first name, Leida, is authentically Estonian too, but Google Search has never come across Bižarde in any nation.  Geni.com, a genealogy Website much used in the Baltic States, can find only Flaavi's mother with with this given name.

Starting with a B as it does, Bižarde is likely to be an import from another language, but from where? Does it help to know that the name transliterates into Бизарде in Cyrillic?  If you know more, dear reader, please feel free to comment below.

A family like her's, living in eastern Estonia as Flaavi's daughter, Tatyana Tamm, has found (specifically, Unipiha village, Nõo parish, Tartu county) would have been exposed to a lot of Russian cultural influences.

Tatyana also has found that Flaavi's Hodunov grandfather, Efim, was born in the village of Tverdyat', which is southeast of Narva and 110 Km distant by road.  Flaavi's great grandfather, Nikolai, was a farmer there.  That's long way from Ukraine, let alone Ukraine's border with Rumania.

Mixing ethnic groups up by translocation was a deliberate policy of the Soviet Union, in an attempt to reduce nationalism developing, but it occurred as well in Tsarist Russia, probably for economic reasons.

Efim was born in 1869, so Nikolai probably was born in the 1840's or 1830's.  It may be that the family was moved to Tverdyat' from elsewhere in the Tsarist Russia when Nikolai was young or even earlier.

As for the motor car locksmith trade, another of the First Transporters, a Lithuanian, called himself an 'engine locksmith' when interviewed by the Australian press in December 1947.  Did motor car and engines (perhaps pulling trains) have different locks to houses in the 1940s and earlier?  Who knows about this?  Please feel free to comment below if you do, reader.

A later entry on Flaavi, by one of his daughters, Tatyana Tamm is at https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2024/05/more-about-flaavi-hodunov.html.

American Expeditionary Forces Displaced Persons Registration Record
for Flaavi Hodunov in Germany

Source:  Arolsen Archives

SOURCES

Arolsen Archives, 'Folder DP1475, names from HODIONENKO, ANNA to HOFFEINS, Marija (2)'

https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/67368899?s=hodunov&t=2738137&p=0, accessed 20 March 2024.

'Lionel Noble Photo Collection, Peterborough Station', https://lionelnoble.com/station/ accessed 20 March 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947–1956; HODUNOV, Flaavi : Year of Birth - 1927 : Nationality - ESTONIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number - 920, 1947–1948.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947–1956; PROSZKO, Wasylisa : Year of Birth - 1930 : Nationality - UKRAINIAN : Travelled per - WOOSTER VICTORY : Number - 85482, 1949 –1949.

'Railway transport: Locomotives and rolling stock 3'6" narrow gauge [B58892/492]', photograph, State Library of South Australia, https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/B+58892/492, accessed 20 March 2024.

Tamm, Tatyana (2024) Personal correspondence.

'V 9, The oldest steam loco in South Australia', http://www.australiansteam.com/V%209.htm, accessed 19 March 2024.

The First Peterborough Balts, by John Mannion

Updated 17 April 2024

I grew up on a farm in what is known as the northern agricultural area of South Australia, at Pekina, 25 miles west of Peterborough, which is one of Australia’s former ‘great’ railway towns.  

The location of Peterborough in relation to Broken Hill is as important as its location
 with respect to South Australia's capital, Adelaide, since Broken Hill ore is shipped through Peterborough to Port Pirie WSW on the coast, where it is smelted
to produce ingots for shipment around the world.

Source:  Peterborough SA Website

Back in the early '60s a trip to Peterborough was a big day out for me. It meant a drive across the Yatina plain on a poorly formed dirt road with mum and my brother in the old Holden. (Dad always seemed to be away shearing!). 

A modern Pekina to Peterborough route, through Ororoo; Yatina is below the estimated travel time which, of course, is based on modern road conditions in a modern car; back in the 1960s though,
the Mannion family did not take these roads but travelled through Yatina to Peterborough

Source:  Imagery ©2024 TerraMetrics, Map data ©2024 Google

As we drove into Peterborough from the west there was a cluster of iron buildings on the left and the railway workshops on the right — the largest in the State rail system outside of Adelaide. 

The Peterborough railway yards are in the foreground of this mid-1950's photo
and the migrant hostel is behind them

Source:  John Mannion collection

A rear view of the migrant hostel, toilet block on the left and
local gardener at work on the right

Source: photographer Heuer, John Mannion collection

The Port Pirie to Peterborough railway, built in the 1880s, was to form the principal east-west transport axis of South Australia’s Upper North region, bringing prosperity to all the towns along the line until the 1970s. 

Back in the ‘60s and '70s, Peterborough was a thriving town of between four and five thousand people. Then after what was proclaimed a progressive move — the national rail track standardisation of the ‘60s — “the railways” moved out leaving hardly any jobs and leaving Peterborough with less than half its population. The 2021 Census counted only 1,428 residents. 

Peterborough at its best:
Judging from the cars, the postcard is from about 1960, and
the bottom left photo gives some idea of the size of the railway yards

Source:  John Mannion collection

Nearly 20 years ago now, I was a part-time project officer at Peterborough for an oral history project entitled Relaying Our Tracks. The aim of the project was two-fold. 

Funded by the Federal Government's Department of Family and Community Services, it was designed to “assimilate” newcomers into the former railway town that seemed to have lost its direction after being abandoned by the State and Commonwealth governments in the rationalisation period from 1978 until 1997. 

The town was being populated by city dwellers from Adelaide and interstate who had no affinity with the area and the project was supposed to help build community spirit. In that regard, as predicted, it was somewhat of a failure. 

However, as an historian, I found it invaluable in recording the oral histories of many older established members and former members of the community and their descendants. The interview process also saw many paper-based items, including old South Australian Railways (SAR) Institute Magazines come out of cupboards, drawers and back sheds. 

One article in particular intrigued me and after reading it I realised that it told a virtually forgotten story of local, state, national and international significance. It was the story of our first Commonwealth Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, and his post-WWII Displaced Persons Scheme. I quote from the article: FLASH BACK in the Railways Institute Magazine, May-June, 1973, ‘Baltic Migrants Arrival at Peterborough, 1948’. 

‘Few people would remember that it is 25 years ago since the first Baltic migrants arrived at Peterborough to be trained for railway work in South Australia, The Balts were the first 'displaced persons' to come to South Australia as migrants and they were accepted almost to a man by the local people because of their youth and their apparent enthusiasm to learn all they could of their new home and join in the activities of their new country. 

‘They were willing employees who were prepared to work long hours and many shifts in order to help them establish themselves financially, but one of their most severe problems was the language barrier. One Fireman could not understand the meaning of the word ‘rest’, and when the crew arrived at its destination to go to barracks, this Fireman would not leave his engine and slept on the footplate. He had been told to work his engine to Wilmington and back, but was not told specifically to go to bed at Wilmington. 

‘With Mr. and Mrs. Allen Ind at the migrant hostel [the cluster of iron buildings I mentioned earlier] established in Peterborough, where these lads were first encamped in tents and later in rooms of more solid construction, it is recalled the young Firemen sitting up late at nights drinking coffee to help keep them awake so that they could pursue their study of the language and the instruction papers necessary to qualify as Firemen and Porters. 

‘Some of the older Enginemen [Australian] found it hard to converse and understand the young migrants and some of the young migrants found it hard to understand just what the Enginemen were thinking, but mostly it was a happy association which extended for many years afterwards and today, we have a lot of those Baltic migrants listed among our senior staff members in the Loco and Traffic Running, and among the Station Masters' ranks. 

‘In the early days most migrants wore gloves on their hands when doing hard and dirty work and the reward for this was apparent when some of them left the Railways and went into other positions, and some into their own businesses. The talented boys were pleased that they had protected their hands and fingers to equip them for delicate work in future life.’ 

Whilst the article did mention that these men were the first 'Displaced Persons' to come to South Australia as migrants, the impact of Arthur Calwell, the first Minister for Immigration in the Australian Government and his post war migration programme did not really register until I started some serious researching. 

Two accompanying photos showed the 17 members of first group of trainee migrant porters and firemen at Peterborough with Lithuanians in the majority — Jonas Bimba, Tadas Bliukys, Jonas Caplikas, Povilas Deimantas, Juozas Donela, Stasys Gricius, Jurgis Guoba, Raimundas Juzulinis, Benediktas Kaminskas and Vladas Simkunas. The photos also include four Latvians (Gunars Brunavs, Nikoljas Dukalskis, Nikoljas Kibilds and Janis Kolesnikovs) and three Estonians (Flaavi Hodunov, Hugo Jakobsen and Artur Klaar).  

While the press initially talked about 18 being selected (for instance in the Times and Northern Advertiser of 27 February 1948), I have noted that it later talked about 17 preparing for their examinations and passing them well (for instance, the Mail, 8 May 1948).

Photos of 17 First Transporters to be trained at Peterborough

from the Railway Institute Magazine, May-June 1973

Source:  John Mannion collection

They were among the first European displaced persons to come to Australia, aboard the chartered troop ship, the United States Army Transport, General Stuart Heintzelman. 

In the Friday, 23 January 1948 edition of the South-Eastern Times, a regional South Australian newspaper printed at Millicent, a rather insignificant one column, seven-line article read: 

Source:  Trove

A little over a month later, a similar article appeared in another country newspaper over 400 miles north of Millicent, at Peterborough. It was the Times and Great Northern Advertiser, of Friday, 27 February 1948. 

Source:  Trove

With a name like Mannion, I have no connection at all with European migration, only a tremendous interest in, and respect for those post-war migrants who made South Australia their home. A ‘baby boomer’ born into a relatively insular and conservative Irish Catholic mixed farming district, I had little exposure to the ‘outside’ world. 

However as a kid, I knew that were German, Czech and Dutch workers and their families living at the railway sidings of Eurelia, Orroroo and Black Rock within 25 miles to the north and west of our farm. These families formed part of the railway gangs involved with rail track maintenance work on the Terowie to Quorn narrow-gauge railway.  [Eurelia and Terowie are at the top and bottom respectively of the Google map above.  Black Rock is just SSW of the travel time pop-up on that map.]

I went to school at Orroroo, about 14 miles from home [see map above], with many of these ‘new Australian’ kids but we were not told anything about who they were, why they were here or where they came from. They were generally stuck in the back of the classroom and ignored. With names like Limback, Fejgl, Methurst, Katts, Kampen and Ehlers, they were often derided because of their names, appearance and social status. 

Little did I realise that in my own back yard, long before the term ‘multiculturalism’ was penned, there was an enclave of Europeans numbering up to 500 people living in the area — an extension of Calwell’s initial plan. These were the successors to the first ‘Balts’ of the ‘Fifth Fleet’. 

In the years that followed February 1948, right up until the ‘70s, hundreds more European migrants and their families made the Peterborough Division of the SAR their home. The majority lived at Peterborough, the largest shopping centre and livestock market town in the district. 

Many have described Calwell’s immigration scheme, ‘as one of the best things that ever happened to Australia and also as the greatest humanitarian act that Australia has ever undertaken.’ 

However, the scheme succeeded because we needed them as much as they needed us. In reality it was a calculated plan (in competition with the US, South America and Canada) to draft workers into Australia without upsetting the local domestic labour and housing situation. 

By the late 1920s, most of the Australian railway systems were well established, and during the 1930s little expansion occurred. During WWII, rail maintenance activity was reduced drastically reduced, as the SAR Islington workshops were adapted to heavy engineering war production. 

Combined with the virtual elimination of rolling stock maintenance and only emergency track maintenance, the railways carried greatly increased tonnages and train movements under the pressure of the national war effort with reduced manpower. At the end of the war the entire Australian railway system was in a crisis state in relation to operating capacity and infrastructure condition. 

Many of these ‘Balts’ were skilled men and women but were used as manual labour and literally dumped in outback railway depots and maintenance camps and regarded as foreigners and cheap labour. 

That Railways Institute Magazine article was written in 1973 and even then it questioned how many would remember the Balts. How many would remember in 2005, the time of my project 32 years later? Fortunately quite a few! 

Determined to follow the fate of these ‘Peterborough Balts’ I went through the Adelaide White Pages telephone directory and found several of the names on the two photographs listed. 

After a few phone calls I found two of the men pictured in the photo living in Adelaide, fit and well, and having stayed with ‘the railways’. I had so many questions to ask Flaavi Hodunov, an Estonian who became known as ‘Freddie’ and Povilas, or Paul, Deimantas from Lithuania. 

Where did they come from? What was the voyage over like? What did they find when they got here? What did they do before, during and after their time at Peterborough? 

Surprisingly, with a little encouragement from their wives, they were interested in what I was doing and gave me some basic background over the phone. I later met up with Flaavi, Paul and several other ‘Lithos’, when they told me their stories. 

I am glad of the continued interest in their stories and the opportunity to now have them published again, in blog entries to follow this one, nearly 20 years later.

FOOTNOTE:  Light editing, choice of illustrations and their captions by Ann.  You can see larger versions of the images by double-clicking on them.

SOURCES

Mail (1948) '17 Balts Learn English to be Railway Men' Adelaide, SA, 8 May, p 6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55905773 accessed 17 April 2024.

Railways Institute Magazine (1973) 'FLASH BACK ... Baltic Migrants Arrival at Peterborough, 1948, Adelaide, May-June, p 17.

South Eastern Times (1948) 'The Trains of Tomorrow', Millicent, South Australia, 23 January, p 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/201013863 accessed 12 March 2024.

Times and Northern Advertiser (1948) 'New Arrivals', Peterborough, South Australia, 27 February, p2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110548140 accessed 12 March 2024.