Zvonko (William) HRLEC

Story

Zvonko (William) HRLEC was born near Zagreb, Croatia on 25 April 1931. His parents died when he was a young teenager and his elder brothers put him into a home and from there he was educated to become a diesel mechanic. Communism was rife and like many young men he escaped and caught a ship to Melbourne aged 23, in 1954 to unknown lands, in search of a free life.

He had been married a year to my mother Marija and I (Bosiljka) was aged 2 months when my father left. He didn\’t talk much about his childhood nor the early hard years of arriving as an Immigrant or the men\’s camp. Initially he was going to work on the Snowy Mountains Scheme, however, there was much talk about good money being made in the uranium mining towns in Northern Territory and Dad ended up there and had saved enough by 1957 to bring mum and me out.

We were all naturalized on 14 February 1964 in Darwin and Dad was very proud to be an Australian although up until the time of his death, aged 77 on 18 July 2008, in Brisbane, he was still ignorantly called a New Australian!

And from when he arrived, he taught himself through correspondence school to read and write English. He had a love of the English language, of preciseness and of detail. And he worked long and hard all of his life to provide for his family.

We lived in Batchelor, NT initially then moved to Darwin, for a short time living under a tent on Mindil Beach in Darwin. Dad bought a block of land at an auction and built our home in Nightcliff and we moved in just as my brother Alan was born in 1961 and where they remained until they moved to Brisbane in 1990.

They lost their house in Cyclone Tracey Christmas Day 1974 and like so many locals, they had re-built it for they had many friends and were happy with their life in Darwin.

So this is a tribute to Dad who passed recently, for the big character Bill was, his love of Australia, his love of fishing, his love of Slim Dusty, his love of the Australian bush and of nature, his delight in having people over for a bbq and that was often, he loved company and rarely wanted those times to end.

He had little yearning to go back to the motherland, in fact only had 2 short visits to see his brothers and family over the past 50 odd years.

He will always be remembered for his unique sense of humour, his precise need for justice and that which often didn\’t deal him the right hand in life, his incredible memory for dates, times, details and events.

He is survived by his wife, our mother, Marija, daughter Silka my husband Terry and son Robert, my brother, their son Alan, his wife Kimberley and daughters Jessica and Scarlett, his sister Milica and her husband Harry who live in Sydney.

And more than anything, he would have been honoured and proud to have his name encased in history on the Immigration Bridge in Australia, a place he truly called Home.

Silka Allardice

daughter

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