Photo: Justin and Phyllis (Luksha) Strazdas and their Wedding Party, c. 1912. Courtesy of Stella (Strazdas) Yurkus.
The Strazdas family were included in the Waltham Rediscovered project as part of the Lithuanian community. They lived in the Bleachery neighborhood.
Justin Strazdas (born around 1886) was one of nearly a quarter-million people who fled poverty and czarist tyranny in Lithuania between 1899 and 1914. Justin immigrated to the US around 1912 in order to avoid conscription into the Russian army.
Once settled in the US, Justin sent for Phyllis (born around 1891), his fiancée, and they got married at St. Hedwig's Church in Cambridge, Mass. in 1913. Justin worked as a starcher at the Waltham Bleachery and Dye Works. The couple had five children:
- Walter (born 1914)
- Clara (born 1916)
- Peter (born 1918)
- Stella (born 1922)
- Philip (born 1927)