New Australians Start Brick Kiln

After completing their compulsory two years’ work, five South Australian Lithuanians, three of them brothers began their own brick company.  The Užubalis brothers, Petras, Jonas and Vladas together with Tadas Žurauskas and Hans Blaze rented land 20 miles from Adelaide on the Onkaparinga river at Port Noarlunga.  The Manager Hans Glaze was a mechanical engineer, Jonas and one other were brick makers. 

 They built a kiln that would fire 20,000 bricks a week, enough for one house.  They had an unlimited supply of clay from the river.

Clay Products (Port Noarlunga) Ltd., brick manufacturers, has been incorporated in Adelaide with a nominal capital of £10,000.  The company has been formed to take over the business of Clay Products, Noarlunga.  At that time there were seven directors, six of whom are Lithuanians.  The business was sold three years later, and the men moved back to Adelaide to take up different employment.

 

Jonas Uzubalis (left), his son Alvydas and J. Mockunas with some of the bricks made and dried ready for firing when the kiln is completed.

The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954)Thursday 13 July 1950 - Page 13

Perth Lithuanians storm basketball

In April 1950, a group of Lithuanian men decided to register a team in the Perth Amateur Basketball League.   It was a windy, stormy day when a Lithuanian man, tired and running later rushed to register the team.  Exchanging small talk with the Registrar it inevitably turned to the topic of weather.  After a short while the Registrar asked for the team name and without a thought, he uttered Storm.  Lithuanians referred to the team as the similar sounding word, Šturmas, which translates to ‘attack or assault’.  The all Lithuanian team made an impressive impression from the first game.  

The Captain and Coach of the team, Stasys Gincauskas began playing basketball in 1937.  Now aged 28, he had played extensively all over Europe. He was a member of a Lithuanian team formed in Germany after the war which toured France.  As a schoolboy he was coached by Leonas Baltrunas, who invited him to Victoria to play basketball there.

The other members of the team comprised of Kazys Anaitis, Vladas Marcinkevicius, Leonas Šilinskas , Henrikas Naglazas, Kazimieras Balkauskas, Vytautas Klimaitis, Juozas Sakevičius, Vytautas Kalinauskas.

Storm won the A grade premiership in 1951 by a point from the all-Latvian team Patria but lost narrowly to the same club in the 1952 season's grand final.  The Estonians also formed a team, Kalev and the three teams brought basketball to a new level.  

The 1951 Western Australian basketball team consisted of Gincauskas, Klimaitis, Anaitis and five Latvian players from the Patria team.

By 1952, Storm was out of the top four, the players moving from Perth after completing their two-year work contracts.