Charles (Ivars) Eglitis
| First name | Charles (Ivars) |
|---|---|
| Last name | Eglitis |
| Country of Origin | Latvia |
| Date of Birth | 31st July 1928 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1948 |
| Submitted by | Barbara Eglitis |
Story
Charles left Riga, Latvia due to the impending invasion of Russian troops in September, 1944. He was 16 years old. .
Charles, his mother and sister travelled to Germany by ship and eventually managed to get to the British zone in Wurzburg where Charles finished High School. Later the family moved to Husum and it was from there, on 17th April, 1948 that he travelled by sea again, to Australia aboard an American ship, the “General S.D. Sturgis”. The voyage took four weeks, arriving in Sydney on 14th May, 1948. The migrants from Europe signed a contract which stated that they had to work for the Australian Government for two years after their arrival.
Charles worked in far north Queensland cutting cane for two seasons. After completion of his second season he was free to choose where he went so he signed up with the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority on 4th December, 1949 and that is where he stayed for the next 25 years. By the time he was retrenched in 1974 he was the Paymaster in one of the Snowy regions. In December, 1953, Charles married an Australian girl and in the next six years they had two daughters and a son. In 1974, the family moved to Canberra, Charles finding a job as a Project Officer with the National Capital Development Commission and his wife worked at Woden Valley Hospital. Charles suffered a heart attack in 1987 and had quadruple by-pass surgery in 1988. He continued to work until 1990 when he retired. He lived happily with his devoted wife enjoying grandchildren and great grandchildren until his sudden death of a massive heart attack on 13th December, 2002. He loved Australia and considered himself an Aussie.