Dapkus | Kazimeras
Biography
Kazimeras Dapkus was born on 26 May 1908 in Carnbroe, a hamlet of Coatbridge in Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Kazimeras’ parents were Martinas (sometimes “Martin” or “Martinys”) Dapkus (died at Middlesbrough 1958-79 years old) and his wife Katre (sometimes “Katherine” or “Katerina”) Zaleckus (died at Middlesbrough 1967, aged 82). They were from Rudamina, a village in present-day Lithuania in Vilnius province. When they married in 1904, the area was still part of the Russian Empire.
Kazimeras’ parents must have emigrated to Scotland soon after they got married and Martinas found work at the Calder Iron Works (blast furnaces) which was then a major employer in Carnbroe.
There was a lot of emigration from Lithuania to Scotland from 1890 to 1920 and the area they came to live in was known as “Little Poland” or “Little Lithuania”. Many of them were agricultural workers in search of a better life and some paid for the crossing to America, but were left behind in Scotland by unscrupulous agents. However, there is no evidence that this was also the case with the Dapkus family.
Kazimeras was baptised on 7 June 1908 at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church near Coatbridge, called Whifflet.
Scottish civil records show that after Kazimeras (who was sometimes also known as Charlie), the parents in Carnbroe had six more children – Branislaw (1909-1910), Adolph (1911 – died young), Sophia known as Tanya (1912), Anele known as Nell (1915), Petrone known as Sarah (1916), and Felix (1917-1917).
Sometime between 1917 and 1919, the Dapkus family moved to Middlesbrough, an industrial town in North Yorkshire. Things were going badly for the blast furnaces in Scotland and they eventually closed in 1921. The family’s move to Middlesbrough was related to this; they were looking for the security of a job.
English birth records show the birth of three more children- Ursula known as Shelly (1919), Mary (1923) and Martynas known as Martin (1927).
Little is known of Kazimeras’ childhood, but it can be assumed that he completed primary school and left school at the age of 14. At some point, he went to London to work because there were more opportunities there.
In 1935, he married Maggie (Magaret) Lukoztinski. She had been born in 1914 on the outskirts of London in Edmonton. The marriage took place in the Bethnal Green district, probably in the Lithuanian Catholic parish in that area.
They had one son in 1937, named Joseph.
Kazimeras worked as a tailor’s presser (ironer) and lived with Maggie and Joseph at 41, Planet Street, Stepney. Stepney was an overcrowded district in the East End of London. There were many businesses run by Jews, especially textile businesses and tailoring. It was an area in the late 1930s where the British Trade Union of Fascists was active and where many clashes between fascists and left-wing groups took place. During the war, Stepney was badly hit by bombing.
Kazimeras enlisted on 20 February 1941 at Clitheroe in Lancashire. Maggie then lived at 53, Wetherell Road in Hackney, on the border with the traditional East End.
He served as a sapper/mineur in 17 Field Coy of the Royal Engineers. 17 Field Coy was a part of the British Army Corps commanded by Field Marshal B. L. Montgomery.
The company landed on “Sword” beach in Normandy and experienced the complete liberation of Western Europe.
During the war, Kazimeras wrote home. A transcript of part of a letter to his sister Tanya can be read here.
While the company was clearing the road of mines near the St Servatius Monastery in Venray, under harsh weather conditions, Kazimeras was killed there on 18 October 1944, aged 36. He was temporarily buried in Oploo and later reburied at the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Overloon.
How his regiment’s campaign went in October 1944 can be read in this War Diary, in where we expect it is Kazimeras who was killed on the 18th of October.
Kazimeras’ wife Maggie remarried in 1947. Her second husband was Alexus Giedmintis. This marriage took place after an incident that made national headlines in 1946. Maggie was injured when she was shot by a lover, who then took his own life. There are no children from her second marriage. Maggie died in 1969 and Alexus in 1977.
Kazimeras’ grave was visited on 30 July 1952 by his parents Martinas and Katre. Witness to this is Mrs Mien Crooymans from Overloon, who visited the grave as a child with Kazimeras’ parents. According to Mien, the parents would have another son. Civil Registry notices (see above) in Scotland and England show that they (had) a total of 9 children.
Kazimeras’ son Joseph married Jean Lambert in Stepney in 1960 and they had two children: Stephen Charles (1966) and Paul Anthony (1970). Stephen married in 1994 and Paul in 2001. To date, further contact with them is unfortunately missing.
