The Alekna Family originated in the Kupis^kis region of Lithuania. Antanas Jonas Alekna was born to Jurgis Alekna and Catherine Urbonas on December 21, 1891 in the village of Bikonys. He emigrated to the United States from Bremen in May 1912, ariving in New York on the 8th of that month, aboard the vessel Barbarossa. According to the immigration records (Which recorded his name as Antanas Aleknas) he was en route to joining his brother, Jonas or John, a farm hand, living in Gardener Massachusetts. John had been married two years previous to a Lithuanian woman in Boston.
From 1912 to 1923 Anthony, as he would come to be know in America, disapears from the records. Family lore tells us he stopped in Chicago and New York and held various jobs. In 1923 he appears again in Boston, where he wed Mildred Amelia Greviskis. In 1924 he opened Flood Square Hardware, and Hardware store in South Boston.
Mildred (or Amelia as she prefered to call herself) was the daughter of Joseph Greviskis and Isabella Bratenas, both of Lithuania. Joseph Greviskis, who owned and operated a pool hall in South Boston, had arrived in New York from Lithuania on the sixth of May, 1887. He probably met Isabella in the workplace, seeing as they were both tailors working for her brother, George. By the time of the 1920 census the Greviskis family had three children, Mildred, John, and Joseph, and were living at 1632 Columbia Road in South Boston. Joseph's life was cut tragically short on January 5,1926 when he died at age 58, under suspicious circumstances. The coroner's report stated that the cause of death was "exhaustion, and other effects of the consumption of alcohol, plus the effects of embalming fluid consumed for reasons unknown."
By 1930 Anthony and Amelia were comfortably settled in at 1632 Columbia Road. They had had two children, Harold and Norman. Amelia's brothers were still living with them, though, somehow, Anthony now owned his father-in-law's house. Harold and Norman grew up and Norman eventually raised his children in the same house were he was born, and the family remained in South Boston for some fifty odd years more.
Below: A family aboard the ship Barbarossa on which Anthony Alekna sailed for America.
Miscellaneous Alekna pictures, papers, and links
-Letter from Lithuanian relative
-Another letter from Lithuanian relative
-Grave of Jurgis and Catherine Alekna in Antas^ava, Lithuania
-Anthony's Passenger Immigration record page (line 26)
-Market of Kupiskis city, near Bikonys, in 1912
-Great-grandchildren of Anthony
