Updated 14-16, 24 and 26 September, and 1 October 2025.
Looking through the list of names of those who arrived on the First Transport, the General Stuart Heintzelman, we often wonder about relationships and friendships between those on board. When we see the same surname, our first thought is, are they related? Maybe they are brothers, or cousins? When Daina saw the name Smilgevicius three times, she wanted to know if there was a connection.
Izidorius Smilgevičius
Izidorius, or Izzy as he was known in Australia, was born on the 11 February 1924 in the village of Truikiai, close to the town of Plungė. Named after his father, he was a farm worker while residing in Lithuania. The population at the time Izidorius lived in Truikiai was about the same as it is today, around 150.
He was only 22 years old when he arrived in Australia. He was described on his arrival statement as having worked previously as a general labourer. He therefore was suited to continuing to work as a labourer.
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Izzy's ID photo from his Bonegilla card
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He was among 185 Baltic men sent from the Bonegilla camp to pick fruit in northern Victoria’s Goulburn Valley, in his case, for Messrs Dundas Simson in Ardmona.
When that fruit season finished, Izzy returned to Bonegilla on 31 March 1948. With still most of his two-year contract to work, his next placement was to Tasmania, where he was sent after 4 days back in Bonegilla.
Izzy’s Bonegilla card does not say what he was to do in Tasmania. Ramunas Tarvydas, in his From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, fills in the missing information. Ramunas or Ray says that Izzy first picked apples in the Huon Valley in the southeast of Tasmania. When that work finished, the Commonwealth Employment service sent him to the northwest, to work for the Electrolytic Zinc Company at Rosebery. His working and living conditions, and his Baltic companions, are described in Jonas Mockunas’ recent entry in this blog.
An Alien Registration file for one of Izzy's fellow workers, Juozas Jablonskis, records that these two had absconded from Rosebery, along with Juozas Paskevicius and Jonas Rauba. They had been thoughtful enough to write to the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) in Queenstown to say that they were leaving. A few days later, in February 1949, the senior CES official in Tasmania sent a second letter to the Commonwealth Migration Officer in that State, saying that all 4 were thought to be at a specific address in East Melbourne.
The next letter from the CES to the Commonwealth Migration Officer, Hobart, states that all 4 had been found to be working for Hume Steel in Footscray while still living at the East Melbourne address. By this time, March 1949, the CES had been dealing with enough absconders to decide that, if they found new work of a kind that happened to be in the national interest, they should be left to pursue it.
The building products manufactured by Hume Steel would have fitted into that category. The CES Director, Hobart, advised his Immigration counterpart that the Melbourne CES was taking no further action pending further advice. There are no more relevant papers on the Jablonskis file so we can assume that there was no further action.
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A professional portrait of Izidorius
Source: Collection of Izidorius Smilgevičius |
In Melbourne, Izidorius married Victorian-born Clara Edith Matthews, ten years his senior, and became a house painter. He is recorded as being an early donor to the Melbourne Lithuanian Club and a member of the Melbourne Lithuanian Catholic parish.
Ann discovered a message online from Clara’s niece, Joy Spain, after she had posted the First Transport’s passenger list to the Immigrant Ships Transcribers’ Guild Website. Izzy was in a high-care nursing home and wanted to see a picture of the ship which brought him to Australia, so Joy took Ann to visit him there in 2012. Although Joy’s message said that Izzy was in reasonable health, he clearly was bedridden but pleased to see his ship again.
Izidorius died two years later, on 6 December 2014 aged 90 years. Clara had passed away almost 23 years previously in 1981. They are buried together in the Warringal Cemetery, in Heidelberg, Melbourne.
Jurgis Smilgevičius
Jurgis was born on the 22 June 1919, in the Laumakiai manor, located near the beautiful Venta River, in the Šiauliai district. Here he was taught to read and write at home. His parents died, leaving him an orphan the age of ten. His maternal uncle, Liudvikas Ragauskas, took him into his family.
His obituary in Mūsų Pastogė, the main Lithuanian newspaper in Australia, said that he finished 4 classes at the Kelmė school and another 4 at the Šiauliai Boys' school in 1937. His selection papers for migration to Australia confirm that he had finished a full 8 years of secondary education.
In 1937, Jurgis entered the Military School. In 1938, he graduated with the rank of artillery reserve lieutenant. During 1938-40, he studied electrical engineering at the Vytautas the Great University in Kaunas. When the University was closed during WWII, Jurgis moved to Germany and finished his studies in 1947 at the Technical University of Braunschweig, majoring in electrical engineering.
Here was another Lithuanian with a full 12 years of school plus a higher education. His military career and his degree in electrical engineering from Braunsweig follow the same pattern as that recently described for Jonas Motiejūnas. Perhaps they even were in the same classes.
Like Jonas, he was accepted for resettlement in Australia in October 1947, and sailed on the First Transport.
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Jurgis Smilgevicius from his selection papers for Australia
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His uncle Liudvikas also came to Australia, on the Anna Salen arriving on 22 June 1949. Sadly, Liudvikas was only in Australia for five years before he died of a heart attack. The Communists had taken his wife and three children to Siberia, and he had been imprisoned in a Communist prison for a long time. When Liudvikas declared his intention to be naturalised in the year before he died, his place of residence was given as Sunbury Mental Hospital (where he probably was working).
Jurgis’ first job in Australia had nothing to do with electrical or any other kind of engineering. Instead, he joined the fruit-pickers in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley from 29 January 1948, working for Mr E Fairley of Shepparton. After the season ended and he returned to the Bonegilla camp on 1 April, his next employer was the Templestowe Brickworks, in Heidelberg, Melbourne, starting two weeks later.
On his 50th birthday in June 1969, Jurgis celebrated with friends in Geelong and spoke about himself and the difficulties he had encountered. The brickyard foreman would point the workers out to customers as if they special attractions — here a professor, here a doctor, a lawyer or engineer. Fortunately, it did not take long for a happy coincidence to allow Jurgis’ qualifications to be recognised, so he began working in his specialty.
He married Regina Narbutaitė, who had arrived on the Second Transport, the General Stewart, on 12 February 1948. They married on 20 December 1948 in Melbourne. It was a civil registry wedding rather than a church one, because Jurgis had to describe himself as divorced.
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Jurgis Smilgevicius in 1947
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Jurgis was married before the War and had two daughters, Violeta and Liliana. They were separated by the flight to Germany. The two girls with their mother, Valentina, and grandmother, Marija, were resettled in Michigan, USA. Jurgis was able to meet Violeta when she visited Australia 30 years later. Jurgis travelled to Michigan to visit them as well.
One month after the marriage, Jurgis lodged a sponsorship to bring Regina’s 61-year-old father to Australia from Germany. He reported that he was earning £8/5/- per week at the brickworks while Regina was able to earn £5/5/- each week.
Jurgis’ income translates into only $16.50 in decimal currency, but its buying power now would be about $570, adjusting for inflation. As of November 1948, the basic wage for men was £5/19/-, so Jurgis’ income compares well as it was nearly 40 per cent higher. Regina, of course, was earning only three-quarters of the £7/-/- a man would be paid for doing her work.
The speed with which Regina and then her father followed Jurgis to Australia makes us think that this was a special friendship which had developed in a Displaced Persons camp in the British Zone, where these two had found refuge. Valentina, in the American Zone, signed an English-language letter on 4 October, her signature certified by the camp’s Executive Officer, stating that she had not lived with her husband since 1944. She further declared that she had no objections to her husband migrating to Australia and that she would “not raise any summons” against the Australian Government for supporting her family or “other matters concerning (her) husband”.
This must have cleared the way for the early migration of this still married man, after the Australian Government had made it clear that all on the First Transport were to be single people. This was to give officials greater freedom to send the new arrivals where they were most required without having to worry about their dependents.
Jurgis was one of the founding members of the Melbourne Lithuanian community and was elected to its first committee in August 1948.
There was a major housing shortage in Australia’s cities after WWII, given that those who would have been building new accommodation were fighting instead. As a consequence, rents were high. Jurgis and Regina saved hard for a deposit, which he put down on a housing block.
He started to build a small house, a tiny house even, with an area of 14 square metres. He worked on it at weekends. Living there was hard for his wife, as running water and electricity were not connected at first. Regina gave birth to both their daughters from this unfinished house.
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Jurgis and Regina's first home
Source: Mockūnienė, Lietuviai Australijoje |
On 25 August 1955, Jurgis and Regina Smilgevicius became naturalised Australians. This was reported separately for each by Commonwealth Gazette but the address in both reports was the same. The new house was at 38 Clyde Steet in the west Melbourne suburb of Newport.
Jurgis worked as an engineer for Melbourne’s trams and for the State Electricity Commission. In the Commonwealth Department of Civil Aviation, he was appointed in October 1958 to the position of Airway Engineer on a salary range of £903-£1,353 per annum, which the Reserve Bank calculates now would buy $35,000-$52,000. Since salaries have risen faster than inflation for the past 67 years, we can say that he definitely had a good income. Another way of looking at that income is to look at the basic wage for men in 1958, which was less than half of Jurgis’ starting salary, at £425.
In February 1972, Regina too joined the Federal Public Service, as an Assistant Postal Officer Grade 1 with the Postmaster General’s Department. Her salary was not published in the Commonwealth Gazette notifying her appointment
After retiring in 1980, they moved to Surfers Paradise. In 1981 they initiated a meeting of local Lithuanians and the formation of an eldership (Lietuvių Seniūnijus). Initially it was only a group of 10, but when it grew to over 30, 8 years later, he passed on his role as secretary.
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Jurgis Smilgevicius (left) with Antanas Vailionis, Liudas Krašauskas, and Juozas Songaila
Source: Gold Coast Lithuanian newsletter, 9 March 2003 |
He was reported to have been the sort of person who got on well with everyone.
Jurgis passed away on the Gold Coast on14 October 2006. His ashes are interred in the Allambe Memorial Park, Nerang, Gold Coast City, Queensland.
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Jurgis Smilgevicius' plaque in a rose garden at the Allambe Memorial Park
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Kazys Smilgevičius
Kazys was born in Jankaičiai village, in the district of Rietavas, Lithuania, on 18 December 1922. The population of this village has shrunk from 123 at the time of Kazys' birth to 10 in 2011, the latest available figures.
He was a tailor and single when he arrived in Australia on board the General Stuart Heinzelman on 28 November 1947. After a short time in Bonegilla, he was one of the 64 sent to Adelaide to labour for the South Australian Government’s Department of Engineering and Water Supply (E&WS) at Bedford Park.
Later he worked for the E&WS at Port Lincoln and Murdinga on the Eyre Peninsula, then moved to General Motors-Holden (GMH) to work as a spot welder. As the Adelaide News in May 1949 reported that he had been living in North Adelaide for about 6 months, he probably had been able to find his GMH job in late 1948 (with Commonwealth Employment Service and Department of Immigration permission, of course).
Kazys’ time in Australia was only beginning when tragedy stuck.
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Kazys Smilgevicius' death as reported in the Adelaide Advertiser of 21 May 1949
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He had been in Australia for less than 18 months.
He lies buried in West Terrace cemetery with a headstone erected by the Lithuanian community. The inscription “Teesie tavo valia” usually is rendered in English as “Thy will be done”.
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Kazys Smilgevicius' headstone in the West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide
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Conclusion
After researching the three Smilgevičius men, we could see that they are not related. The common features that Daina has noted are that all three are Žemaičiai (the plural of Žemaičias, meaning someone from Žemaitija) and all three are buried in a foreign land far from their home of birth.
Žemaitija or Samogitia is one of the five cultural regions of Lithuania. Located in the northwest "lowland" of the country, its capital is Telšiai and the largest city is Šiauliai. Through the centuries, Samogitia has developed a separate culture featuring with its own architecture, folk costumes, dances, songs, traditions, and a distinct language. A Žemaitis trait is stubbornness: they never give up when in trouble and stubbornly pursue a goal. That’s a perfect characteristic for thriving in a new country.
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