{"id":5831,"date":"2019-01-25T08:00:57","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T14:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/?p=5831"},"modified":"2019-01-30T17:45:15","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T23:45:15","slug":"they-came-from-vilnius-digging-for-hidden-treasure-finding-lithuanian-markers-across-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/they-came-from-vilnius-digging-for-hidden-treasure-finding-lithuanian-markers-across-america\/","title":{"rendered":"They came from Vilnius.\u00a0Digging for Hidden Treasure Finding Lithuanian markers across America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandra Baksys.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

After 25 days and 4,500 miles criss-crossing the Midwest, following upon the heels of a similar expedition on the East Coast last year, Augustinas \u017demaitis and Aist\u0117 \u017demaitien\u0117, both of Vilnius, Lithuania, have visited more Lithuanian-American heritage sites than anyone else in the world. <\/span><\/p>\n

This year\u2019s \u201cDestination Lithuanian America\u201d expedition took the couple from Marquette Park, Bridgeport, and the Lemont World Lithuanian Center to the \u201cLithuanian room\u201d at Wayne State University in Detroit, the Andrulis farmer\u2019s cheese operation near Custer, Michigan \u2014 and even a lost, snake-and-tick-infested Lithuanian miners\u2019 cemetery in far southern Ledford, Illinois.<\/span><\/p>\n

If a site was even remotely verifiably Lithuanian by the expedition\u2019s published standards, the \u017demaitises visited it. Those that made the cut got their GPS coordinates recorded for a comprehensive, free, interactive digital map of \u201cLithuanian America\u201d that \u017demaitis is developing.<\/span><\/p>\n

For maximum efficiency with minimum time and expense on the road, the couple relied, for some of their advance work, on volunteers in as many locations as possible. In a familiar pattern that played out across Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan, contacts that the \u017demaitises had met online set up informal \u201cDestination Lithuanian America\u201d meetings with locals so the couple could hear about the area\u2019s Lithuanian churches, cemeteries, clubs, gardens, monuments and campgrounds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blips on the Map<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"WFMB-AM
WFMB-AM radio host Sam (Simonavitch) Madonia getting ready to interview Augustinas and Aist\u0117 \u017demaitis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was the contact for the \u017demaitises\u2019 August 29 visit to Springfield, Ill., a tiny blip in the vast, Lithuanian-American \u201chinterland\u201d that put the heaviest mileage on the couple\u2019s rental car\u2013if not the greatest number of sites on their map. <\/span><\/p>\n

Besides scheduling the \u017demaitises for a morning talk radio interview and two small-group meetings in Springfield, I reached out to find them on-the-ground contacts and secure media interviews in Rockford, Kewanee, and West Frankfort, Ill.\u00a0<\/span>In Kewanee, I managed to find two individuals from the community and an editor from the Star-Courier newspaper to meet the \u017demaitises at the now-defunct (Lithuanian) St. Anthony\u2019s Catholic Church. <\/span><\/p>\n

Needles in a Haystack<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In remote West Frankfort, it took me several weeks of phone calls and online research finally to be steered to a Lithuanian-American nonagenarian named Lillian, who was linked to the local Lithuanian Cemetery by county plats. Lillian led me to cemetery association member Theresa Renik. Together, we secure newspaper interviews, and ultimately, articles about the \u017demaitises\u2019 visit in The Southern (Illinoisan) and the West Frankfort Gazette. <\/span><\/p>\n

I never saw the Gazette article, but The Southern\u2019s article touched all the bases. It even described Lithuanian government support for the \u017demaitises\u2019 expedition in connection with this year\u2019s big centennial of Lithuanian independence. However, that historical milestone wasn\u2019t even necessary to generate excitement in communities that had gone decades without any official contact with Lithuania\u2013 let alone a visit by \u201creal\u201d Lithuanians to recognize local people and local heritage. <\/span><\/p>\n

Recognition from Lithuania<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Third- and even fourth-generation Lithuanian-Americans brought photos and other family artifacts to share with their special visitors from the old country, telling stories and asking questions. \u201cIt takes you guys coming here to show us what we have,\u201d Theresa Renik told The Southern, while studying inscriptions on the headstones at the Lithuanian Cemetery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aist\u0117 \u017demaitien\u0117 told The Southern that meeting with \u201cDestination Lithuanian America\u201d made local Lithuanian-Americans feel \u201cvalidated and honored\u201d to be recognized by their family\u2019s country of origin.<\/span><\/p>\n

I believe this feeling of grateful recognition and validation happened everywhere the \u017demaitises went. <\/span><\/p>\n

Loretta Goodin-Grybinas, daughter of a World War II \u201cdisplaced person,\u201d and her mother, Virginia, made a videotaped interview with the \u017demaitises in Lithuanian at Collinsville\u2019s Jerusalem Lutheran Church. \u201cAs a first-generation Lithuanian-American, I have always been proud of my heritage. (The \u017demaitises\u2019) keen interest in mapping all the Lithuanian parishes across America increased my pride ten-fold.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Recognition Brings Pride \u2013\u00a0<\/span>and Loss<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet the meetings I helped set up, and the many others I read about in the Facebook group truelithuania, were also bittersweet. For, even as the \u017demaitises bonded with members of our communities, they spotlighted our heritage sites in faded glory\u2014and turned a glaring digital eye on the hideous empty places where memory now finds it painful to look.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And so, even as they celebrated the lives and accomplishments of our immigrant ancestors by seeking out what they so proudly had built, we, the inheritors of those treasures, couldn\u2019t help being reminded of all that no longer exists.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most crucially, we couldn\u2019t help wondering where we go from here with our shrinking and aging casts of volunteers who struggle, for example, to keep the grass mowed at the West Frankfort Lithuanian Cemetery, or to ensure the future of Jerusalem (Lithuanian) Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Ill.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Augustinas
Augustinas \u017demaitis presenting a certificate to church secretary Vicki Nicely stating that Jerusalem Lutheran Church is an \u201cauthentic Lithuanian heritage site.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Toll of Ethnic Dilution<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

At one point, I even felt compelled to lay out for the \u017demaitises the process of ethnic dilution by intermarriage, whereby after only three generations, Lithuanian descent declines to one-eighth\u2014hardly enough for most individuals to ascribe any importance. More likely, though, I was reminding myself of the reason for the steep, assimilation-based declines responsible for such bitter loss.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But there is a bright side to the sober reckonings felt on the American side of the \u017demaitises\u2019 mission. And that bright side includes the possibility of new resources from broader and more effective networking of our communities, more accessible and more encyclopedic information to share, and expert insights from the most comprehensive expedition to visit Lithuanian America as it is today. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Bright Side:\u00a0<\/span>Hope & Help<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

With all this, our forced recognition of loss can actually inspire hope for all that remains and is still worth preserving. <\/span><\/p>\n

Certainly, if anybody can help better network dispersed activists with similar problems in diverse places\u2013and suggest fresh ideas for generating awareness, involvement and support locally, nationally, and internationally\u2013it would be the two people who\u2019ve seen more of our endangered heritage than anyone in the world. <\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, I encourage our leading national Lithuanian-American organizations and foundations to listen carefully to the \u017demaitises when they are ready to share their hard-won intelligence. <\/span><\/p>\n

Step two would involve some new policy directions for reaching into and sustaining the vast, Lithuanian-American hinterland that mainly consists of non-Lithuanian-speaking members of our immigrants\u2019 second, third, fourth, and even fifth generations. <\/span><\/p>\n

Help for the \u2018Hinterland\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Make no mistake \u2013 whatever investment is made in hinterland communities and their activists and heritage sites will eventually inform the challenges of sustaining even urban communities like Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit, which face similar ethnic dilution over time.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the most obvious ideas for giving local heritage preservers a boost is to immediately arrange both more \u201cofficial\u201d and informal people-to-people visits from \u201creal\u201d Lithuanians that activists can use to create new personal experiences and connections within their local communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contacts with \u2018Real\u2019 Lithuanians<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Why should our hinterlands have to go decades without another \u201cexpedition\u201d from Lithuania? When necessary, such visits could also draw on \u201creal\u201d Lithuanians based in Chicago and other centers of immigration. <\/span><\/p>\n

Augustinas \u017demaitis, head of \u201cDestination Lithuanian America\u201d and owner of its branded interactive digital map and network of websites at truelithuania.com , promises an article on his preservation ideas and learnings for \u2013 and from \u2013 Lithuanian America. <\/span><\/p>\n

Giving credit where credit is due, \u017demaitis acknowledges, \u201cMany of these ideas have actually come from the people we met. Often, caretakers of some particular Lithuanian site have an ingenious solution for some of the same problems faced by many other sites, such as how to lower costs, increase revenues, get a helping hand, or attract more attention and volunteers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Mainstreaming\u2019 Lithuanian Heritage<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the meantime, he agrees that \u201cmainstreaming\u201d the significance and care of what Lithuanian immigrants once created and regarded as their sole heritage should be an immediate strategy outside Chicago and other major cities where fresh immigration is no longer a force. The \u017demaitises found this process already underway at surviving Lithuanian social clubs with buildings to maintain, but no or few Lithuanian-American members in Rockford, Ill., and Muskegon, Mich. <\/span><\/p>\n

In Westville, Ill., artifacts of the town\u2019s once-majority Lithuanian population are held at the Westville (railroad) Depot and Museum. On a much smaller scale in Kewanee, Ill., the \u017demaitises found their main informant on the history of the closed St. Anthony\u2019s Church extremely helpful and interested, but not one bit Lithuanian.<\/span><\/p>\n

Appealing to Youth<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Alternate uses are not mainstreaming\u2013but they could ultimately save a decaying building. The \u017demaitises observed the closed and deteriorating St. George (Lithuanian) Catholic Church in Cleveland being converted for a nonprofit community greenhouse project, although the building is probably too large and deteriorated to be saved, at this point.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, \u017demaitis believes that appealing to the young is one of the most important ways aging preservationists must adapt to changing times and cast a broader net for support. This might be done, \u017demaitis says, by harnessing what he calls \u201cshort-term youth volunteerism culture\u201d driven by schools\u2019 community service requirements. <\/span><\/p>\n

Tapping the Genealogy Craze<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

We should also, undoubtedly, try to channel the current passion for genealogy and immigrant family history into both community-building and heritage preservation. This could include participation from people with the merest Lithuanian ancestry or none at all \u2013 as the passion for ethnicity, itself, explodes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Using the Internet and social media to gather info, network with new contacts, and find new sources of support-including grants and tourism from both the U.S. and abroad\u2013are also on \u017demaitises\u2019 menu of ideas. <\/span><\/p>\n

Networking Communities & Activists<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even considering the formidable, on-the-ground work already on their plates, why shouldn\u2019t the people doing Lithuanian preservation work in Springfield and Westville (100 miles apart) know each other \u2013 and about each other\u2019s sites and functions? <\/span><\/p>\n

Why shouldn\u2019t Springfield Lithuanian-Americans be connected to and informed about Lithuanian communities in Collinsville, East St. Louis, St. Louis, and West Frankfort (all about 100 miles away), for that matter?<\/span><\/p>\n

Chicago to Rockford<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

And, why shouldn\u2019t Chicago Lithuanians know about the activities of the Rockford Lithuanian Club, its park and the \u201cLithuanian\u201d room at the Rockford Ethnic Heritage Museum? <\/span><\/p>\n

Improved awareness and connectivity can lead to more efficiently accessed and applied resources, according to \u017demaitis. This means cooperation and information-sharing among descendants of the first and second and more recent waves of immigration, the Republic of Lithuania, U.S.-based cultural institutions, the media, and scholarly institutions in both Lithuania and the U.S. <\/span><\/p>\n

To bring all these groups together as resources for each other, an awareness of the value of Lithuanian-America heritage for each stakeholder must be generated. \u201cThis is the underlying mission of Destination Lithuanian America,\u201d \u017demaitis explained. <\/span><\/p>\n

Although he believes he has visited and evaluated 80 percent of heritage sites in the U.S., the couple\u2019s travels may not be over. Next year, they plan to seek funding to visit Canada and nearby upstate New York (Rochester, Utica, Niagara Falls). \u201cAdditionally, depending on the possibilities, we may offer presentations on our project in some of the key U.S. cities that \u2018Destination Lithuanian America\u2019 has visited.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Heritage
Heritage mappers meet with local Lithuanians at the Jerusalem Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois. This is where Rep. John Shimkus\u2019 grandparents worshipped. From left: Loretta Grybinas-Goodin, Virginia Grybinas, Rev. Dr. Alvin V. Kollmann (retired pastor), Rev. Dr. Douglas A. Nicely (current pastor), Vicki Nicely, Augustinas \u017demaitis, June Launhardt, and Aist\u0117 \u017demaitien\u0117. Photos by Sandra Baksys<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sandra Baksys. After 25 days and 4,500 miles criss-crossing the Midwest, following upon the heels of a similar expedition on the East Coast last year, Augustinas \u017demaitis and Aist\u0117 \u017demaitien\u0117, both of Vilnius, Lithuania, have visited more Lithuanian-American heritage sites than anyone else in the world. This year\u2019s \u201cDestination Lithuanian America\u201d expedition took the couple …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,122,68,135,70,83],"tags":[111],"class_list":["post-5831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-culture","category-diaspora","category-events","category-geography-regions","category-history-1900","category-nature-travel","tag-baksys-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5874,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5831\/revisions\/5874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.draugas.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}