Vladas Dailydė (1914-1970): Hard working, hard living, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Vlad Dailydė worked hard for nearly 23 years in Australia until an unknown health issue brought an early end to his life. Although his family name means ‘carpenter’ in Lithuanian, he was to be found in places where hard manual labour was required: on the South Australian railway tracks, Woomera, Radium Hill and steelworks in Perth.

Vladas Dailyde's 1947 photograph from his selection papers
Source:  National Archives of Australia

He was an early supporter of the Lithuanian-Australian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė, donating £1/4/- in April 1950, together with Juozas Sabeckis (an arrival on the Tenth Transport, the Svalbard). With inflation, that donation is the equivalent of more than $75 now. Given that we know from the story of Romualdas Zeronas that civilians in Woomera, where he would have been working then, were earning at least £9.10.0 per week, it was a high proportion of their income.

Four years later in 1954, Vladas was working in the uranium mine at Radium Hill. The Australian Lithuanian newspaper reported that there were at least six other Lithuanians there at that time. They gathered together to commemorate 16 February, Lithuania’s Independence Day.

They were commemorating not with patriotic speeches but an opportunity to donate money to the Vasario 16 (February 16) school in Germany. This was the name was of a Lithuanian-language senior high school, a gymnasium, in Hüttenfeld. At that time the school was the only full-time high school outside Lithuania offering courses in Lithuanian history, language, and culture. It is renowned for having played a critical role as a symbol of freedom for Lithuania during the Soviet occupation and was greatly supported by Lithuanian displaced persons around the world.

A later issue of the Australian Lithuanian recorded that he was one of those who had donated £5, not only likely to be about half his weekly income then, but the modern equivalent with inflation of more than $213.

Vladas applied to become an Australian citizen while working at Radium Hill. Closer to Broken Hill than Adelaide, in the same sort of desert country, it was Australia’s first uranium mine, having operated from 1906 to 1961.

That application shows that he was able to move on from the Bangham railway camp to a better paying job at Woomera in February 1949, before his contract with the Australian Government was ended by the Minister for Immigration on 30 September 1949. He stayed at Woomera for nearly one and a half years, until July 1950.

He was in Adelaide for around one year, from July 1950 until June 1951. During that time, he worked for General Motors Holden. Then he lived and worked at Mount Gambier for 6-7 months, from June 1951 to January 1952, working with JM Clements Ltd. He returned to Adelaide, to the suburb of Nailsworth until 4 April 1952, at which point he moved to Menindee, NSW, for one month. From there he left for Radium Hill, back in South Australia, where he was still on 1 June 1956, the date on which he swore an oath of allegiance to become an Australian citizen.

There had been one blemish on his record. He had been charged with assault causing grievous bodily harm after he threw a bottle over his shoulder at another Woomera worker. It was night, so his friend probably could not see the bottle coming. The result was a gash on the forehead which needed 22 stitches to close.

Vladas pleaded not guilty but admitted guilt to the lesser charge of common assault. Mr Justice Abbott ordered that Vladas be imprisoned with hard labour for one month. He took into account that Vladas had been held in custody for 25 days already. This means that Vladas had to serve an additional 6 days only – 6 days because ‘one month’ meant a ‘calendar month’. And the ‘hard labour’ could be anything from quarry work or road-building, to workshop and farm labour under strict supervision.

Vladas faces court

Source:  Whyalla News

Fortunately for his citizenship application, a wise public servant wrote on it, “In view of the time which has elapsed since the above conviction in July ’50 and the fact that he has not come under further adverse notice, recommended that application be listed for approval”.

Vladas was one of the older men on the First Transport, having his 33rd birthday 2 days after it sailed from Bremerhaven. He was born in the small village of Širvydiškis, in the region of Utena. At the time of his birth on 1 November 1914, the village had a population count of only around 30.

He had two or three years of high school – sources differ -- which was more than average for a country resident. He spent five years in the Lithuanian Army, from 1935 until the Soviet invasion in 1940. In the Army, he had been a driver for three years.

The return of Soviet forces in 1944 saw him leave his homeland, making his way to Germany, where he arrived in October. There he found his way to a Displaced Persons camp in Hannover-Buchholz. He had been working as a driver for two and a half years until it was time to leave for Australia. The Australian medical team after carrying out their pre-migration tests, declared him fit and healthy.

After Radium Hill, Vladas moved to Perth where he became as steelworker. He participated in the Perth Lithuanian community. He never married.

On 16 November 1970, he returned from work in high spirits, had dinner, sat down and smoked a cigarette. He had a medical episode and fell from the chair. Suddenly falling off his chair is likely to have been caused by some sort of circulatory issue, like a heart attack or a stroke.

He was taken to hospital and operated on, but his health did not improve, and he passed away on 6 December.

Members of the Perth Lithuanian community were present at his funeral service led by Father Laurynas Kemėšis. Words on behalf of the community and the ex-servicemen’s group, Ramovė, were said by Andrius Klimaitis. Vladas is buried in Perth’s Karrakatta Cemetery.

Vladas Dailyde's photograph from his obituary

Source:  Mūsų Pastogė 

A notice under the Trustees Act in the West Australian Government Gazette of 12 March 1971 confirms Vladas’ date of death as 6 December 1970, advises that he was a steelworker and his last address was in Marchamley Street, Carlisle, and states that 26 April is the last date on which claims against his estate might be lodged. The remainder of his modest savings were left to his sister in Lithuania.

SOURCES

Advertiser (1950) 'Port August Circuit, Before Mr Justice Abbott, Remanded on Assault Charge, Adelaide, 19 July, p 7 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article44915098, accessed 13 November 2025.

Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) (1954) ‘Aukos Lietuvybes islaikimo reikalams’ (‘Donations for the preservation of Lithuania’, in Lithuanian) Adelaide, 17 May, p 8 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280316071, accessed 11 November 2025.

Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) (1954) ‘Lietuviai Australijoj’ (‘Lithuanians in Australia’, in Lithuanian) Adelaide, 8 March, p 8 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280313491, accessed 11 November 2025.

Find a Grave, ‘Vladas Dailyde’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/213720453/vladas-dailyde, accessed 13 November 2025.

Government Gazette of Western Australia (1971) ‘Trustees Act, 1962, Notice to Creditors and Claimants’ Perth, 12 March, p 764 https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/legislation/statutes.nsf/gazettes1971.html, accessed 13 November 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė ( Our Haven) (1950) 'Mūsų Pastogēs prenumeratoriai' ('Mūsų Pastogē subscribers’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 5 April, p 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259361880, accessed 11 November 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1970) ‘A A Vladas Dailyde’ (‘In memoriam, Vladas Dailyde) Sydney, 21 December, p 2, https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1970/1970-12-21-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 11 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A446, Correspondence files, annual single number series with block allocations, 1926-2001; 1956/10716, DAILYDE Vladas, 1955-1956 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=12147622, accessed 13 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947-1956; DAILIDE (Sic) VLADAS,  DAILIDE, Vladas : Year of Birth - 1914 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN.HEINTZELMAN : Number - 462A2571, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203657752, accessed 13 November 2025.

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; 62, DAILYDE Vladas DOB 1 November 1914, 1947–1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005498, accessed 13 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Personal Statement and Declaration by alien passengers entering Australia (Forms A42) 1937-1948; 37/116, DAILYDE Vladas born 1 November 1914; nationality Lithuanian; travelled per GENERAL STUART HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 29 November 1947, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7249185, accessed 13 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1937-1965; DAILYDE V, DAILYDE Vladas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1956 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4074152, accessed 13 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; DAILYDE VLADAS, DAILYDE Vladas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, accessed 13 November 2025.

Reserve Bank of Australia, Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html, accessed 11 November 2025.

Vasario 16-osios gimnazija (February 16 Senior High School, in Lithuanian) https://www.gimnazija.de/, accessed 12 November 2025.

Whyalla News (1950), ‘New Australian Charged with Assault’, Whyalla, SA, 21 July, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/197619822, accessed 13 November 2025.

Wikipedia, ‘Radium Hill’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Hill, accessed 12 November 2025.

Wikipedia, ‘Sirvydiskis’ https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirvydi%C5%A1kis, accessed 11 November 2025.

Elena Kalvytė Augutis (1917-1996): ‘Special Circumstances’ by Rasa Ščevinsienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

We have just met Elena Augutis as the fellow Lithuanian who accompanied Bronislava (Bronė) Jutkutė (later Umbražiūnas-Amber) from the Bonegilla camp in northern Victoria to the Hotel Ainslie in Canberra. There we mentioned that Elena Augutis was said to have had ‘special circumstances’.  Here we look further at these and her life as a whole.

The only photograph we have of Elena, from her Bonegilla card, is so out of focus
that Ann has used a Web service, Unblurimage.ai, to improve it a little

Source of original:  National Archives of Australia

Pregnant Women

When the 839 First Transport passengers had yet another medical examination, at the Bonegilla camp, at least their third in the migration process, the examining doctor reported that, “Two of the women are pregnant”.  One of them was Ann’s mother, pregnant with Ann.  Since Ann read that sentence, she has taken a particular interest in the story of the other woman, Elena Kalyvte Augutiene.

We know from several sources that Elena Kalvyte had married Jonas Augutis in Germany in 1947, before she boarded the General Stuart Heintzelman.  Probably because she knew that all the Heintzelman passengers were supposed to be single, she appeared before the selection panel using her maiden name.

Jonas follows

Perhaps Jonas applied too, but was rejected for the First Transport. He was not accepted for resettlement in Australia until his application for the Tenth Transport, the Svalbard, which reached Melbourne on 29 June 1948, when his daughter was already one month old. Perhaps it was her imminent birth that finally got him on a ship to Australia. This ship had sailed from Bremerhaven before her birth, on 8 May 1948, but its 52 days (7½ weeks) sailing time was more typical of ships of that era than the fast Generals.  His brother, Juozas, 8 years younger than him, came also.

Jonas Augutis from his 1948 Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Elena's early life

Elena Kalvyte, the mother of the new Australian, was born on 31 August 1917 in Berciškiai village, Šilute district, in Lithuania, to Jurgis Kalvis and the former Ona Kaulickaitė.  An American Expeditionary Force’s (AEF) Displaced Persons (DP) Registration form completed on 19 July 1945 gives her previous occupation as clerk, her languages spoken, in order of fluency, as German and Lithuanian and her last residence in Lithuania as the city of Pagėgiai.

It is worth noting that her religion is stated to be Evangelical, unlike the vast majority of Lithuanians.  Various writers using various sources suggest that around 85 per cent of the population in 1939 were Catholic – they probably would be excluding the more varied Vilnius region, still in Polish hands.

Elena left the Hotel Ainslie in Canberra on 10 or 11 February to return to the Bonegilla camp.  By this time she would have been more than five months pregnant.  Her pregnancy would have been visible and probably interfering with her work. Nonetheless, as far as officialdom was concerned, both Elena and Ann’s mother had signed a contract to work in Australia in jobs where they were needed for two years (even though the paper they signed said one year only).

Pregnant women work in farm households

The issue was solved, at least until childbirth and perhaps later, with help from the Lutheran Church.  Both women were sent from the Bonegilla camp to assist nearby farmer’s wives.  In the case of Elena Augutis, it was to a Mr and Mrs RG Molkentin in Jindera, New South Wales.

Jindera is only 25 Km northwest of the north side of Lake Hume; another 7 Km brings the driver to the Bonegilla camp.  Or the driver could take the better roads through Wodonga and Albury, then head a few kilometres northwest to Jindera.

Elena’s Bonegilla card records a baby girl’s birth on 23 May 1948 at the Albury District Hospital.

Jonas Augutis' story

We know a lot about the baby girl’s father from an obituary in the Lithuanian-Australian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė, in 1983.

Former Lieutenant Jonas Augutis of the 6th Regiment of the Lithuanian Army was born on 21 September 1914, almost 3 years before his wife, in the Sadutiškis parish of Utena county. When he finished Utena senior high school, he entered Lithuania’s Military School, graduating with its 17th class to the rank of Junior Lieutenant and joining the 7th Regiment in Klaipėda. Later, he was transferred to the 6th Regiment and served in Pagėgiai, Elena’s last place of residence in Lithuania. In 1938, he was promoted to the rank of Senior Lieutenant.

After the Soviets occupied his country in 1940, he was transferred to the Vilnius garrison with his regiment. As Soviet officials judged him to be unreliable, he was soon arrested and imprisoned in Lukiškės prison in central Vilnius. After the German Army invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the prisoners were transferred to the Vilnius railway station to be taken to Russia. When the Germans bombed the railway station, several wagons were uncoupled, saving some of the prisoners, including Jonas.

During the German occupation of Lithuania in 1941-44, Jonas became the deputy governor of Utena County. On Lithuanian Independence Day, 16 February 1944, General Plechavičius made a radio appeal to the nation for volunteers to fight Soviet-backed partisans. Some 19,500 men responded to the appeal. Amongst them was Jonas, who was sent to fight the partisans in southeastern Lithuania.

When the Germans tried to transform the squad into SS units, Plechavičius resisted, was arrested and sent to the Salaspils concentration camp. His battalion was disbanded with Jonas being sent to Germany and assigned to an aviation unit. When the War ended, Jonas found himself in the American zone of Germany. He lived in a Displaced Persons camp, served in an American labour company and met Elena Kalvaitė.

Jonas goes to Canberra

Finally selected for resettlement in Australia and housed initially in the Bonegilla camp, it is likely that Jonas was able to reunite with Elena and meet his daughter. Two days after his 34th birthday, he was off to Canberra to work for the Department of the Interior, probably as a labourer. Let us hope that his wife and daughter were able to travel with him or join him soon after.

The Department of the Interior was responsible then for all official aspects of life in Canberra, as well as a wide range of other activities, including elections, meteorology, surveying and lands. The range is so wide that it is impossible to tell what Jonas was tasked to do. We know from his obituary that he joined Australia’s Bureau of Statistics after completing his employment contract and stayed there until his retirement in 1979, aged 65, the then compulsory maximum age of employment. (Ann notes that she was working across the road from the Bureau, in the Department of Immigration from 1977, and may well have crossed his path in the local shopping mall.)

In the early 1950s, the couple and their small daughter were living at 3 Ross Street, a short thoroughfare in suburban O’Connor. Given their circumstances, it may well have been built by the Government to rent. The address was confirmed by the Commonwealth Government when a notice of grant of citizenship to the couple was published in the gazette in December 1959.

Jonas appears before a magistrate

When Jonas came the before Canberra Court in June 1955, charged with both assaulting a policeman in the execution of his duty and drink-driving, at least one reporter for both the Queanbeyan Age and Canberra Times chose to describe him incorrectly as resident on the longer, more prominent, Queanbeyan address of Ross Road.

Jonas made counter allegations of having been assaulted by the police after his arrest. Elena gave evidence in support of her husband, one of the occasions when we have a record of the marriage having occurred in 1947.

Police evidence included Augutis having lost his driving licence once before, in November the previous year, while being fined £20 for drink driving. He had applied successfully to have the licence restored on 16 February. This, therefore, was the second occasion in less than a year when he had been found driving erratically when under the influence of alcohol. Still, he only was fined, £35 on the drink driving charge and £20 for assaulting the policeman. He was given 3 months to pay the total of £55, a hefty amount when you consider that its buying power then was equivalent to more than $2,300 in 2024.

Drinking too much alcohol is also on record for a number of the men from the General Stuart Heintzelman. Considering what they, as well as Jonas Augutis, had gone through during World War II, it is no surprise that they were using this approach to deal with what then was seen as, “Forget the past, look to the future”. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (now commonly PTSD) was not recognised until 1980, when it entered the American Psychiatric Association‘s third edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) as a result of the behaviour of Vietnam War veterans.

Jonas’ occupation at the time of his 1955 court appearance was still ‘labourer’.

Elena and Jonas' daughter

Elena and Jonas’ daughter started appearing in the local press, the Canberra Times, in September 1958. She attended Turner Primary School and had placed in the Junior High Jump competition at the School’s first athletics carnival. She also won a place in what the School called its Junior Championship. In the following year’s athletics carnival, she also placed in the 75 yards (69 metres) race for 11-year-old girls. 

In another crossing paths moment, the sports ground used by the Turner School is across the street from where another First Transport arrival, Valeria Mets, was living. She probably was at work, though, when her friend’s daughter was competing successfully.

Citizenship

Elena and Jonas received Australian citizenship at the same ceremony on 17 June 1959. They were with 54 other recipients, all of whom were given bibles either from the British and Foreign Bible Society or the Roman Catholic Church in Canberra. They would have been an excellent source of reading practice for English language development so long as they were much later versions than the 1611 King James Version still in common use at that time.

Jonas is recorded on his passenger list as Roman Catholic, while we know already that Elena identified as a Protestant. Which version of the bible they accepted, how they reconciled their religious differences or if they even bothered, are unknowns.

What is known is that Elena, newly back in Canberra with a baby, had help from nuns who were associated with Canberra's St Christopher's Cathedral.

Now that Elena and Jonas were Australian citizens, they were required to be on the electoral roll and to vote in elections. Electoral rolls for the period 1961-77 show them still living at Ross Street, with Elena’s occupation shown as cleaner and Jonas (recorded as John) shown as a machine-operator.

Elena, Jonas, their daughter and the Bureau of Statistics

Since John or Jonas spent his life working for the Bureau of Statistics, it is possible that the machine he was operating was a computer.

The citizenship ceremony was shortly after Elena was photographed with someone probably well known to her from some months together in early 1948, identified in the Canberra Times as Miss A Molkentin. They were said to be among visitors at the opening on 26 May of an exhibition of statistical equipment by the Bureau of Census and Statistics, then co-located with the Treasury in Parkes. We would not be surprised if they were staff gathered around for the purpose of a publicity photo, meaning that both Elena and Miss Molketin were employed by the Bureau, now the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).  (We will add the photograph if we can find a version which is not mostly black.)

At that stage, the Bureau was conducting complete censuses of the Australian population every 7 years. A very useful one for our purposes had been conducted in June 1947, just 5 months before the First Transport arrived. The 1954 census included most of the Eastern European refugees, still known as former Displaced Persons or New Australians. The next was to occur in 1961. However, the Bureau may well have been employing temporary staff, likely to have been female, to prepare punch card records of surveys, for example.

Ann has been told that their daughter also was a good musician. The Canberra Times of 12 July 1962 records her passing the Grade IV examination of the Australian Musical Examination Board, a hint that her parents had been able to afford a piano at home for some time. The next year she passed the 5th Grade examination. In 1965, she passed the 6th Grade examination.

The 1 June 1967 issue of the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette announced her appointment to the Commonwealth Public Service as a Clerk in what then was called the Third Division. She followed her parents into what then was called the Statistician’s Branch of the Department of the Treasury.

This was the first step on the ladder of a public service career and it looks like a step which she might have taken as soon as she finished high school at the end of the previous year. If she wanted further education, the Commonwealth Public Service provided time off for classes and other support.

Her promotion into the position of a Clerk Class 2/3 in the Public Finance and Taxation Section of the Statistician’s Branch was confirmed on 14 January 1971.

The daughter’s Canberra friends were told of her marriage in Canada in June 1976 by an advertisement in the Canberra Times 4 days after the event. We have no idea if there was sufficient money for her parents to fly from Canberra to attend.

A marriage and new life in Canada should have led to a resignation in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, but the search engine for the National Library of Australia’s Trove digitisation service has been unable to find one. Nor can Trove find appointments to the ABS for either John/Jonas or Elena. It is highly likely that they were temporary employees only, able to be left without employment when the Bureau did not need them. This would explain why Elena was prepared to give her occupation as ‘cleaner’.

The parents move; Jonas dies

By the 1980 electoral roll, Elena had moved to a new address, Dexter Street in the Canberra suburb of Cook, but had no occupation, while John was living still at the Ross Street address. It is quite possible that this is a record of John not get around to updating his residence before that electoral roll was finalised. (Newer electoral rolls are not available to the public for privacy reasons, which was not an issue in the 1970s and earlier.)

The family’s next appearance in the press was in April 1983, when Jonas died aged 68. The advertisement indicated that Elena and “John” had 2 granddaughters in Canada. It also tells us that Jonas’ brother, Juozas, who came to Australia with him in June 1948, had left for the United States. There, another Augutis brother, Mikas had settled.

An older Jonas Augutis in the photograph accompanying his obituary

Source: Mūsų Pastogė 

The advertisement also said that Jonas had died “after a long illness”, often code for cancer. Whether it was cancer or not, Elena probably had devoted herself to care for him throughout, maybe even into his last days.

Jonas’ obituary in Mūsų Pastogė described him as being of an open nature, a keen reader of books, interested in Lithuanian and general history, and someone who subscribed extensively to the Lithuanian press. He was cremated at the Norwood Park Crematorium on April 21 1983. His farewell included a speech on behalf of the Lithuanian returned servicemen’s organisation, Ramovė.

The family donates

Public thanks appeared in a Lithuanian publication for a donation from the Augutis family in 1990, a very generous $100 from Elena.  She had donated it to the Independent Lithuania Foundation in Canberra.  This was only months after Lithuania had announced its independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990.

The Augutis name previously appeared on a list of donors in 1951, for 10 shillings to the National Fund. The purpose of this fund was assumed known to readers. Ten shillings, the equivalent of $1 in decimal currency, may appear small but was the largest amount a number of donors were giving and corresponds in buying power with more than $25 in 2024.

Elena's last years

In another possible moment of paths crossing, Elena lived in the same suburb as Ann in her later years. They may well have been at the local shops at the same time.

Elena joined Jonas in Norwood Park with a plaque on the same rock after her death on 6 October 1996 aged 79, in Morling Lodge, Canberra’s first aged care home. She did not receive an obituary. We are doing the best that we can here.

Augutis plaques, Norwood Park
Source:  CAMCF on Find a Grave

SOURCES

‘AEF DP Registration Record’ (Kalvyte, Elena) Folder DP1750, names from KALVITE, ELLA to KAMBROWSKA, Ruth, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, ITS, Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/67568764?s=elena%20kalvyte&t=2738679&p=0, accessed 7 November 2025.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, ‘Kalvyte, Elena’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203640622, accessed 8 November 2025.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, ‘Augutis, Jonas’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203678465, accessed 8 November 2025.

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Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1951) ‘Maza kolonija, bet daug aukoja!‘ (‘Small Colony, But a Lot of Sacrifice’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 19 December, p 6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259360432, accessed 7 November 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1990) ‘Canberroje‘ (‘In Canberra’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 8 October, p 8 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1990/1990-10-08-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 8 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Queensland Branch; J25, Case files, annual single number series with or without 'Q' [Queensland] or 'QB' [Queensland Brisbane] or 'CLF' [Client Files] prefix, 1946-; 1953/4102, SVALBARD - nominal passenger roll - departed Bremerhaven, Germany 8 May 1948, 1948-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1629089, accessed 8 November 2025.

Queanbeyan Age (1955) 'Q’beyan Man on Assault Charge', Queanbeyan, NSW, 17 June, p 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article270636187, accessed 5 November 2025.

Queanbeyan Age (1955) ‘Police Cleared of Assault Charge', Queanbeyan, NSW, 28 June, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/270646241, accessed 9 November 2025.

Reserve Bank of Australia, Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html, accessed 7 November 2025.

VB (1983) ‘Mirusieji, A A Jonas Augutis’, (‘The Dead, In Memoriam Jonas Augutis’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, 9 May, p 4 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1983/1983-05-09-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 7 November 2025.

Wikipedia, ‘Povilas Plechavičius’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Povilas_Plechavi%C4%8Dius, accessed 8 November 2025.

Albinas Kutka (1908-1992), Master Builder and Benefactor, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 4 October 2025.

Most of the Displaced Persons from the First Transport sent to South Australia to work stayed there, even after their obligation to work where directed finished on 30 September 1949. Albinas Kutka was different: he moved to Sydney. From the suburb of Canterbury he moved to Bankstown, a suburb with its own airport for light aviation. Undeterred by the noise, he moved even closer to Bankstown Airport, in Condell Park.

Albinas was able to get recognition from the authorities as a master builder. Together with fellow Lithuanian, Vytautas Mickevičius, he was responsible for the construction of a Lithuanian retirement village in the far south of Sydney, Engadine. Rather than being adjacent to an airport, this location is adjacent to Royal National Park, Australia’s first, and only the second in the world after Yellowstone in the USA.

In old age, Albinas sold the Condell Park home and moved into one of his own buildings in the Lithuanian retirement home in Engadine.

Albinas' youth

He had been born on 9 April 1908 in the village of Lukniai, near Vyzuonos in the Utena district. He was one of 6 children, 4 boys and 2 girls, born to farmers Kazimieras Kutka and Agota Kutkienė, whose maiden name was Macionytė.

Albinas lived all of his youth on the family farm until called away for military service at the age of 21. He earned the rank of junior sergeant. Eight years later, in 1937, he again was drafted into the army to refresh his training. He continued to work on the farm until the beginning of World War II. When the Soviet entered Lithuania for the second time, in 1944, he retreated to Germany.

Albinas Kutka's ID photo on his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Albinas in Germany

The Arolsen Archives hold 4 documents naming Albinas, 3 of which understate his age by exactly 10 years. What can be gleaned from them is that he was in Munich between 13 August 1945 and 6 February 1946, during which his occupation was Waldarbeiter, forest worker or woodcutter or, in American, lumberjack. He also lived for a while in a town called Vilsbiburg, which is just under 90 Km northeast of Munich, and Stade, a city in Lower Saxony in northern Germany, at the opposite end of his country of refuge.

His American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) Displaced Person’s registration record was filled out on 23 August 1945, but the place where it was completed is blank (unless P.A.P.Cl. 124 still can be decoded*). Another date on this form is of interest though, because its month and year suggest that 10 August 1944 was the date that he reached Germany, that is, almost one year before he was recorded in Munich. Given that its Arolsen Archives’ DeepLink number is just one more than the form which states that he is in Stade, this city may well be where he was registered as a Displaced Person.

The AEF recorded his preferred occupation not as farmer, like his father, but Tischler, German for carpenter.  Possibly he had done a lot of building on his parents' farm.

It is possible that he moved from Stade to the Munich district to get as far away as possible from the Soviet occupiers of eastern Germany and his homeland. He reported for interview by the first Australian migration selection team at the Buchholtz DP camp, though, in the centre of western Germany. 

He impressed the team enough to be included in the First Transport, departing Bremerhaven on 30 October 1947.  At 39 years, he was one of the older passengers.

Albinas and the Sawmill

Albinas’ first job in Australia was in Backhouse, Roebuck Pty. Ltd., The Bonegilla card records this company as being located in a placed called Megan, which sounds more like a girl’s name than a place name to a modern Australian. It really does exist, though, as a community hall and the remains of a railway station, inland of Coff’s Harbour in New South Wales.

The nearest town to Megan is Dorrigo, the headquarters of Backhouse, Roebuck according to a search of digitised newspapers on the National Library of Australia’s Trove Website. The company owned sawmills. 

Albinas left the Bonegilla camp for one of them in 21 January 1948, in a group of 7 men. He was back at the Bonegilla migrant centre on 11March 1948 together with another Lithuanian member of the group, Juozas Bazys, and a Latvian member of the group who was 16-20 years younger than the Lithuanians, Nikolaus Kucina.

Assuming that it took at least a couple of days to travel from Bonegilla by bus or car to Albury, then by train to Sydney, then to Megan if the station was operative in 1948, Albinas, Juozas and Nikolaus had put up with the conditions offered by Backhouse, Roebuck for less than 7 weeks. It was not the type of working with wood that Albinas preferred.

Albinas to Iron Knob

All 3 were sent off to Iron Knob, in South Australia, on 16 March, together with a fourth man who also had given up a career as a sawmill hand. The fourth man was a Latvian, Peteris Mesters, who had been sent to Northern Timbers, Pty Ltd, of Johnson’s Creek, New South Wales. Not surprisingly, Google Maps now can find 10 localities of this name in NSW, only 2 of which are in Sydney. Two certainly are northern, being on the border with Queensland.

Just before WWII, Iron Knob had been described as the largest known deposit of high-grade iron ore in the world. Broken Hill Pty Ltd – but now simply BHP – had commenced mining in the area in 1900.

The group of Lithuanians working at Iron Knob understood the importance of having a newspaper in their own language. They organised a collection to support the creation of Australijos lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian). The newspaper thanked them as its first sponsors on 12 September 1948. Albinas had donated ₤1 of the total of £8/5/- given by 10 Lithuanians.

Working together surely brought the Lithuanians there closer together. Even after they left Iron Knob, they kept in touch. For instance, 3 of them advertised on 23 May 1949 in the newspaper Australijos lietuvis that their friend Jonas Puslys, together with Olga Vainoryte, had created a Lithuanian family, so they congratulated them and wish them a sunny life. The three were Rasa’s grandfather, Adomas, and Albinas Kutka as well as Petras Juodka. By May 1949 they were not no longer working together, because Adomas for one was living already in Adelaide.

Jonas Puslys had not gone with the others to Iron Knob though. He started his working like in Australia as a fruit-picker, then had been sent to Australian Newsprint Mills’ Boyer plant in Tasmania. It looks like the connection between these four is earlier than work in Australia. None of them were in the Scouts, so perhaps it goes back to the same camp in Germany or the same locality in Lithuania.

It also looks like these men, along with Povilas Laurinavičius, had discovered the Australian postal system, and it was working for them. Actually, buying stamps and posting letters was sure to have been one of the “Australian way of life” topics covered in the Bonegilla camp English language classes.

Albinas to Adelaide

An Alien Registration record card for Albinas shows that he was released from his contract to work as directed in Australia on 30 September 1949, along with most of the others who came on the First Transport. His next place of employment was the Pier Hotel in Glenelg, suburban Adelaide, alongside Povilas Laurinavičius. Then it was off to 3 Robert Street, Canterbury, New South Wales, an address reported to the Department of Immigration on 27 June 1951.

Albinas to Sydney

Why did Albinas not stay in Adelaide like most of the others sent to South Australia to work out their contract? Another Kutka, Antanas, came to Australia from Germany on the Protea, arriving on 30 September 1948. He was sent to Sydney’s Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board to work. From the information available to us, we cannot tell if they were related but, since both were born in the Utena district, we cannot dismiss this possibility either.

If they were related and communicating with each other, then perhaps from Antanas' description of life in Sydney, Albinas thought he would do better there than in Adelaide.

We know already that he moved from the initial Canterbury address to Bankstown, a suburb with its own airport for light aviation. Undeterred by the noise, he moved to a home even closer to Bankstown Airport, in Condell Park.

On 3 December 1953, the Mūsų pastogė (Our Haven) newspaper reported that Albinas was in his second year of successful house construction in Bankstown. The reporter added (in Lithuanian, of course) “His example shows what can be achieved with determination and initiative.”

Ten months later, in October 1954, he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle. Mūsų pastogė wrote (in Lithuanian) “His face was injured, his head was cut open, and his bicycle was smashed. After spending several days in the hospital, Alb. Kutka returned home.”

Albinas acquired Australian citizenship on 22 June 1967. His address at the time, 47 Cragg Street, Condell Park, shows that he now owned his own home, probably built or updated with his own hands.

Sydney's Lithuanian Retirement Village

Ona Baužienė started campaigning for land on which to build a Lithuanian retirement village when she became the chairwoman of the Sydney Lithuanian Women’s Social Services Association in 1967. We have just met through her recollections 30 years later of meeting the First Transport Lithuanians in the Bonegilla camp.

Her committee started an intensive program of fundraising through catering for community events, raffles and the like. In 1970, the Association was granted land at Engadine on a permanent basis on condition that it be solely used for housing the elderly.

Work on the first two buildings started in 1975 after signing a contract with the builders Albinas Kutka and Vytautas Mickevičius.  A community centre finished in 1978 was financed entirely by the Association’s fundraising plus donations. It included a kitchen, dining room and library.  The remaining 17 residential buildings, for up to two residents each, were completed in 1981, thanks this time to funding from the NSW Government as well as the Association’s efforts.

Albinas (extreme left) and Vytautas Mickevičius help to celebrate the 
completion of the buildings

The topping-out wreath and 2 village buildings, 1981

Source:  Mūsų Pastogė

The official opening was on 19 August 1984. The builders, Albinas and Vytautas, brought their topping-out wreath to the opening.

Albinas the Benefactor

Mūsų pastogė advised in April 1982 that Albinas Kutka, a well-known Lithuanian builder recognized by the Australians as a "master builder", had become seriously ill recently and has been hospitalized for a major operation. The patient was recovering rapidly and hoped to return to his home in Bankstown soon. Albinas Kutka was known to local Lithuanians as a generous supporter of the Lithuanian cause.

The words “Albinas Kutka was known to local Lithuanians as a generous supporter” were very accurate, because he had been donating unreservedly to many Lithuanian activities. Messages and thanks from the newspapers can confirm this. Here are some examples.

• Mūsų Pastogė, 12 May 1980: student A. Binkevičius received $200, of which $100 was donated by builder Albinas Kutka.
• Tėviškės aidai, 21 November 1981: “The always quiet and sincere Lithuanian, Albinas Kutka", sent a donation of $100 to the Daina Choir.
• Tėviškės aidai, 20 March 1986: On the occasion of February 16 (Lithuania’s Independence Day) compatriots in Sydney and the surrounding area supported Lithuania’s freedom struggle with their sincere donations. Albinas Kutka’s donation $50 was the largest individual amount received.
• Mūsų Pastogė, 25 October 1988: A. Kutka donated $100 for the trip of Lithuanian dissident, Professor Vytautas Skuodis. Again, this was the largest individual donation.

  

  The photo which accompanied Albinas' obituary
  

  Source:  Mūsų Pastogė

Albinas' Last Years

Albinas was already in his mid-70s when the village was opened.  He sold his own house and settled into a unit he had built himself. Since Albinas was single, it was more stimulating for him to live there among Lithuanian acquaintances. In his last four years of his life, his health deteriorated. Doctors recognised his condition as difficult to treat. In the end, he received care in a nearby Calvary (Catholic) nursing home.

Albinas Kutka died on 13 September 1992, and was buried in Catholic Section of the Rookwood cemetery. During his final illness, Albinas was cared for by his neighbour and friend Vincas Kondrackas and his wife. They also took care of the funeral arrangements.

FOOTNOTE:  Perhaps P.A.P.Cl. 124 can be decoded.  Recently I happened upon a list of DP Camps by Team No on the <dpcamps.org> Website.  While it doesn't explain P.A.P.Cl., it does say that Team 124 was located in München, that is, Munich, where other evidence places Albinas also.

SOURCES

‘A.E.F. D.P. Registration Record, Albinas Kutka’, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 67941909, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/67941909?s=Kutka&t=2739669&p=0, accessed 21 September 2025.

Australijos Lietuvis, (Australian Lithuanian) (1948) ‘Pirmieji Mūsų Rėmėjai’ (‘Our First Sponsors’, in Lithuanian) https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/280321942, accessed 21 September 2025.

Australian Cemetery Index, ‘Kutka’, https://austcemindex.com/?family_name=kutka, accessed 21 September 2025.

'Australian Lithuanian History, Australian Lithuanian newspaper’ https://salithohistory.blogspot.com/2008/12/, accessed 21 September 2025.

Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, ‘Albinas Kutka’, https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203624970, accessed 21 September 2025.

‘CM/1 264719, Family name, Kutka, Citizenship, Lith’, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 67941908, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/67941908, accessed 21 September 2025.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1967) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, 2 June, p 5863 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/241018768, accessed 21 September 2025.

Dainos Choro Valdyba (Daina Choir Board) (1981) ‘Sydnėjuje, Dainos Chore‘ (‘In Sydney, Daina Choir’ in Lithuanian) Tėviškės Aidai, (The Echoes of Homeland) Melbourne, 21 November, p 8 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1981/1981-11-21-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

Elektroninio archyvo informacinė Sistema (Electronic Archive Information System, in Lithuanian with some English) ‘Utenos dekanato bažnyčių gimimo metrikų knyga’ (‘Birth register book of churches in the Utena deanery’, in Lithuanian ) (1908, Vyzuonos church, page 113, baptism record number 51, Albinas Kutka) https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/share/?manifest=https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/view/267507212/276386482/lt/iiif/manifest&lang=lt&page=113, accessed 21 September 2025.

Elektroninio archyvo informacinė Sistema (Electronic Archive Information System, in Lithuanian with some English) ‘Utenos dekanato bažnyčių gimimo metrikų knyga’ (‘Birth register book of churches in the Utena deanery’, in Lithuanian) (1899, Gaižiūnai church, page 71, baptism record number 158, Antanas Kutka) phttps://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/share/?manifest=https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/view/267506507/276386475/lt/iiif/manifest&lang=lt&page=71

Find A Grave, ‘Albinas Kutka’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/149476069/albinas-kutka, accessed 21 September 2025.

Juodka, Petras, Ivanauskas, Adomas and Albinas Kutka (1949) ‘Drauga Jona Pūsli …’ (‘Friend Jonas Puslis … ’, in Lithuanian) Australijos Lietuvis (The Australian Lithuanian) Adelaide, 23 May, p 22, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/280321235, accessed 21 September 2025.

‘Land/Stadt/Kreis Vilsbiburg, Form 10, ITS 247’, 2.1.1 American Zone of Occupation in Germany, DocID: 70255471, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70255471, accessed 21 September 2025.

‘München Kreis, Kategorie III, Form 7’, 2.1.1 American Zone of Occupation in Germany, DocID: 70073263, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70073263, accessed 21 September 2025. [Also at https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/70073530.]

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven)(1954) ‘Sydnėjus’ (‘Sydney’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 27 October, p 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259359692, accessed 21 September 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1980) ‘Redakcijos pastaba’ (‘Editor’s Note’) Sydney, 12 May, p 3 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1980/1980-05-12-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1988) ‘Aukos’ (‘Victims’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 25 October, p 7, https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1988/1988-10-25-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Western Australian Branch; PP482/1, Correspondence files [nominal rolls], single number series, 1926-1952; 82, GENERAL HEINTZELMAN - arrived Fremantle 28 November 1947 - nominal rolls of passengers, 1947-1952 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=439196, accessed 21 September 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Labour and National Service, Central Office; MT29/1, Employment Service Schedules, 1947-1950; 21, Schedule of displaced persons who left the Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla Victoria for employment in the State of South Australia - [Schedule no SA1 to SA31], 1948-1950, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=23150376, accessed 21 September 2025.

Rep (1953) ‘Bankstownas’ (‘Bankstown’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, 3 December, p 4 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1953/1953-12-03-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

Reisgienė, Martina (trans. Petras Viržintas) (2024) ‘Sydney Lithuanian Women’s Social Services Assoc. Inc‘, SLIC (Sydney Lithuanian Information Centre) https://www.slic.org.au/Community/sydlithwomen.htm, accessed 21 September 2025.

Tėviškės Žiburiai (The Lights of Homeland) (1984) ‘Australija, Oficialus Lietuvių sodybos atidarymas‘ (‘Australia, Official Opening of the Lithuanian Home’) Mississauga, Ontario, 2 October, p 4 https://spauda.org/teviskes_ziburiai/archive/1984/1984-10-02-TEVISKES-ZIBURIAI.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

Valdyba (The Board) (1981) ‘Vainikuota Lietiivių Sodyba’ (‘The Topped-Out Lithuanian Home’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, 5 July, p 5 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1981/1981-07-05-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

Vinevičius, A. (1992) ‘Mūsų mirusieji, Su Ramovėnu A. Kutka Atsisveikinant’ (Our Dead, Farewell to Ramovė Member A. Kutka’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven), Sydney, 28 September, p 7 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1992/1992-09-28-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025

Wikipedia, ‘Stade’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stade, accessed 25 September 2025.

Wikipedia, ‘Topping Out’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topping_out, accessed 25 September 2025.

Wikipedia, ‘Vilsbiburg’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilsbiburg, accessed 25 September 2025.

Stasys Šeduikis (1924–2005), Lithuanian refugee, by Daina Pocius with Ann Tündern-Smith

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.

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