Health in migrant communities

I was fortunate to recently meet a historian who is researching health in post war migrants to Australia.  Our conversation raised many questions about health in migrants communities, which of course I wanted answers to.

What would new Lithuanians do in the first years if they needed a doctor?
I know there a quite several Lithuanian doctors who came to Australia.  To practice medicine in Australia, the new migrants would have to undergo further study.  This would have been extremely hard for any new arrival.  Firstly there was the language, secondly you would have to work your two year contract before you were free to pursue a career and thirdly you had to work to support yourself and family.   

Language would have been an important factor.  To be able to communicate personal detailed information in your own language and to understand treatment would have been vital.  If no Lithuanian doctor was available, going to a doctor of a similar migrant background would suffice.

Did the community provide support to its members?
One of the principle aims of the Lithuanian Women's Society and Lithuanian Catholic Women's Society was to offer assistance, financial or in kind to members in need.  Some aims of the society were to visit the sick in hospital and assisting disadvantaged families, assist with payment of school fees, medicine.  The society’s focus has always been on the elderly members of the community.  The society in its formative years remembered Lithuanians still displaced in Germany, they sent monetary donations twice a year.

The Society has a focus on older members of the community that are alone, or have not adapted well to Australian environment.  Their moral and material needs are supported by the Women’s Society.  In exile we are one large family.

How was mental health issues viewed in the community?

Cases of suicide and detainment in mental institutions are recorded.  But are these figures any greater for one ethnic group?

I will do some more research on this, but in the mean time if anyone has stories or information to share, please do.

Alison St, Athol Park

 

At the end of Alison st, Athol Park, lived four Lithuanian families.  In number 19 lived the Jučius family, in 21 lived Alfonsas and Birutė Budrys.  Birutė’s sister Emilija had married Antanas Mikeliunas and lived next door in number 23. Directly opposite the Jučius house in number 20 lived the Tirva family, next to them in number 18 lived the Šerelis family until 1960.  They had two daughters, Jučius three girls and a boy, Tirva had a girl and Šereliai had two boys and a girl.  So with 10 young children of similar age they did spend a lot of time together.  Living close by was a young Russian girl who would join in, and was soon speaking Lithuanian as the children were told to speak Lithuanian.   Not everyone got along, Tirvienė and Šereliene were at odds, maybe a reason why they moved.

Between numbers 19, 21, and 23 there were no back fences built at first.  In essence the kids had a huge back yard to play in, one that was filled with fruit vegetables chicken and ducks.  When fences were eventually built they included a gate which would still allow access to each other’s property.

Jučius was a carpenter and assisted his neighbours with building their houses.  The men in the morning would ride their bikes to work at the Holden’s factory.

The Jučiai moved many years later to be closer to family in the east of Adelaide.  The others remained and still remain.



21 Athol st

Housing; another story

Agota and Stasys by the fence Stasys made.

Agota Galinskas was a single parent when she married Stasys Mikalainis.  After having two children, Stasys passes away.  During WWII the family took in borders to make ends meet.  One of these was Stasys Kerulis whom Agota later married.  The family fled to Germany avoiding the Soviet occupation.  A year was spent in a Displaced Persons camps in Bosse, Bavaria before being transported to Memmingen.  

In 1948 the family now with four children immigrated to Australia. Stasys and the second eldest son, worked on the SA railways, laying line at Oaklands Park. 

Once there was enough money to purchase a block of land for £100 at Caramar Ave, Edwardstown.  Building material was still in short supply and Stays made his own bricks by hand.  Initially a timber shed was built to store materials like sand and cement in readiness to build the house.  Mary and her parents slept there while the house was being built.  Stasys made besser bricks as they dried in the sun and didn’t need to be kiln dried.  

Many Lithuanians were involved in the building of the house.  They drew up the plans, laid the foundations, put on the tiled roof and someone plastered it inside and out. 

It was a two bedroom home with kitchen, lounge and dining room.  Stasys made the front fence with old railway material, he was a welder by trade. 

Everyone in the family worked in the rubber mills on South Road, Edwardstown at one stage.

The house was demolished sometime after Stasys died in 1987.  

The back yard

My grandparents and Uncle in front of a fruit tree in their back yard.

My maternal grandparents were both raised on farms in Lithuania, so having vegetables and fruit trees was a must on their new property.  They had one of every fruit tree (apple, pear, grapes, olives, apricot, plums, mulberry, mandarin) nut trees (almond and walnut), and vegetables of every kind.  Grandma loved her geraniums and roses.  

Vegetables grew all year round, tomatoes, beetroot, capsicum, cucumbers, nettle and sorrel.  My grandfather loved sorrel and would always make us eat a few leaves before a meal.  Needless to say, the bitter taste of sorrel was not to my liking, but I didn't mind the sorrel soup grandma would make.  My family would always leave grandma house with enough food for a week. 

Preserving fruit and vegetables was common, grandma would preserve the stone fruit or make jam, preserve the olives and pickle the cucumbers.

The back yard was a mini market garden.

 

Housing part II

Elena with Gintaras and Ruta near their house, c. 1954

Having spent several years in the Displaced Persons camps in Germany, living frugally was not foreign to many Lithuanians.  Work was easy to come by, it may not have been in your field but unskilled labour job was easily obtained.  Having saved a deposit for land, the next stage would be to built a permanent dwelling.  Before that could occur, a temporary dwelling was often quickly constructed out of readily available material until something more permanent could be constructed.  My grandparents purchased a ¼ acre block of land at 2 Fifth Ave, Woodville Gardens for £150.  They had saved £50 and another £100 was loaned by two good Lithuanian friends.  

Their first home on their new block was an empty caravan laid with clean straw.    My grandmother recalled going to the Cheltenham racecourse and with very limited English made herself understood that she need straw.  Needless to say the man was quite taken aback when he realised it was for her family and not for animals.  Cooking was done on a simple primus stove outdoors. Water was put on the block when they purchased it. 

My grandfather was fortunately handy with wood and built a two roomed wooden house at the rear of the block, mainly from old packing crates from Holden’s.  A main living area one bedroom, small kitchen and bathroom was better than the caravan at least.  

There remained an odd verandah on the house, which I was told was to have been part of a large bedroom.  As materials were still scarce the Council required a slight reduction in the size of the dwelling.  When building their house they would purchase concrete by the bags a few at a time.  Weekends and evening were then spend on constructing the permanent home at the front of the block.  Once in their new house they rented out the wooden one to migrants. It was common for people to rent out rooms for extra money.    The wooden home became my grandfathers shed, where he spent many more years building furniture for family.

There were several Lithuanian families in the surrounding streets.  Grandfather not much of a social person did not mix with them, but my grandmother did.  My grandmother appreciated the socialisation with people who spoke the same language, who understood her culture and supported her.  

My grandfather worked at the Holden’s factory but later travelled to Adelaide Uni where he worked as a groundsman and my grandmother sewed clothes for Myers. The proximity to work, cheap land close to transport made the area ideal for their needs.

About half the houses in the streets were Housing Trust homes, those that weren’t were new migrants from Eastern Europe.