Richard Gregorenko

Alias Gregorenz (service records)    Russian spelling Григорий (?) Михайлович Григоренко

Born 4.10.1887   Place Karapyshi, Kiev, Ukraine    Ethnic origin Ukrainian     Religion Russian Orthodox

Father Gregorenko, Mitchell (Michael) Pavloff

Residence before arrival at Australia lived in  China for 3 years and in Japan for 6 months

Arrived at Australia

            from Japan   on 29.05.1910   per Nikko Maru    disembarked at Brisbane

Residence before enlistment Brisbane

Occupation 1910 clerk, bookbinder; 1915 ambulance bearer, 1923 linesman, 1929 labourer, took cotton growing selection at Callide Valley, Qld

Service

service number 10065   enlisted 2.11.1915    POE Brisbane

unit 7th Field Ambulance, 14th Field Ambulance   rank Private

place Western Front, 1916-1918

final fate RTA 4.12.1918       discharged 24.02.1919

Naturalisation 1936

Residence after the war Brisbane, Newcastle, Lawgi, Qld

Family wife Vera Gregorenko (née Scriven), married 1920, Brisbane, children Leonard Richard (1921-1983), George (1923-1997), Olga b. 1925

Died 7.07.1950

Materials digitised naturalisation 1   2   (NAA)

digitised service records (NAA) (Gregorenz)

Gregorenko, Richard Michael - Naturalization certificate granted 23 April 1936 (NAA)

wife's alien registration (NAA)

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

Richard Gregorenko, who served during 1916–18 with the field ambulance on the Western Front, was another of the men purged from the army ‘on account of Russian nationality’. On returning to Australia, he married and settled in Brisbane but the marriage did not last and, in 1929, he took his two young sons, Leonard and George, and moved to Callide Valley to take up a cotton-growing selection at Lawgi. He had to first clear the thick scrub before gradually building a small house from bush timber with cement-rendered bag-walls and a packed earth floor. Scrub wallabies, bush turkey, damper and rice were the main components of their diet. Although life was hard, there was one significant compensation from being there: Callide Valley had become the centre of a community of White Russians who had fled the revolution and now played an important role in pioneering this area. During the early 1930s around 100 Russian families lived in the area, including General Tolstoff and other Cossacks. They established the Russian Club at Tangool with a library and organised Russian concerts and dances, which attracted the interest of many local Australians as well. In the early 1930s Russian children accounted for nearly half of all pupils in local schools. The Gregorenkos became an integral part of this community, and the boys are still remembered by local old-timers.

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