November is gone, gone, gone!

'Hello Koala' of 50 koalas displayed throughout Pt Macquarie. This one just happened to be inside, but mostly found on the streets.

View from our window staying at Clarence River B&B as we visited and spoke at Grafton Branch

We had the opportunity to visit Pt. Macquarie, Grafton and Taree this month. We spoke in two of the branches and did a bit of family history setup for each branch. We really enjoy the little branches who's attendance varies from 20-50 members. They are always so friendly, wanting to feed and talk with us. We have heard some really interesting stories...... not to be outdone by the ones we get daily on phone calls!
Probably 3 of our most unusual phone calls were: someone wanting to know if we could exorcise a bad spirit from her family tree, another wanting to know if the church would pay for DNA testing (it's expensive $1250) because she wanted to prove she wasn't related to someone and yesterday Dad had a call from an elderly gentleman in Perth who wanted to contact sister missionaries who visited and didn't leave their phone number. He ranted for a long time about how inadequate we were as a church and also a Sis. Smylie who never answered her phone: )
Dad is busy, busy, busy and is trying to wrap up some work as we need to get prep done for YSA convention we will be attending for Family History.
We are loving the photos of Christmas trees and grandchildren and are printing to put on our photo wall. We are loving that Oscar was born and is doing well enough to go on his first family holiday.

Wallaby joey being held by Dad at rescue enclosure

Pt Macquarie town overlooking one of the beaches in the area. Fairly typical of beach towns where everyone enjoys a view

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.