Wanda Rosłan's Story
I was born in Ipswich, QLD, Australia in 1914. My parents were Polish and were born in Sterdyn nad Podlaski. My father was Ludwik Rosłan (Louis) and my mother was Maria Kempe. My father had four sisters and one brother. My mother had two brothers, one of whom was her twin.
In 1906 my father, with a young wife and a nine month old baby girl Stanisława, left Poland for Detroit, USA and at the same time two of his sisters and brother left for Ipswich, QLD, Australia. They were Theophelia and Franek Frukatcz, Flora and Anthony Wischnewski and Franek Rosłan.
In Detroit, USA there was a depression and my father managed to work for a while. My second sister Anne was born in Detroit. The family then left for Liverpool, UK where conditions were not much better. There my father received word that his third sister Paulina Wisokinska who was living in Harbin, China was thinking of going to Australia. My father left Liverpool, UK for Harbin, China. There he worked on the Trans Siberian Railway. A third daughter Cecilia was born in Harbin. When my aunt Paulina , her husband and young son left for Australia, my father decided to follow her. The family arrived in Ipswich in 1910. By then two uncles were well established and worked in the Ipswich Railway Workshop. There were other Polish families living in Ipswich and some were working in the coal mines. A Polish organisation had been established in Ipswich, QLD, Australia as early as 1908.
My father's youngest sister Flora and her husband Tony Wischnewski lived in Bundaberg, QLD, Australia where they grew sugar cane. They had five sons and one daughter. My father took his family there to seek his fortune. There was a shortage of housing but plenty of work. The family lived in a large tent while my father worked on the cane fields. My brother Roman was born in 1912 in Bundaberg, QLD, Australia (Roman lives in Currumbin, QLD, Australia with his wife Imelda). My mother with five young children had a vegetable garden, a cow, chickens and ducks to tend. She always had a rifle handy to shoot any goannas or snakes that came to eat the eggs. My father's only brother Franek was working in Ipswich, QLD, Australia, building a railway when he was buried in a landslide. Soon after that the family returned to Ipswich, QLD, Australia where I was born at Basin Pocket in 1914. In 1916 my brother Franek was born.
A friend of my father's in Harbin, China, Stanisław Walisiewicz wrote and told of a Polish/French sugar refinery that he was working in. In 1919 my mother, father and six children left Brisbane, QLD, Australia on a Japanese ship, Aki Mamaru for Harbin, China. My father worked at a sugar refinery in Acheng, China, 30km east of Harbin, China. The sugar was made from white beet. The beet plantations that supplied the refinery were managed by Polish nationals and the labourers were Chinese.
In 1922 my youngest brother and the seventh child Alexander was born. My father's fourth sister Yusia and her husband arrived from Poland and stayed with us for six months prior to leaving for Australia. In the compound of the refinery every family had their own apartment and there was a primary school for the children of Polish families. Stasia and Anne who were in secondary school were boarders at a Catholic College in Harbin, China. Cecelia travelled 30 km by train each day to go to the same school. There was also a chapel in the compound and the priest came from Harbin, China each Sunday to celebrate mass. As the work in the refinery was seasonal, my father bought a piece of land and built a large house.
My father's sister Theophilia didn't have children of her own and was now in poor health. She was urging my mother and father to return to Australia as she was missing us children. The Japanese had taken over the sugar refinery so my parents decided to return to Australia. We travelled by train through Korea to Japan and sailed on the Mishni Marmaru to Perth and then to Brisbane. We settled in Ipswich and lived with my aunt and uncle Frukatcz. My father managed to get work in the Ipswich Railway work shop. He paid £5 deposit on a house and piece of land. When we came to Australia we left behind my eldest sister Stanisław who had a year of her University studies to complete. She lived with the Polish Consul, Mr & Mrs Simonolewicz in Harbin, China. When she graduated she worked in Shanghai, China with the English Consulate. My father was anxious for her to join us in Australia but her heart was in Poland where she was born and she was to return there permanently. In Ipswich, QLD, Australia there was a thriving community of Polish people. One of the most exciting experiences for me as a young girl was to go on picnics with a large group of Polish people to College's Crossing. We would come across kangaroos and goannas as we trekked through the bush singing Polish songs. We had to be on the look out for deserted mine shafts that dotted the landscape.
In 1932 my father sponsored the Zaharchuk family from Acheng near Harbin, China. He took a big risk because at that time there was no government assistance for sponsored migrants and they couldn't own a house until they had been in Australia for ten years.
In 1932 my family moved to Sherwood, QLD, Australia in Brisbane. Ludwik Rosłan died there in 1955 and Maria Kempa died in 1971.
In 1938 Tadeusz Walisiewicz came to Australia from Harbin, China under the sponsorship of Ludwik Rosłan. Ted and I were married on Australia Day 1940. When Ted's father Stanisław had passed away in Harbin, China, he sponsored his mother to come to Australia from Harbin, China and later in 1952 his sister Mania, her daughter Halina, son-in-law and niece.
The Polish community was growing and becoming more active in the public arena. At the time of the WW2, the Red Cross made an appeal to migrant groups in the community to raise funds for the war effort. Six nationalities sponsored a child and our daughter Helena Marya Walisiewicz was the Polish representative. The Polish community raised £120 - the largest amount of any group and the photograph shows Helen presenting the cheque to the Red Cross.