3/12/22 Balzekas Museum Book Club Presents Author Sandy Baksys / Springfield Lithuanians

On Saturday, March 12, 2022 at 2pm, Lithuanian American author Sandy Baksys presented her book "A Century of Lithuanians in Springfield" over Zoom. (Interviewer/moderator was the Museum Vice President/Exec. Director, Sigita Bersenas Balzekas.)  "It's hard right now to think of anything but the war in Ukraine and how much the faces of our the traumatized refugees, make us think of our own Lithuanian parents and grandparents, who fled their homeland at the end of WWII." For that reason, Baksys said that she would frame the discussion through the lens of war and exile as it related to both WWII Lithuanian refugees as well as the first wave of Lithuanian immigrants, who left their homeland by the tens of thousands between 1870 and 1914. 

NOTE: The musical selection at the outset and end of this video is a recording of the Mahanoy Lithuanian Miners' Orchestra from the Edward A. Danisavich, Jr., Collection of Shuylkill County, Pennsylvania, recordings at the Balzekas Museum. Even though this orchestra hailed from Pennsylvania coal-mining country, the songs they performed--from lively polkas to bittersweet ballades of homesickness and hardship--were popular among Lithuanian immigrants at the outset of the 20th century, when these recordings were made.

The book may be purchased through the Balzekas Museum Gift Shop: https://balzekasmuseum.myshopify.com/products/a_century_of_lithuanians_in_springfield_illinois_baksys?

Book Overview:

Real-life stories and hundreds of images put a face on early twentieth-century immigrants in Lincoln's hometown, then part of the Midwest coal belt. Almost as soon as thousands of impoverished, rural Lithuanians poured into Central Illinois at the turn of the twentieth century, the coal-mining jobs for which they came began to dry up. This is their story of survival in the face of the Central Illinois "Mine Wars" and the Great Depression--and an immigrant dream deferred. It is also the story of a second wave of Lithuanian refugees these first-wave immigrants sponsored after World War II. Based on primary source interviews and newspaper and public records research. Written by a former journalist, with historical context for two distinct waves of Lithuanian immigration to the U.S. and continuing ties with the homeland as Lithuania experienced two world wars, two successful independence movements, an interwar period of statehood, and 50 years of Soviet occupation. An all-in-one primer, written in journalistic style, for anyone with Lithuanian roots or anyone interested in twentieth-century European immigration to the U.S.

About the Author:


Springfield native Sandy Baksys has been a newspaper reporter, medical trade journalist, and for the last 20 years, a public relations consultant and writer. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northwestern University, as well as a B.A. in Italian and an M.A. in English literature from the University of Kentucky.

From 1989 through 1991, Sandy participated, state-side, in the Lithuanian "Singing Revolution" as Kentucky coordinator for the Lithuanian Communications Center. In 2012, she spearheaded the erection of a historical marker titled, "Lithuanians in Springfield," and launched a blog that can be found at lithspringfield.com.

Publisher: Create Space Publishing, 2015

Format: Paperback, 329 pages

ISBN-10:1515347729

This project was supported in part by the Illinois Arts Council Agency and DCASE, the Department of Culture and Special Events/CityARTS and a Grant of U.S. Department of Treasury funds through the City of Chicago. The opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Treasury or the City of Chicago. The Balzekas Museum gratefully acknowledges these Grantors, as well as its Members and Private Donors for their generous support, which makes programs such as these possible.