The 1947-1949 arrival in Springfield of about 60 World War II refugees, displaced persons (“DPs”) from Lithuania, had a big impact on the Lithuanian Independence Day observation at St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church in 1950.

St. Vincent de Paul’s was a natural first stop for the fresh immigrants. Many carried traumatic personal experiences of the German and Soviet invasions of Lithuania 1940-44, and were anxious to tell the story of their brutalized homeland.

In these crucial early years, the DPs’ ability to get their story out was severely hampered by language. So, it was natural that their first attempts to communicate were with and through the existing Lithuanian-American community.

That community was made up mostly of turn-of-the-Century immigrant coal miners and their children and grandchildren, some of whom, along with other Americans, had not yet heard details of what had happened to Lithuania during the War. For many Americans, credulity also was strained by the enormity of the horrors and the fact that the U.S.S.R. had been a war-time U.S. ally.

So in many cases, DPs who had lost everything and experienced the travails of DP camps in ravaged, post-War Germany, did not get a supportive hearing, or arouse much concern for the truth of their personal experiences, after arriving in the U.S.

The Feb. 12, 1950 issue of the Catholic diocesan newspaper “Western Catholic” describes a “one-act” play especially written and presented by local DPs for the Feb. 1950 commemoration of Lithuanian Independence Day (official date: February 16). The play dramatized the “knock on the door in the middle of the night” that typified the mass deportations to Siberia that occurred during the first Soviet occupation of Lithuania 1940-41 (and resumed again in 1944). Many of the DPs had narrowly escaped these deportations, and had friends and relatives who had been “disappeared” with their whole families, never to be heard from again.

The DPs’ play was part of a program at 3 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 12, 1950, in the St. Vincent de Paul Church Hall. The program also included remarks by the Rev. Casimir Toliusis and DP Vincent Abramikas, as well as music by the church choir to the organ accompaniment of Mrs. A. Foster.

“Tree of LIfe,” Witches Hill, Juodkrante, Lithuania

Bass-relief “Tree of Life” carved from an oak trunk in my backyard

Inspired by the monumental Lithuanian folk art wood sculptures that I saw in Krackas, Lithuania in 1995, and the “Witches Hill” Ted and I visited in 2005 in Juodkrante, Lithuania, we commissioned this bass-relief chisel and chainsaw sculpture for our Springfield backyard in 2006.
The bass-relief feature allows it to pick up a nice “architectural” dusting of snow this time of year. Isn’t it beautiful?
A word of caution: we learned it is much better to let the sculptors use their own seasoned logs or trunks than to chop down a tree to have a sculpture made. The sculptors have plenty of seasoned wood, and they work better in their own studios than outside, on site. Green wood is also a terrible challenge for longevity, and being attached to the ground, through the original trunk and roots, accelerates wicking, cracking and decay. I’d like to know their secret for outdoor wood preservation at Juodkrante!

Martina McBride with young Springfield dancers at recent PCCC concert

I was recently informed that a young Lithuanian-American boy from Springfield is pictured in this group of local children invited to dance at a recent Martina McBride concert at the Prairie Capital Convention Center. Guess who? Hint: The young man in question (at left edge in McBride photo) is a descendant of the Sleveski-Mazika and Kavirt families.

http://www.sj-r.com/photo_galleries/x65614997/Martina-McBride-at-the-PCCC

Angela and Darrell Tureskis at Schnuck’s on Montvale

Every once in a while a Springfield Lithuanian-American comes out of nowhere to perform super-human feats of dedication and stamina, grab headlines–and make us proud. For the second year in a row, Darrell Tureskis, owner of Nyilas Cleaning Services, has won or tied the national record for Salvation Army continuous bell-ringing. When Darrell put aside his bell and went home tonight, he had been standing and ringing for 80 straight hours at the Schnuck’s on Montvale in Springfield.

Like last year, I happened by and exchanged a few words with our sleep- and food-deprived hero after he’d already been on his feet for two days. Just like last year, Darrell managed a tired smile and friendly conversation. (None of which I expect he’ll remember tomorrow.) Luckily, his wife Angela was there.

When I saw him this evening with Angela and other close friends and family members, who were standing by to support him through the final stretch and celebrate his accomplishment, Darrell had already been at it for almost 79 hours–already 19 hours longer than his 2011 performance. Amazing!

Like Dick Butkus and Charles Bronson, Darrell gives testament to that fact that some Lithuanian-Americans, at least, seem to be made of steel. Will his altruism, community-mindedness and pure physical endurance inaugurate a new sport–the charity triathalon? Stay tuned.

http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x65615260/Salvation-Army-bell-ringer-breaks-records-still-ringing

Young Lithuanian-Americans demonstrate publicly for Lithuanian freedom during downtown Springfield parade–circa 1955

I recently came across this striking and significant reminder of our local community’s Cold War history resisting Lithuanian captivity within the Soviet Union. “Lithuania Behind the Iron Curtain” was a float that took part in a downtown Springfield parade, possibly on Columbus Day or Veterans’ Day, circa 1955. In this photo, Violeta Abramikas Abad, then in high school, is standing at rear, representing the captive nation of Lithuania. Violeta is wearing her mother Stephanie’s Lithuanian national costume, which Mrs. Abramikas had worn on her wedding day before the family was forced to flee Lithuania. (The costume continues to live on in the Abramikas-Abad family, worn by Violeta’s granddaughter Catalina, now a freshman at Purdue University, when she was just 12 years old for a school report on how her great grandparents Walter and Stephanie and her grandmother Violeta immigrated to the United States.)

The girls in white with Violeta on the float represent “Vaidolutes,” vestal virgins guarding the eternal flame of Lithuania’s national spirit and independence. The flame is represented by a symbolic campfire made of sticks in the center of the float.

The girl in white sitting right in front and wearing glasses is Ramualda Sidlau Capranica. Behind her is Bernadine Staken Mikels. Other girls on the float include: Pat Urbanckas Mathews, and across from her to Violeta’s right, Pat’s sister Donna Urbanckas Frost. In front of Donna is O’Tilija Uzgiris, and in front of O’Tilija is Marilyn Urbanckas.

Tree branches decorating the back of the float signified Lithuania’s many forests, and red, green and yellow crepe streamers around the sides of the float represented the colors of the Lithuanian flag. There was probably a sign on the front of the float identifying the sponsoring Lithuanian-American patriotic and religious organization, The Ateitininkai, which is still in existence today. Mrs. Stase Sidlauskas was the originator of the Springfield chapter.

Emily Warren

Emily Warren received a $500 award from the Fr. Yunker Scholarship Fund in 2009. Although her family is originally from Springfield, Emily has lived in Pennsylvania since kindergarten. (Grandmother Sharon Darran, who still lives in Springfield, helped us locate Emily.)

Emily’s scholarship helped her study abroad in Rome, Italy for three months while a student of supply chain management in the A.J. Palumbo School of Business at Duquesne University, a Catholic university in downtown Pittsburgh, PA.

During Emily’s term in Rome, she toured many parts of Italy, as well as several other European countries. After graduating from Duquesne in 2011 with a B.S. in Supply Chain Management, she now works as a district manager for discount grocer ALDI, Inc., in the Pittsburgh area. (Many of us in Springfield are familiar with ALDI, as well.) Emily grew up and went to school in a small, northeastern PA town called Bloomsburg, where she graduated from Bloomsburg High School.

Diane D. Baksys of Springfield received a $1,000 Fr. Yunker Scholarship in 1979 for her studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she earned a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Library and Information Science. Over the years, her career in library science has included positions at the Illinois Veterans Home, Quincy; Lincoln Land Community College; and the Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety.
Diane has also been a writer/editor for a local newsletter, Reiki Spirit, and for the Dr. Na Zhai Clinic in Springfield.
Many will remember her as a fellow member and officer of Springfield’s Lithuanian-American Club in its early days, during the late 1980s and the 1990s.
The fourth of six daughters, Diane is older than her identical twin sister, Pam, by only three minutes. She attended Blessed Sacrament Grade School from 1965 to 1974 and graduated from Southeast High School in 1978.
In her free time, Diane enjoys walking her pet Labrador retriever Shadow, reading works of fiction and psychology research journals, puttering in her yard, and doing creative writing. She is currently exploring academic programs in children and family therapy and bioenergetic psychoanalysis.

Elaine (Manning) Kuhn

Elaine (Manning) Kuhn of Springfield received a $1,000 Fr. Yunker Scholarship in 1974. It helped fund her associate’s degree at Springfield College in Illinois. Elaine went on to earn a B.A. in Spanish with a minor in English, as well as a secondary education certificate at Illinois College in Jacksonville.

The mother of three adult sons (James, Michael and Jonathan) and a grandmother of four, Elaine has been a Spanish teacher at Springfield High School for almost 20 years. Earlier in her career, she taught at Whitehall’s North Greene High School and at Williamsville High School. Along the way, she has been a world traveler, visiting 14 foreign countries, mainly in Europe and Central America. Another of Elaine’s special achievements was earning her master’s degree in Reading and Literacy from Benedictine University in 2007.

Years before Elaine ever heard Fr. Yunker’s name, her family had a tragic connection to the long-time pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church. In the 1930s, her great-grandmother, Anna Sleveski Mazika, was killed by a hit-and-run driver on Ninth Street as she was walking home from confession with Fr. Yunker. The priest was one of the first to come to her aid.

Anna (Sleveski) Mazika and her grand-daughter Lillian Kavirt Trello, Elaine Kuhn’s great-grandmother and aunt

Elaine says she became a Spanish teacher because of the mysterious appeal of listening to her mother, Pearl Bernice (Kavirt) Manning, and aunt, Lillian (Kavirt) Trello, speak to their mother in Lithuanian. “Sometimes it was only words and phrases, and although I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, I always thought, ‘that’s really cool; they’re having such a good time.’ I think that’s why I had a special interest in foreign languages and travel abroad – why learning and teaching another language always appealed to me.” A Springfield native, Elaine attended St. Joseph Grade School and Ursuline Academy.

“Go West,” an oil painting by Amanda that Creighton University purchased for display in one of its dormitories

Amanda Rackauskas Ross received a Fr. Yunker scholarship in 2009, her last year at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, where she graduated with a B.S. in biology and a secondary degree in studio art. Drawing is her favorite discipline in the fine arts, and Creighton University has purchased and displayed several of her pieces.

Amanda Rackauskas Ross, 2009 scholar

Amanda is currently in her fourth year of medical school, also at Creighton. However, she was recently in Springfield completing a month-long “externship” in the SIU Medical School Department of Plastic Surgery. Now, she is serving a month-long externship in trauma surgery in Phoenix, AZ.

Following her graduation from medical school next year, Amanda will enter a residency in general surgery or integrated plastic surgery, with the ultimate goal of becoming a plastic surgeon in 6-8 years.

“Speak,” a self-portrait in glass by Amanda Ross

Amanda is the daughter of Mary Ann Rackauskas (formerly Ross) and the grand-daughter of Helen (Sitki) and George Rackauskas. She was attracted to Creighton University because it’s where her grandfather, George, studied business, graduating in 1939, exactly 70 years prior to her own graduation from Creighton.

Amanda was born and raised in Springfield, attending Chatham Glenwood K-8, graduating from Sacred Heart-Griffin High School in 2005.

The Hill of Crosses, Siauliai, Lithuania

Please spread the word! Springfield Lithuanian-American Club member Mike Lelys will be presenting a 20-minute talk on the two distinct waves of 20th-century Lithuanian immigration to Sangamon County. (I’m assisting Mike with research and graphics for his speech.)
Mike’s presentation is part of a University of Illinois-Springfield luncheon program called “Chasing the American Dream to the Heartland” from 11:30-1:30 Wednesday, Oct. 3 at the UIS Public Affairs Center (parking in lots C and D). The cost is $20 and includes a hot buffet lunch. Registration is required at http://www.uiaa.org/uis . For more information, please phone 206-7395.
“Chasing the American Dream,” in turn, is part of the Fall 2012 Lunch and Learn Series entitled, “Landscapes of Living History: Past and Future, presented by the UIS Alumni SAGE Society (University of Illinois Alumni Association.)
Mike’s Oct. 3 “American Dream” presentation will be accompanied by a talk by Victor Juarez, a first-generation Peruvian-American, about Latino-Hispanic immigration to Central Illinois. (Both talks were suggested/arranged by William Furry, executive director of the Illinois State Historical Society.)

Mike is a first-generation Lithuanian-American who was part of the post-WW II “Displaced Persons” immigration to the United States. He is also executive director of historic Oak Ridge Cemetery, the burial place of Abraham Lincoln.