Antanas Staugaitis (1927-2003): Lithuanian DP Taxi Driver by Daina Pocius with Ann Tündern-Smith and Rasa Ščevinskienė

Like the ill-fated Ksaveras Antanaitis, Antanas Staugaitis was one of the Lithuanian Displaced Persons or DPs selected in Germany to travel to Australia on the first voyage after World War II, on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman. Like Ksaveras, he then was chosen to be in the first group of men sent by the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) to work outside the Bonegilla camp.

Their destination was Bedford Park, South Australia, where they lived in a tent city while building a 20-kilometre pipeline from Happy Valley Reservoir, to their south, into Adelaide to their north. Their employer was the South Australian Government’s Engineering and Water Supply (E&WS) Department. Antanas later worked for the E&WS at Port Lincoln also.

Antanas Staugaitis, ID photo 
from his migration application

Source:  NAA

Everyone on the First Transport had been told in Bonegilla that the Australian Government had changed their agreement to work, where required, for one year to a two-year agreement. Maybe E&WS hadn’t got that message, because the Adelaide Mail of 29 January 1949 reported that the DPs or Balts, as they were known also, were being permitted to transfer to other employers. If that was with the assistance of the CES to another task where there was a shortage of workers, however, it was all above board.

We know from his application for Australian citizenship that Antanas left 6 weeks after the Mail report to work with the South Australian Railways. This was initially with other Balts and Aussies at Peterborough for 6 months, then in Adelaide.

From an alien registration index card held by the National Archives in Adelaide, we find that Antanas was released officially from his “two years” contract with the Australian Government on 3 October 1949. That’s about two months short, if the contract is regarded as terminating on the anniversary of arrival in Australia, 28 November 1949.

The Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, announced the early release in Canberra on 5 September 1949, according to Australian newspapers of the following date. The contracts were supposed to end on 30 September, not 3 October. The early release was due to “the outstanding contribution they have made to Australia’s labour starved economy”.

Antanas completed an Adelaide mechanic’s course in 1953. He continued to work on the railways until 1956, rising to the rank of fireman. Then he purchased a taxi license and worked as a taxi driver until retirement in 1992.

He renounced any previous allegiances and became an Australian citizen on 12 October 1956. His address at the time was on South Terrace, the edge of Adelaide’s Central Business District. Those who certified in November 1955 for his citizenship application that he was of ‘good repute’ were Railways trainers and a station master equivalent.

He loved nature and would travel to the outback, to the Northern Territory with his good friends. He was known as a smart man with a conscience. For instance, in January 1950, the infant Mūsų Pastogė Lithuanian-Australian newspaper, about to celebrate its first birthday, reported that he had donated two shillings to support it. (The Reserve Bank’s pre-decimal currency inflation calculator advises that this is now the equivalent of a bit more than $6.)

Antanas was born 27 August 1927, in Šliziai, Šakiai region, into a farming family. The Germans took him from his family and friends to work in Germany, in 1942 when he was still only 14 years old. They sentenced him to two years hard labour, claiming that they had found him carrying arms. At least the hard labour was in agriculture, so probably he got fed enough to continue working.

After the war he was in a DP camp in Oldenburg in Lower Saxony, and later in the nearby Gross Hessepe municipality, where he attended the technical school to study the motor mechanic’s trade. He did not get to finish this course as his selection to resettle in Australia on the First Transport, the General Stuart Heintzelman, intervened.

He did not marry and had no family in Australia. He died at his home in Mile End, also inner Adelaide, on 20 March 2003, aged 75.

SOURCES

Encyclopaedia of Australian Science and Innovation, ‘Corporate Body South Australian Engineering and Water Supply Department’ https://www.eoas.info/biogs/A001434b.htm accessed 23 May 2024.

Hammerton, Marianne (1986) Water South Australia: a History of the Engineering and Water Supply Department (Netley, SA: Wakefield Press) 331 pp.

Mail (1949) 'Balts Leave Govt. Jobs' (Adelaide, SA) 29 January,  p 29 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55924132 accessed 23 May 2024.

Mercury (1949) 'Migrants' Contract Time Cut', (Hobart, Tas) 6 September, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26661508 accessed 24 May 2024.

Morning Bulletin (1949) 'Contract Terms of Migrants Cut', (Rockhampton, Qld), 6 September, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article56918854 accessed 24 May 2024.

Mūsų Pastogė (1950) ‘Mūsų Pastogės Rėmėjai’ 25 January, p 4, in https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1950/1950-01-25-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf accessed 23 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Central Office; A446, Correspondence files, annual single number series with block allocations, 1926-2001; 1956/45135, Application for Naturalisation - STAUGAITIS Antanas born 27 August 1927, 1955-1956, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8374445 accessed 24 May 2024.

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; 292, STAUGAITIS Antanas DOB 27 August 1927, 1947-1947, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118002 accessed 24 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1923-1971; STAUGAITIS Antanas born 1927 Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 Nov 1947, 1947-1956; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=30038183 accessed 24 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; STAUGAITIS Antanas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived: Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1956, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9222371 accessed 24 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; STAUGAITIS, Antanas : Year of Birth - 1925 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 688, 1947-48, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203905745 accessed 24 May 2024.

Papers held in the Lithuanian Archives in Australia, https://www.australianlithuanians.org/uncategorized/adel-arkhives/ accessed 25 May 2024.

Places in Germany, City Oldenburg in Oldenburg, https://www.places-in-germany.com/22143-city-oldenburg-in-oldenburg.html accessed 23 May 2024.

Places in Germany, Municipality Groß Hesepe https://www.places-in-germany.com/111536-municipality-gross-hesepe.html accessed 23 May 2024 accessed 23 May 2024.

Reserve Bank of Australia, Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator, https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html accessed 23 May 2024.

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 —
Double-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.