Today we have the privilege of sharing Christmas Eve traditions and memories straight from the Kaunas, Lithuania childhood home of Asta R., my guest blogger and a real “Lithuanian in Springfield:”

Christmas was a very special and magical time in our family when I was growing up in the 1980s and ‘90s in Lithuania. We were living in the same house with my father’s parents much of that time, as well as my father’s sister’s family. My parents and grandparents would prepare us for Christmas by telling us stories about Jesus, as well as Lithuanian folk stories of the season. We loved them all. I truly believed that animals talk on Christmas Eve, and that the longest straw pulled from under the tablecloth during our special Christmas Eve feast, called Kucios (or Kuciu vakaras), would mean the longest life.

Our grandmother would stress the importance of having a clean house and clean bodies in preparation for Jesus’ birth. We all would help to clean and scrub the house, change all the sheets, and wash and iron clothes. I think that rush of cleaning before Kucios made it even more special.

The day before Christmas Eve, or even on the same day, we would decorate a real but modest-size Christmas tree. I still remember that evergreen smell, so crisp and fresh! We would decorate the tree with regular ornaments, but also add paper snowflakes, garlands, cotton balls, and of course, chocolate candies–those were the best! My brother, my cousins and I always ate the candies right off the tree, then arranged the wrappers on the tree so they still looked full and none of the adults would know.

The kitchen on Christmas Eve was too busy for kids even to enter because my grandmother and mother were preparing 12 special Kucios dishes. These traditional dishes always included several combinations of herring: herring with plums and nuts, herring with red beets and beans, and sometimes with dried apricots, or with carrots and onions. Our bread was neatly sliced under a linen cloth to keep it warm. The table was also set with hot boiled potatoes, baked fish patties, and sometimes with a mushroom and cheese dish that melted in the mouth.

Mom and Grandma always made kisielius, a thick fruity drink made from from cranberries and potato starch. We used to drink it cold, and I still remember how we kept it cool outside because our small refrigerator was so overstuffed. One of our main dishes was kuciukai, little poppy seed crackers that were always homemade. We also always made fresh poppy seed milk right on Christmas Eve. When I was old enough, it was my job to grind the poppy seeds until they were white. Oh, it was such a long job at the time!

Then after all the cleaning, decorating, and cooking, we would wait until the appearance of the Evening Star. Only under its clear and beautiful light would we then go to the table, usually between 8 and 9 p.m., and sit down to our family Christmas Eve dinner. The oldest person said the opening prayer and broke the large Christmas wafer, which we all passed around and shared, each person breaking off a piece. (This is a communion-like wafer that is specially blessed in church in preparation for Christmas.) After that, everyone did their best to sample at least a portion of all 12 traditional Kucios dishes and not overeat. There were never any alcoholic beverages on the table on Christmas Eve and no meat, just fish. Wine was tasted only on Christmas Day.

After the meal, we used to sit around talking until about midnight, when there was a sudden knock at the door. This was the exciting moment when we children would rush to the door to find a bag full presents for everyone! Some years, Santa, himself, brought the bag. Only after midnight was it permitted to play music and dance—if anyone still had enough energy.

My last Christmas in Lithuania, before our whole family emigrated, was in 2003. Although my grandmother was gone, my grandfather was still alive, and it was great to have that last Kucios with him (he died in March, and we emigrated in June.) I do miss those Christmas Eves with my grandparents—but I am so happy to have all these memories.

Our happy Kucios tradition continues here in the U.S., where we have had some very nice Christmas Eve dinners in Chicago with extended family.

Merry Christmas to you all! Asta

This year the bell did not toll for Lithuanian-American Darrell Tureskis after two years holding the world record for continuous Salvation Army bell-ringing. In December 2011 and 2012, Darrell took his stand and held it from a Sunday midnight to a Thursday midnight at Schnucks supermarket on Montvale Dr., where I happened upon him in action, complete with a countdown clock ticking away and his wife Angela by his side near the end.

In 2012, Darrell, owner of Springfield’s Nyilas Cleaning Service, Inc., set the high bar at 80 hours–20 hours longer than his 2011 record. You can read my original post and last year’s article in the State Journal-Register:

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

https://lithspringfield.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1040&action=edit

This year the record belongs to Andre Thompson of Tyler, Texas and two other men, who pushed a little past 100 hours early Sunday, Dec. 8 (today).

http://www.kltv.com/story/24163533/etx-man-ties-for-salvation-army-world-record-bell-ringing

A third-generation Lithuanian-American, Darrell is the son of former U.S. Air Force mechanic and Ameritech lineman James Tureskis. Darrell’s paternal grandparents Felix and Ann Tureskis of Divernon were Lithuanian immigrants.

Growing up in Springfield near the Fleetwood Restaurant with two brothers and two sisters, Darrell attended St. Cabrini Grade School and Griffin High School, where he was on the school’s state championship golf team. Next, Darrell attended Lincoln Land Community College and Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he earned a business degree with a minor in accounting.

Darrell followed his college years with a stint selling cars at Green Toyota, then 15 years with the Ameritech Yellow Book, including management roles in Champaign, Collinsville, and Chicago. Darrell also worked as Director of Golf at the Rail Golf Course in Springfield and as a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch in Springfield before purchasing Nyilas cleaners in 2005.

Darrell said he sat out the Salvation Army’s 2013 “run for the record” because he wanted to see if anyone would break his 2012 record. His initial plan was to go for the 100-hour mark in 2014 if anyone beat 80 hours this year.

Even if he never rings another bell, Darrell is still a champion. In 2011 he estimates he raised $7,000–and another $6,200 in pledges in 2012–for The Mary Bryant Home, Camp Coco, Basket of Hope, St. Martin de Porres, the Animal Protective League, and other local charities.

While chronicling coal-mining immigrants to Springfield in the early 1900s, I haven’t written much about the Lithuanian immigrant women they married, whose lives were equally, if not more difficult. Last week I heard the remarkable story of Lithuanian immigrant and super-mother Nancy (Anastazija Benikas) Pazemetsky, who did the impossible: keep alive, at home, a premature twin baby girl who weighed only 1.5 pounds at birth. That baby, Ann Pazemetsky Traeger of Springfield, is now more than 87 years old.

Ann tells me when her mother first arrived as an unmarried young woman, she worked at the downtown Leland Hotel, where she received room and board and $8 a month for labor that included scrubbing the sidewalk outside on her hands and knees.

Once a woman was fortunate enough to marry, it was her job to keep the home and garden and children, often with little money and a husband who was idled by the mines a good part of year. Many had to board single male miners and clean homes to supplement the family’s income. Some had to compete with the corner tavern for their husband’s wages. And almost all, it seems, faced the heartbreaking loss of newborns, infants, or children.

Ann tells me that by the time she was born, mother Nancy had already lost an infant son. Then, when Nancy went into labor two months prematurely with fraternal twins, her boy-twin was killed by a puncture wound to his skull during an attempted instrument delivery. When girl-twin Ann was born, the doctor, possibly to minimize his heartbreaking error, predicted that she would also die soon. Nancy reportedly replied in broken English, but with great anguish and determination, “ No, this baby is going to live!”

Baby Ann was placed in a cloth-lined wooden cigar box warmed day and night with hot water bottles. Ann says she was so small that she might have been fed with a dropper and diapered with handkerchiefs. But to mother Nancy’s tremendous credit, baby Ann did live and grow up with her older sister Helen.

Ann went on to graduate from Feitshan’s High School, marry Al, a federal highway engineer, work at Pillsbury Mills for many years and sing in the renowned choir at St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church. Ann is a devoted former St. Vincent’s parishioner who served the church in many leadership roles, and was a founder of our local Lithuanian-American Club.

For Ann’s immigrant mother Nancy Benikas, life demanded extreme bravery more than once. Ann often thinks now of the courage it took for her mother to sail all alone to America when she was just 18. Nancy’s Lithuanian family intended to send one of their daughters to live near Ann Mazrim, their maternal aunt in Springfield. Nancy was chosen when her sister became ill at the last moment. Then the first ship she was supposed to take sank before the passengers boarded. Fate smiled on her, however, when she was the only passenger not to get seasick during her subsequent transatlantic voyage.

After arriving in Springfield, Nancy married Panevezys, Lithuanin-born coal miner Adomas Pazimtsius (Adam Pazemetsky) 1884-1946. Both struggled to make the family’s living when the mines closed for the summer. Adam dug basements for $1 a day and scythed cemetery grass. Nancy cleaned homes for $1 a day. Later, possibly as a result of the “Mine Wars,” Adam worked at Pillsbury Mills.

Ann remembers that even though the family lived at 17th and East Adams, almost two miles from St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church, her father Adam, so devout that he always carried a pocket-size Lithuanian-language prayer book printed in 1863, insisted that she and Helen walk to and from church every Sunday. That may not sound so tough, except when you consider that on Christmas and Easter, when the high mass was at 5 a.m., this meant the children being up and out of the house around 4:30 in the morning.

While Adam carried his prayer book with him even into the darkness of the coal mines, his brother was able to express his religious devotion in the new republic of Lithuania (1918-1940) by becoming a priest, which is probably the course Adam would have liked to take, had he the opportunity. Adam found his life as a coal miner so difficult and limiting that mother Nancy later told Ann that her father often went outside in the evenings to cry so his children wouldn’t see him.

Ann also remembers with particular fondness her father’s musical talents with the clarinet and the concertina, which he frequently played at Lithuanian weddings. She reports that he often played a special wedding song he had written as the newlyweds arrived at the bride’s home for their reception and a sweet, hot swig of whiskey-based krupnikas.

As for brave mother Nancy, who saved the life of her 1.5 pound infant girl-twin after her boy-twin was killed at birth, Nancy was cared for in her old age in the home of that devoted daughter, the “baby in the cigar box.”

Dedicated to the memory of Ann Pazemetsky Traeger, a dedicated, beautiful lady and my friend.

As we prepare for Thanksgiving, let’s remember a local Lithuanian-American-owned business that touched many of our homes and lives: Tisckos Furniture Barn, which operated on N. 4th St. from the 1940s to the early 1990s. I recently found out that the Tisckos store was where my mom and dad bought our family’s first couch and living room rug.

Coal miner’s sons who made good, Martin and Charles Tisckos (pronounced TISH-kus) opened their store at 522 N. 4th just after World War II–right in time for the post-War Baby Boom. Brother Charlie, a lawyer, was a silent partner. In the late 1950s, Martin purchased the old McCoy Laundry building at 322 N. 4th and moved the store to this much larger four-story building.

Chuck Tisckos, Charlie’s son, recalls that Tisckos Furniture carried quality home furnishings, bedding, appliances and carpeting: brands like Heywood-Wakefield, Flexsteel and Hotpoint appliances. The store was also an exclusive Broyhill distributor. I recently learned I have another personal connection with the store: My father-in-law Ray Gietl laid carpet that customers purchased there.

Martin and Charlie’s father was Lithuanian immigrant John Tisckos, born in 1888, who came to Springfield via Scotland, where he was an apprentice tailor. In Springfield, John Tisckos was a career coal miner, retiring from the New North Mine in 1952, around the same time the mine closed. Martin and Charlie’s mother was Lithuanian immigrant Alice Urbas. John and Alice (Urbas) Tisckos belonged to St. Vincent de Paul Church, which John probably helped excavate and build. Martin and Charles had siblings Adolph, Ann (Wisnosky), and William (Vance).

Tisckos son Charlie graduated from the now-defunct University of Illinois and Lincoln College of Law. He married Della, the daughter of Lithuanian immigrant John Grenowage (pronounced GREN-a-vitch), born in 1888, and German immigrant Mina Schiller, born in 1891. John Grenowage, later Green, was a coal miner who came to Springfield via Pennsylvania and worked the mines here until the 1930s, when mass layoffs prompted strikes and the local “Mine Wars.” While their dad John was mining, Della and her siblings John, William, and Edward, lived next to the Springfield circus grounds at 11th St. and Black Ave. Later, the family farmed southwest of Taylorville, on Scrapeford Road.

Tisckos son Martin and wife Marinella (Marni) had three children, Leslie Candace, Marty and Scott. Martin died in 1996; Charlie in 1998. Their descendants did not carry on the store. Thinking about it, I’m amazed that it stayed open until just a few years before the Tisckos brothers died.

Tisckos son Charlie’s son Chuck married Beryl Jean (Parish) and has one son, Ben. Ben and wife Kathy have a daughter, Chelsea, who is a senior at Missouri State Univeristy. Charlie and Della’s daughter Nancy married Richard Vicars and has a daughter, Lisa, and sons Richard, Jr. and Patrick. Many thanks to Chuck Tisckos for the photos and information in this post.

One from Lithuania, two from Chicago and two from Springfield, but all “Lithuanians in Springfield” for the moment, met this past Wednesday, November 13, for a lively dinner at Little Saigon.

By pure coincidence, the company and the conversation spanned all three major waves of Lithuanian immigration to Springfield (and the U.S.): two of us were descendants of the First Wave of Lithuanian immigration around 1900, two of us were descendants of the Second Wave just after World War II, and one was from the post-1991 Third Wave that has come ashore mostly in Chicago and the British Isles.

We talked about everything from the constant evolution of the Lithuanian language in the old country while immigrant communities preserve the language frozen in time, to the possibility that the missing St. Vincent de Paul’s “war dead” plaque might have been placed in another local church.

Two of us actually spoke Lithuanian–working out possible translations of Grandmother Marcella Yuscius’s saying, “butt like a stove.” (You had to be there).

Can you guess who the Lithuanian speakers in this photo are?

Young Asta talked about making a special Lithuanian Christmas pastry for the Lithuanian-American Club’s upcoming Christmas Party.

If any of my other readers has an idea for a get-together, please let me know–it could be fun!

Many thanks to Asta, Judy, Maria and Joan for helping to bring my online blogging experience, for a few magic hours, into the real world.

Today and yesterday’s posts are part of a quest to digitally re-create the lost memorial plaque honoring the war dead from Springfield’s former St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church. Although we have done our best research, finding the actual plaque would allow us to be sure of the names of the men who should never be forgotten. We could also then ask another Catholic Church in Springfield, perhaps the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, where the first Lithuanian Catholic immigrants organized more than 100 years ago, to re-mount the plaque in a sacred place of honor.

I owe my knowledge of the missing memorial plaque to the devoted memory of Maria Fry Race, granddaughter of Agnes Tonila Gooch, who often spoke of her brother Johnny, Maria’s great uncle, who was honored on it. The State Journal-Register newspaper just carried two brief items about our quest for the plaque. See http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x825429360/Springfield-woman-searches-for-missing-war-plaque and
http://www.sj-r.com/letters/x825429862/Letters-Views-on-Veterans-Day

 

Springfield Lithuanian-American World War II Deaths

Whereas the Lithuanians who fought for the U.S. in World War I were very recent immigrants, World War II was fought by the U.S.-born sons of our local immigrants. Sixty-eight members of St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church served their country in World War II, according to the Illinois State Journal-Register.

Corp. John F. Miller (Milleris), 26, of Springfield died in military service in 1944. He was killed in an automobile accident in Savannah Beach, Ga., the Eighth Army Air Force camp where he had been stationed since 1942, when he enlisted and underwent basic training at Seymour Johnson Field, Tenn. Corp. Miller was the brother of Jeanette, Florence, Louise, and twin Peter S. Miller (who was serving as a sergeant with the U.S. Army in Corsica, France when John was killed.) All were children of Sylvester and Mary (Moskers) Miller. Sylvester was born in Lithuania and the family operated Miller’s Market at 121 W. Jefferson St. for many years. John had been employed there before working at the Wright Aeronautical Co. in Dayton, Ohio at the time of his enlistment.

Another of those who died too young was George Sneckus of Springfield, the son of immigrants George and Nelly Sneckus. After graduating from Lanphier High School, he earned the rank of staff sergeant in the US Army Air Force, 100th Bomb Group, and was a 21-year-old “waist gunner” on one of his first missions, on a B-17 Bomber, when he was shot down and killed over Germany only a few weeks before the Normandy invasion. George’s body initially was recovered by the Germans from a farmer’s field and buried in a mass grave.

Many years later, George’s niece Teresa (Sneckus) Gregoire, daughter of George’s older brother Julius, learned of her uncle’s brave sacrifice while fighting to save England from invasion, and of the retrieval and re-burial of his remains in Belgium with many other U.S. aviators. In June 2001, Teresa took her mother, aunt, and two cousins to visit and decorate George’s grave in the Neuville-En-Condroz Permanent Cemetery near Liege, Belgium. Teresa says it was a very moving experience because no one from George’s family had ever visited his grave. Before traveling overseas to honor her uncle, Teresa had located the daughters of the two other men killed on George’s plane so she could also visit and decorate their graves.

John P. (Johnny) Tonila was one of nine children of Lithuanian-born coal miner John George Tonila and Agatha (Mankus) Tonila, who immigrated separately around 1900. A local Golden Gloves boxing champ, Johnny drove a delivery truck for a living. He was not quite 32 and engaged to be married when he gave his life in the Battle of Monte Cassino near Rome, Italy in May 1944, while serving as a cook in a mess tent with the U.S Army 338th Field Artillery Battalion.

A technician fifth grade, Johnny was not drafted—he enlisted in 1939 and served in the Philippines before the U.S. entered World War II in Dec. 1941. Beloved and never forgotten by his many sisters and brothers, Johnny is also remembered in absentia by great-niece Maria Fry Race, whom he never met. Maria believes he is honored on St. Vincent de Paul’s missing “war dead” plaque.

Steven E. Buckus, 22, of 1403 Osbourne, Springfield, a private first class in the U.S. Army who had fought in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany, was reported MIA in Germany on April 8, 1945, in the closing days of the war in Europe. His remains were not recovered and returned to his mother, Mildred Veronica (Peleckis) Buckus, for burial in Calvary Cemetery, until January 1949.

Six months prior to enlisting in the fall of 1942, Stephen spent two weeks in the hospital as the result of an auto accident in which he was a passenger. He had been employed by the Cudahy Packing Co. and had five sisters. His sister Helen Sullivan was informed her husband Henry had been killed in Belgium just a few months before the family was informed about Stephen.

John Z. Urbis of Riverton, a technical sergeant with the U.S. Army, is buried in the Cambridge Permanent Cemetery in Cambridge, England. An aerial engineer on a “Flying Fortress,” John was shot down over Hamburg, Germany in 1943. His parents, John and Anna Zebrawskie Urbis of Riverton, received notice of his death on August 20, 1943, according to accounts in the Illinois State Journal.

John, Jr. had been a bookkeeper for eight years at Yelton-Weaver Supply Co. when he enlisted in December 1941. Posthumously, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the American Legion Gold Star. Prior to his death, he had been cited for “extraordinary achievement in bagging three enemy planes” and received the air medal with three oak leaf clusters. He was Riverton’s first casualty of the war. He was an only son, with one sister: Helen Shattuck Callan.

Veterans Not Killed in Action

Frank I. Makarauskas of Springfield was the U.S.-born son of immigrants Stanley and Agnes Makarauskas and the much younger brother of Lithuanian-born Michael and John (Makarauskas) Mack, Springfield’s self-made McDonald’s restaurant mogul. Frank’s widow Dorothy (Roth) Makarauskas, formerly of Springfield, reports that Frank was drafted into the U.S. Air Force right after he graduated from Feitshans High School in 1943 at age 18. Due to his lengthy training to learn to navigate a B-24 bomber, World War II was over before Frank saw combat. But that training changed his life. After the war, Frank earned an electrical engineering degree at Michigan State University on the G.I. Bill, becoming the first in his family to attend college. He later worked as an engineer for Central Illinois Power Co. in Mattoon and Marion, and for the Michigan Department of Commerce in Lansing.

William J. Urban of Springfield served in the U.S. Navy. (Photo courtesy of granddaughter Debbie Davis Ritter.)

Stanley J. Yanor of Springfield was the son of a Lithuanian immigrant who worked at the coal mine at the corner of Chatham Road and W. Washington St. After attending Du Buois Grade School and Springfield High School, Stanley enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as a sergeant in the famous Battle of the Bulge. Later, Stanley’s Lithuanian language skills gave him a role as a translator after the Allies invaded Germany, where tens of thousands of Lithuanian refugees had fled as the Red Army reached their country in the summer of 1944. After the war, Stanley owned an insurance adjusting business briefly in Springfield, then in Champaign. (Information from Donald Casper.)

Tony Yezdauski of Springfield served as a sergeant with the U.S. Army HQ BTRY 229 AAA in New Guinea, specifically the island of Morotai, beginning in March 1942. Daughter Marilynn Doherty reports that she was born in September 1942, so did not meet her dad until she was almost four years old. Tony participated in the Asiatic Pacific Theatre Campaign, and made the most of his time off, according to Marilynn, who says Tony fished and shared his catch with other soldiers, and came home with many beautiful shells.

Anton P. Casper of Sangamon County, born in 1910, was a bus or truck driver when he enlisted in August 1941. He was a private with the Army’s Field Artillery.

William J. Casper of Sangamon County was born in 1921. He enlisted as a private in the Army Air Corps in July 1941.

Thomas J. Kasper of Sangamon County was born in 1909. He was married and a meat-cutter by trade when he enlisted as a U.S. Army warrant officer (private) in December 1942.

 

 

 

 

John Nevada (Nevardoskus) served as a U.S. Army ski trooper in Italy during WWII.

Following is a list of many Sangamon County Lithuanian-Americans who served in World War II, based on painstaking research of public records by Tim Race of Elmhurst, Ill., as well as submissions from descendants and other sources. Those who lost their lives are in bold.

Leo Ambrose, Frank L. Arnish, William J. Augustitis (Army, Bronze Star), Edward J. Babeckis, Joseph J Babeckis, Clement J. Banaitis, Veto (Vytautas) F. Banaitis (Army), Adam Bender, Anthony P. Bernotas (Army), Bernice Bernotas Stephens, Vetout (Vytautas) C. Bernotas, William V. Blazis, John F. Brazitis, Walter Brazitis, Stephen E. Buckus, Anton P. Casper, William J. Casper, John Chenski, Edward C. Chernis, Joseph J. Chernis, Alfred F. Cizauskas, Broneslaw Dedinas, Domenick Detrubis, John G. Dombroski, Charles Dumbris, Florie J. Evinsky, Joseph J. Evinsky, Charles J. Galman, Peter Gregalunas, John Grigiski, Frank W. Grinn (Army–Asiatic-Pacific Medal with two bronze stars), Frank Gudausky (Navy), Charles Gurgens (Marines), Thomas J. Kasper, William Kavirts, Joseph P. Kellus, Stanley Klickna, William Klutnick, John Klutnick, Al Klutnick, Barney J. Kurlytis, John Kutselas, Albert T. Kwedar (flight surgeon, Army Air Force), Thaddeus Lamsargis, Joseph J. Lauduskie, William J. Laukaitis, Frank I. Makarauskas, Edward J. Masus, Victor Matula, Joseph Martinkus, John W. (Guoga) McCaskey, Thomas L. Micklus, William J. Micklus, Walter J. Mikelonis, Corp. John Miller (Milleris), Peter S. Miller (Army), William D. L. Morris, Joseph R. Morris, John T. Nevada (Nevardoskus–Nevidauski)–Army 10th Mountain Division, Purple Heart; Frank Pakutinsky (Pakutinskas), George A. Patkus (Army), Ralph M. Patkus (Navy), Frank W. Pupkis (leader of the UMW local), Tony Rachkus, George A. Rackauskas, Jack R. Relzda, Joseph J. Repske, George E. Rudis, Stanley O. Senalik (Army, two bronze starts), George Rudis, John F. Rumsas, John Edward Schmidt (Navy–his mother was a Blaskie-Novick), Alban C. Shadis, Frank Shadis, William J. Shaudis, Felix Shimkus (four battle stars, WW II and Korea), Frank S. Shimkus, John D. Shimkus, Joseph J Shimkus, Stanley Shimkus (U.S. Marine, owner of Stanley Supply and Stanley’s Plumbing and Heating for 26 years) William C. Shimkus, Anthony G Sirtout, George Sneckus, Julius Sneckus, Anthony Sockol, Edward J. Stanks, Dominick J. Stankus (Army), Anthony P. Stockus, Charles J. Stockus, Martin Stockus, Frank J. Surgis, Albert J. Swinkunas, William J. Tater, Adolph W. Tisckos (Navy), Charles G. Tisckos (Navy), Martin Tisckos (Army), John P. Tonila, William J. Urban, John Z. Urbis, Anthony F. Usalus, Joseph J. Usalis, Joseph P. Welch (Wilcauskas)–Navy, George J. Wisnosky (Army), Joseph Yacubasky (Yates), Walter Yakus, Joseph Yamont (Jomantas), Joseph W. Yanor, Stanley Yanor, Stanley Yuscius (Army), Tony Yuscius (b. 1923, served with the Army in the Middle Eastern theater and earned three bronze service stars), Anthony J. Yuskavich, John P. Yuskavich.

Note: Records discovered by Genealogics show that 62-year-old coal miner Frank Meszeikis, who lived on South Walnut St., registered for the World War II draft. A resident of Springfield for 45 years and member of Progressive Mine Workers of America Local 63, Frank was crushed by a roof fall in Panther Creek No. 5, Dec. 23, 1947.

More than 50,000 Lithuanian-Americans fought for the United States in World War I. This remarkable number was later leveraged to lobby U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to recognize the newly independent Lithuanian state that emerged from the War’s aftermath.

Ironically, the vast majority of the young Lithuanian men who served America in World War I were fighting for a country they barely knew. Most were very recent, impoverished immigrants—not yet citizens–who barely spoke or read English and who, even more ironically, had fled Lithuania to escape 25-year conscription by the Russian Czar. When we think of Jonas (John) Kedis, Joseph Kowlowski, Walter Rauktis, and Stephen Shvagzdis, four young immigrants to Central Illinois who died in the War to End All Wars, we must face the fact that they died violently, far too young, and so very far from family and home. This is the tragic reality of war even for non-immigrants. But the fact that these young Lithuanian-born men were shipped back across the Atlantic to die violently so soon after they had crossed the Atlantic with so much courage and hope strikes me with a special poignancy. Thanks to exhaustive research of U.S. Census, draft and service record databases by our Lithuanian-American friend Tim Race of Elmhurst, Ill., we have the partial stories of Jonas, Joseph, Stephen, and Walter, whom we now honor in memory. Jonas (John) Kedis, born about 1890 in Kaltinenai, Lithuania, arrived in the U.S. in April 1910 from the Dutch port of Rotterdam on the ship Rijndam. Although he lived in the 700 block of E. Washington St. in Springfield in 1916, Jonas was living and working in Chicago as an iceman for Commonwealth Ice Co. by the time he registered for the draft on June 5, 1917. About 27 years old of medium build with light brown hair and blue eyes, Jonas was an “alien” who had sworn an oath of loyalty to the U.S., and declared no dependents on his papers. He was killed on Oct. 9, 1918 while serving as a private with the U.S. Army’s 1st Engineer Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, and is buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, Lorraine, France. Ironically, if Jonas had survived another five weeks, he would have made it to armistice. According to the New York Times, 26,277 Americans died during the 47 days of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive as they threw themselves against the most dense, sophisticated and deadly fortifications in history, turning the tide of the Great War. “It remains, to this day, the deadliest battle in American history.” The reason? “The Germans had had four years to set up their defenses in the area, and they didn’t waste a single day of it: Everywhere you go in the Argonne, you’ll find (evidence of) German trenchworks, pillboxes, blockhouses, artillery pits,” once complete with officers’ villas, rest camps, waterworks, and electrification. The Times also notes that the American Cemetery at Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, Lorraine, France, where Pvt. Kedis is buried, is the largest American cemetery in Europe from either World War I or II, holding 14,246 dead. To read more about how dug-in the Germans were, and how Americans turned the tide at Meuse-Argonne, see http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/travel/in-france-vestiges-of-the-great-wars-bloody-end.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article Walter A. Rauktis, born in Veikanus? (possibly Viekšniai), Lithuania in 1891, was mining for the Jones & Adams Coal Co. on RR #8 and living at 2518 Peoria Road in Springfield when he registered for the draft on June 6, 1917. He described himself as single, but with a mother and father who depended on him for support. Walter had blue eyes and light brown hair, and was not yet a citizen, either, when he was killed in service to our country as a private with the U.S. Army 47th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division on July 29, 1918. Walter is buried in the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in Fere-en-Tardenois, France.

Young coal miner Joseph Kowlowski, born in Marijampole, Lithuania in 1893, migrated from the Pennsylvania coal fields to Pana, Ill. sometime after 1910. He would have been in Christian County for 7 years or less when he was drafted in 1917. (We hope to get a few more details about Joseph’s life, death and burial place soon.) Stephen Shvagzdis was born in 1890, the son of Mrs. and Mrs. Michael Shvagzdis. He was living at 1413 E. Adams in Springfield when he entered the service in April 1918. He trained at Fort Dix, NJ, was shipped overseas in June 1918, and served as a private with Company K of the 148th Division of the U.S. Army in the famous Meuse-Argonne Offensive. He was killed in action Nov. 11, 1918, Armistice day of the War to End All Wars. He could have missed only by hours or minutes being honored as the very last soldier in the entire War to be killed: American Pvt. Henry Nicholas Gunther of Baltimore, 23, shot through the head at 10:59 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918. A small monument still stands on the spot where Pvt. Gunther was killed, probably not far from where Pvt. Shvagzdis fell, near the tiny village of Chaumont-devant-Damvillers.

The following World War I veterans entries from the Springfield City Directory were located by genealogy company, Genealogics. Below is a larger list of Lithuanians from Central Illinois who registered for the draft and possibly served our country in World War I. Their names and counties are from a database developed by Genealogics in much-appreciated voluntary assistance to this project. Each is from Springfield unless otherwise noted. Many other Lithuanian-Americans from our area were drafted or enlisted and served in World War I, but their service could not be verified because they listed their country of origin as Russia. (Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire until after World War I). Names in italics definitely served and were submitted by their descendants or research sources. Two survived the War only to die in our local coal mines. William Blaskie, Joseph Damkus (came to Springfield in 1898, worked as a policeman after 1906 and lived with his wife Isabel Adomaitis at 1809 N. 10th St.), Mike Bubnis, Frank Embrolitus (Macoupin, killed in coal mining rock fall, Gillespie, 1941), Andrew Fraier, Joseph Gedman, Anthony Glemza, Charles J. Grigas, John F. Gurgens (Army, Camp Wadsworth, limited duty), John Kalvatis (Montgomery County), Mike Kavaloski (Macoupin County), Franciscus J. Krasauskis, Charles Kristute (Pawnee), John Kukowich, John Kunski (Montgomery County), Jurgis Lanauskas, Stanley Norbut, Stanley Patrilla (Auburn—also lived on Jefferson St. in Springfield with the Papir family), Charles Paulanski (Logan County), Joseph Paulauskas (moved to Detroit after the war), John Petkus, William Petraits (Christian County), Joseph Petrushunas, Stanley Petrokas, Anton J. Petrouch (Divernon), Frank Petrowich (Auburn), Joseph Plaskas, Joseph J. Poder, Alex Potsus, Charles Raczaitis (Divernon–gassed in action), George Ragoznice, Charles Rumsas (Sangamon County), Sylvester Senkus, John Joseph Straukas (lived in Riverton as a nephew of the Grigiski family), George Stravinski, Frank Tonelis, John Treinis, Mike Trumbit (Macoupin County), Frank B. Vinson (Christian County), Ignatz Wecksnis, Paul Widowski (killed in a Madison Coal Co. mine explosion, Divernon, 1923), John Joseph Yacubasky (Yates), Stanley (Junkeris) Yunker (went on to become the long-time pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church), Andrew Zelowski (Christian County), Joseph Zvingilas.

Perhaps because Lithuania is a small country, it’s in the national character to want to explore every corner of the world. Fifth-generation Lithuanian-American Lindsay (Rackauskas) Ross of Springfield has followed her own wanderlust to Shanghai, China, where she works at the American Chamber of Commerce coordinating resources for American companies doing (or wanting to do) business there.

To date, Lindsay has spent nearly six years, post-college, living and working in the world’s most populous nation, first in marketing and business development in Shanghai, and then in public relations and marketing communications for a five-star international hotel in industrial city Guangzhou. In 2012, she returned to Shanghai, joining the growing community of expatriates attracted to what Lindsay describes as “the glittering, glamorous ‘It City” where everybody wants to be.”

Living and working in the exotic Far East seems like a dream for any young person. But due to the required language and cultural background, it didn’t happen overnight for this Sacred Heart-Griffin graduate. Lindsay became interested in Mandarin language and Asian Studies programs during her sophomore year at Lake Forest College, after she went to China for three weeks on a study grant. The next year, she studied abroad for a full semester at Peking University, in Beijing. Altogether, she studied Mandarin for four years before moving to China in 2008.

Growing up in Springfield the daughter of pediatric dentist Mary Ann Rackauskas and the granddaughter of Helen (Sitki) and George Rackauskas, Lindsay remembers being brought up with several Lithuanian traditions. The Rackauskas clan used to unite for the traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve Kucios dinner. Lindsay remembers the oldest male in the family signing the cross in honey on the forehead of each family member, and the eldest female sprinkling poppy seeds outside to rid the household of bad luck—a tradition Lindsay has since learned may be of German origin, but which the family still practices each Christmas season. The Rackauskas-Sitki family also made Lithuanian straw ornaments for their Christmas tree.

Lindsay still observes one of her favorite Lithuanian Christmas traditions in China, where she makes vyritos, a whiskey-based hot drink with orange juice, cinnamon and other spices, including caraway seeds, for her expatriate friends. “I taught them all to say svekas (cheers),” Lindsay laughs.

Her coal-mining great-grandfather “U.S. Mike” Rackauskas would be proud. (Lindsay is actually fifth-generation Lithuanian-American tracing back to her maternal great-great-grandparents through her Yezdauski-Sitki line, but fourth-generation through U.S. Mike.)

After writing about the Mack/Makarauskas fast food “dynasty,” I was reminded by Barbara Endzelis that there is another local Lithuanian-American family that’s almost as big with the initials “M.D.” as the Macks were with “Mc.”

How many of you or your families were treated by deceased Springfield GP and surgeon Dr. Albert Kwedar, his deceased ophthalmologist brother Dr. Edward Kwedar, or Albert’s retired ophthalmologist son Dr. Stephen Kwedar? Do any of my readers currently see Edward’s son Dr. John Kwedar, a long-time ophthalmologist with Springfield Clinic?

Today I talked briefly to Kwedar family matriarch, Helen–Drs. Albert and Edward Kwedar’s 97-year-old sister–and Drs. Stephen’s and John’s aunt. Helen told me that she and Albert and Edward also had a sister, Anna, deceased.

The family got started in America when Helen’s father Thomas Kwedar immigrated from Lithuania, probably around the turn of the century. Helen said Thomas was 21 when he came to America, first to Pittsburgh, where he worked in a steel mill. He married Pennsylvania-born Lithuanian-American Victoria Shupenus, daughter of Anthony and Helen Zwinak Shupenus. After the steel mill where Thomas was working closed, he and Victoria moved to Springfield because of relatives here, and because of the availability of work in the local coal mines.

When frequent mine closures, especially for the entire summer every year (due to a lack of demand for heating coal), put too much pressure on the family’s finances, Thomas and Victoria put their heads together. They decided to buy a small farm near Pana that Thomas could work during the summers while he was idled by the mines, and where they could grow their own food and raise milking cows. Helen says it was called a “truck farm,” maybe because produce could be trucked to Springfield for sale. She says she was only two when Thomas, Victoria, Albert, Anna and she moved there in 1918. (Edward was not yet born.)

Helen also says her parents were diligent savers because they planned for all their children to go to college. Unfortunately, the Pana bank holding the family’s accounts failed after the 1929 stock market crash, when Helen was 13. Her two brothers somehow still managed to graduate from college and U of I medical school. Helen attended night school at Springfield College in Illinois.

Sister Anna has an interesting story, according to maternal cousin Jim Shupenus. He says “Anna was single and apparently a disbursement officer with the CIA in Washington, D.C. When she came to visit in Springfield, she was preceeded by the FBI, who interviewed any person she might talk or have contact with on her trip. Also, I was told by my parents that when there were air raid drills in Washington, a helicopter would go to CIA headquarters and she would board it (probably along with others).”

According to Edward’s son, Dr. John Kwedar, Dr. Albert was a classic GP of his era, working 80 hours a week and rarely seeing his family as he made house calls all over Sangamon County, setting broken bones and delivering babies–in between office hours, hospital rounds and performing emergency appendectomies and other types of surgery. John says Dr. Albert’s most cherished memories were of the two sets of triplets he delivered at home–all of whom survived. One set of triplets he delivered on a farm had to be placed in the family’s oven to keep warm.

Another interesting fact about Dr. Albert is that he secretly married his sweetheart Ruby, also of Pana, in Chicago while he was a resident at the U of I’s Chicago Medical Center in resident housing and she lived nearby. Ruby was accomplished in her own right and later served as president of the Illinois State Medical Society Auxiliary.

Dr. Albert’s son Stephen “re-activated” the Eye Department at Springfield Clinic (which had been dormant for eight years) when he joined the Clinic in 1972. A graduate of Northwestern University Medical School and residencies at the University of Oregon and Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Dr. Stephen preferred practicing in a large multispecialty group.

He brought many new techniques to Springfield, including: intraocular lens implantation, phacoemulsification, trabeculectomy, and trabeculoplasty, photocoagulation of diabetic retinopathy and retinal holes, dacryocystorhinostomy, the YAG laser and laser iridectomy. Dr. Stephen also helped Springfield Clinic’s Eye Department found its Optometry section.

Dr. Albert’s son Michael, who died at 51, had a successful career as an administrator for the City of Springfield and the Illinois Dept. of Corrections and held advanced degrees in political science and public administration.

Dr. John’s father, Edward W. Kwedar, who taught at the SIU School of Medicine, died at 79 in 2011 at his home in Springfield. He was born on Thomas and Victoria’s farm near Pana in 1931. He had married Dorothy Lashmet in Evanston, IL in 1957.

Dr. John says ophthalmology appealed to the Kwedar M.D.s who followed in Dr. Albert’s footsteps due to the more predictable schedule and the fine motor skills involved in surgery on the eye. The Kwedar M.D. tradition continues with one of Dr. John’s daughters currently in medical school at the University of Missouri and another daughter in nursing.

Though our father had been a subsistence farmer in Lithuania, he worked in a factory here in Springfield. Since he seemed pretty much finished with growing his own food by the time my five sisters and I came along, we never got to plant much growing up. So, how could I imagine that my next-younger sister, Cindy, a senior construction engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers in Sacramento, Calif., would become a self-taught master gardener?

Read on to learn about the fabulous gardening talent Cindy “transplanted” from Springfield to her own patch of bare earth not far from the banks of the Sacramento River.

From Cindy Baksys: I first got interested in gardening when we all got to choose a flower to grow in our backyard growing up, and I chose bachelors buttons. Also, the one time that we got to grow pumpkins was terrific. However, I did not do much growing until about 25 years ago, after my husband Jay and I built our new log house in a cornfield that was bare, so it was out of necessity that I started to plant. First, like most novices, it was just about flowers: plants that were evergreen and had the most blooms.

As my interest grew, I started to plant things more suited to our semi-arid Mediterranean climate, which is the climate of the coastal and central valleys of California. Plants such as lavenders, sages, nandina, California fuschia, barberry, butterfly bush, teucrium–even camellias need little water. I often would notice and “recruit” plants from our travels. For example, I probably have 12 or more types of sage from Europe, California, Mexico, and Colorado.

By now my interests go way beyond flowers or drought-tolerants. I like everything. I have a friend who is a botanist for the state of California, and he gives me oddball or native plants that are not common in the store like Mexican sage, Fred’s Red (a sage that he sort of discovered), some thorny shrub from Brazil, kat (the stuff they chew in the Middle East–died from frost, unfortunately), and romneya- a sensitive California native that I killed and want to try again. I have become a collector.

I no longer care if plants are evergreen. I like it all. I have especially come to love the native eastern hibiscus that I first saw in Springfield. Some of my other favorites are ruellia, California fuschia, and rosemary, though it’s hard to choose favorites because it depends on the season.

I also have a vegetable garden and I am still getting tomatoes this year. My Atlantic Giant pumpkin plant has two good pumpkins on it.

Like any long-time gardener who collects and experiments, I have killed a lot of things over the years, and have actually had a hard time with squash and pumpkins due to squash bugs every year.

I especially love working on my plants in the winter. The ground does not freeze here, and I have plans every year to move things that didn’t work out the year before. In California, winter is a very forgiving season and you don’t have to worry about killing anything.

One area of gardening that is drudgery is weeding. We get a very long growing season that starts in February, so lots of weeding. I also do not like pruning because I have too much of it to do.

Gardening is the one area of my life where I am a total optimist. Every year I have hope for a better garden!