Naming Ivan Giordan Radman

Ivan school picture. He is one to right of pole in a white shirt. You can recognize the broad forehead

As told by his mother, Natalia:
Natalia (his mother) had chosen the name Giordan (not Giordano, Italian version) for her new baby and sent her husband to register the new baby, which had to be done within 3 days of the baby's birth.
Ivan's Dad had to walk 7 km to Porec and by the time he got there he had forgotten the name his wife had told him so he just chose a name and registered the baby with that name.  When he returned home he told his wife what had happened and that the baby was registered with the name Renato. His youngest sister Maria who at the time was unmarried and still lived at home, said "no he can't be called that, he'll be teased" as there was a popular song at the time (rena, rena according to Natalia). Maria suggested to name him Gianni... a good plain name. So essentially Ivan was named by his aunt Maria. The slavic version of Gianni was Ivan, which is when Dad used when he changed his name to Ivan in displaced persons camp. He added Giordan as a middle name.
However, Dad told the story how on his first day of school, he was sent off to a school where they spoke a language he neither spoke nor understood. The teacher then called him Renato and told him to remember his name. It was news to him as up until then he thought his name was Gianni!
I can remember when we travelled to Italy and Yugoslavia that everyone who knew Dad called him Gianni and his mother, Natalia always called him Gianni.

School attended by Ivan Giordan Radman. Now converted into flats. The red star on monument is of those lost at war.

Quiet Week

We went to see Wicked over the weekend. It was good fun to have the Saturday completely free.
We drove down in the morning, walked around Paddington market on Oxford Street..... I could only think all the girls would love the street as there lots of little designer stores to browse.
Sydney has many markets, but Paddington focuses on local artisans and it is interesting to see.


The rest of the week has been quite slow (for me) but Dad seems always to be busy. We had a farewell for the Roberts on Monday night and as we share an office with them, we will especially miss them.
We loved all the photos of Halloween. They gave us so much pleasure to see the kids in costume and to hear about the various stories of activities. They all look so good, beautiful and handsome,everyone of them. Loved all the adult costumes too.... creative, crazy, unique. Thanks for including us, we look at your pics over and over.
We continue to meet people who we have connections with the family on both sides of the pond. There are some more unusual than others.... for instance, one young guy this week from SLC visiting his senior missionary parents recognized that we had sat in a meeting together at Key Bank in SLC as Jordan and I organized nana's investments. Rebecca's Dad's cousin is on a senior mission here with her husband and we have had quite a bit to do with them as they try to help a struggling branch to ramp up for family history work. Then we have been fortunate to get various messages and hellos from aussies we knew more than thirty years ago.
We anxiously await the birth of new little Smylie in Colorado Springs this week. So excited :)
Much love...

Yet another group photo!

Sydney. What a beautiful city.

We love and miss you all so please send pics of Halloween!

We had a call from SLC last week in preparation for BYU developing materials that Dad and I designed up for a rootstech/Family History Fairs in Australia. Australia will be a beta program and then possibly expand to other areas of the world. Dad did a mighty job on putting together the powerpoint and booklet describing the Kit which prompted SLC headquarters to adopt the initiative.

Dad and I went to Tamworth (country music capital of Australia!!:)) We went up to speak in Sacrament meeting. A small ward of 30 attended. They were all lovely, friendly people. It was a long drive of about 5 hours each way, but worth it. Dad took up a new computer and installed it for them.
While I was up there, I noticed a book on their shelf that was titled "A biographical index of South Australians 1836-1885 and discovered Tredrea and Hahn.(nana's family)

 

Last week we had Sister Rogers (87 yrs old) from Queensland come down to visit us. A missionary couple have spent the last 16 mths photographing the 1,000,000 headstones she copied from cemeteries. She had lots of stories and energy. It was an enjoyable 3 days with her. She was so bright but needed to get home to personal trainer as she attends the gym twice a week to keep in shape for summer pool aerobics!

Sister Rogers (the collector of 1,000,000 headstones with the missionary (Elder Roberts) photographing them.

We have a mini garden with a tomato plant, mint plant and capsicum plant. Perhaps we will get some fruit from it, but I really think it is more about Dad being able to use the hose on the balcony.

We also have two sets of missionaries leaving this month so this is the photo of the group this mth.

Left to right: Roberts (image capture) Archibald (legal counsel) Smith (self-reliance) Moore (inter-faith pr) Barr (temple pres) Williams (mission office) Killibrew (mission office) Allen (public relations) Feil (mission office) The Roberts and the Feils are leaving the mission within the next week or so.

Opera and a baptism

Sydney is a fabulous city. The streets are full of families, lots of markets, food and things to do. We went to Sydney Opera house for a performance of The King and I. It was very enjoyable. Dad sat by a 4 year old who was bored and kept waving her flashing doll around the whole time. Fortunately, it didn't bother him. It kinda drove me crazy though :)

Darling Harbour at night. We ate at a Greek restaurant. The area was filled with families.

Rasheeka, Devmini and Dave- newly baptized family living in our building. In true Indian style, this baptism took 4 hours of celebration with food, gifts, photos, talks and testimonies. Dave works in Sri Lanka and manages all of Victoria Secret products. He has given gifts of bras to most of the senior missionaries after he guesses their size!! Moved to Australia for Devmini to have a better education. It is hard for them as Dave is on the road a lot and Rasheeka and Devmini miss home.

Remembering Gaspar Stifanic: murdered at 31 years old.

This is a photo of Ivan Stifanic family. Natalia (Pa's mother) is the little girl on the right and in the middle is her younger brother Gaspar.
Oriana (my first cousin) sent me this story recently. The details are filled in by Uncle Tony, who is the brother of Pa and the son of Natalia.
Gaspar was the third and youngest child of Ivo (Ivan) and Zanetta. When he was a baby, Zanetta died of tuberculosis.
Natalia who was closest to Gaspar in age was also adored him and and mothered him as her baby brother. Their older brother Sime (on left) was bossy and they didn't care for him.
Ivo wasn't a great believer in education and decreed that it was enough that one member of the family went to school and that was the oldest son, Sime. Sime went to school but Natalia and Gaspar did not to have formal schooling.
Traditionally the oldest son would get the farm when his father died, so Gaspar was expected to make his own way. He was given a piece of land outside of the village of Bonaci where they lived.
In his early 20's he became involved with a woman called Tina and they planned to get married. As was common among young people at the time, whilst trying to get the money together to marry and for Tina's family to agree on a dowry, Tina moved in with Gaspar. She fell pregnant and they had a son. Their relationship fell apart with arguments with her family over her dowry and Tina and her son moved back to her family home. She later married a local policeman from another town.
After Gaspar's relationship ended with Tina, he decided to earn some money to try and establish himself. He spent 2 years working in the coal mines in Albona and when he returned home he had enough money to set up a small grocery shop in Zbandaj. He rented a house and ran the shop from there. Zbandaj is close to Radmani where his sister Natalia lived.
Although Gaspar had returned home, he was lonely and therefore vulnerable to the advances of a woman named Gaidovica. She was with another man at the time, but the fact that Gaspar had a shop was attractive and he succumbed to her advances and she ended up pregnant. He married her and she lived with him in Zbandaj.
After living with him a very short time, one night Gaspar was lured to a neighboring village called Kirmenjak where he was set upon and murdered in a barn there. He was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. His body was then dumped in a nearby forest. As he had disappeared a search party was sent out to look for him. After 2 days his body was found and brought back to Zbandaj in a wooden cart. Uncle Tony reports that Natalia (Pa's mother and Gaspar's sister) was devastated when he was killed as she was very close to him.
Eventually Gaspar's father in law was charged with the murder and sentenced. He was imprisoned on Elba. With the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, all prisoners were set free so this man was released and returned back to Istra, his home and remained there until he died. It was so difficult for Natalia as the man who killed her brother was now free in the community again.
The son of Gaspar and Gaidovica as an adult moved to the US to NY state. When he died a few years back, his son organized for his remains to be buried in cemetery in Zbandaj with his mother.
Gaidovica went back to her old boyfriend and was able to inherit the land Gaspar owned near Bonaci. She sold the land and so she benefitted from the murder of her husband.
The motive for the murder was that Gaidovica's family wanted to have the grocery store (the license to run the store) in Zbandaj as it was a lucrative small business to run a small village grocery store. As it was the local authorities refused to pass the license onto Gaidovica's family as they considered them having poor character. Instead the license went to Josip Radman (my grandfather, Natalia's husband) who was considered good character.
This is the little shop that Pa would talk about running when he was a child... it was Natalia who ran the shop while Josip continued to farm the land. They did quite well financially, even with the war happening in the rest of Europe, life was peaceful in Istria until the Capitulation in September 1943 and the arrival of the Germans and the rise of the partisans. It was then that events took a turn for the worst.

Wollongong, Tassie and Salt Ash

The last two weeks have been so busy and although we enjoyed it all, glad it is over.
We went to Wollongong (or as locals would say 'the gong') and set up an Family Search booth at a state genealogy fair. It was easy and we were lucky enough to not get hard questions. People were very friendly, the talks were mostly interesting as we listened to people who have devoted their lives to researching sometimes some very remote, unrelated events that have captured their passion.

Part of the Family Search booth in the "Gong". Rebecca (dad's niece) helping on the computer

We flew to Tasmania (Tassie) and hit the road. Briefly visited Salamanca market in downtown Hobart before setting out driving north the whole length of the island. Scenery was beautiful and Tassie focuses on food tourism and so there are little shops along the way, raspberry/berry farms, chocolate factories, cheese factories. The people were very friendly and the food was great.

Clouds outside window in Hobart on our last day. The weather for the 6 days was beautiful and clear.

Salamanca market in Hobart.. Dad headed for gypsy rolls which were freshly made and yum.

Taking a driving break in Swansea on east coast of Tasmania

We taught in Devonport ward. Dad did a timeline for a youth interview. It was good and we enjoyed the group of maybe 50-60 adults and youth. We were invited back to eat by some members of the ward and so we spent the evening with Angelo and Edna and 3 young elders (Utah, Sydney and Sth Africa).

Dinner at home of Angelo and Edna with 3 elders in Devonport

We then visited 6 family history centers and dad helped with any issues. It is amazing that even a little island like Tasmania is right up to date with everything related to the church. They work long and hard with the youth in family history and taking them on temple trips to Melbourne (which is their closest temple). Each visit took about 2-3 hours as they just wanted to share what was happening in their family history centers. Dad focused on the equipment and any problems with it.

A portion of Austen's timeline. There are ancestors to the left and also the temple on the right side. 

We got home late Thursday night and got ready on Friday to help teach in a really small branch about 3 hrs north of Sydney. It all went fine, but we had planned to spend the night in Salt Ash after eating dinner with two other missionary couples. It was late when we got to the hotel only to find, there were no vacancies in the whole town (school holidays) and I had booked for the next night! So, we sang for 3 hrs to keep Dad awake so he could drive back to Sydney. Our car is old and no working radio so we used my music on my phone to sing to. We were glad to make it home.

Dad with Elder Finch (senior missionary living in Salt Ash supporting the branch) as they set up family history. This branch has no chapel and so they share a community hall with Assemblies of God congregation.