Families Urbas and Vehik from Estonia

I found these three images in a pile of random lost photos in Estonia. At home I made the connection that they had all belonged to the same family. Why they ended up in an antique store in Tallinn, I don’t know. But I am happy that I could save them together.

I’ve praised the Estonian archives many times on this blog. Digital (free!) access allows me to do so much research online. So let’s see what the paper trail has left behind on these three photos.

The first one could be a kitsch French postcard from the Edwardian era. But this adoring couple was real – they were Mathilda and Aleksander Vehik. That look of love!

Aleksander Vehik (or also Vehhik and Wehik in the records) was born on May 27, 1886 in Pandivere, Estonia, to parents Toomas and Anette Vehik.

In 1912, he married Mathilde Louise Lepp, born on October 12, 1890 in Rakvere, Estonia. Her parents were Kustu and Anna Lepp.

After a personal tragedy of their daughter stillborn in 1913, the global tragedy began a year later. WWI sent the couple to Imperial Russia where Aleksander was drafted into the Imperial Army. Estonia was part of the Russian Empire at the time. It was only the Estonian Independence War of 1918-1920, following WWI, that finally gave birth to the Republic of Estonia. Ethnic Estonians all over the crumbling Russian Empire were invited to come home and apply for the citizenship of the young Republic. Aleksander and Mathilde decided to make use of that invitation. In 1920, they applied for Estonian citizenship as “optants”. His new identification document also included a photograph of Aleksander:

Saaga

Upon their return to Porkun county in Estonia, Aleksander continued to practice his profession of locksmith. On April 19, 1922, the couple finally welcomed their second child – Uno Vehik. The photo of Uno below was taken in 1928.

But the idyllic family life was cut short when father Aleksander drowned in Narva-Jóesuu on August 1, 1923.

Through the grief, the widowed Mathilde focused her remaining strength on raising her son Uno on her own. It took Mathilde 10 years before she took another chance on love and re-married. And her new husband was Gustav Urbas, Aleksander’s long-time friend. Gustav was the person who vouched for the reputability of Aleksander Vehik when he applied for Estonian citizenship in 1920! Back in 1920, he said on record that he had known Aleksander and the Vehik family for more than 20 years, as the two attended school together, and had always considered them honourable people.

And this is how we arrive at our third photo – of Gustav Urbas!

Gustav Urbas had been born on April 30, 1888, in Virumaa, Estonia. He married Pauline Elisabeth Seiboth in 1914 and their son Aksel was born a year later. Gustav and Pauline divorced in 1924 and Aksel lived with his father. And in 1933 Mathilde and Uno joined the patchwork family.

When the Soviet Union occupied Estonia in 1940, they occupants were determined to get rid of anyone who challenged the new regime or had been profiting from the old one. So politicians, academics, veterans, clergy, land owners and businessmen were the first to be deported to Siberia on cattle trains. 1941 is one of the most horrific years in the collective memory of Estonians. In June 1941, a wave of arrests and executions took place, mostly at night, and thousands of families were deported to Siberia or murdered on the spot.

Mathilde, Gustav and his son Aksel were arrested too. But luckily, they were not deported. Four years later, as the Soviet authorities arrested Aksel again, and this time they charged him with crimes of “treason” (the Soviet regime’s favourite Criminal Code article…) and sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment.

Mathilde was widowed again in 1950 when Gustav passed away. Mathilde herself died 25 years later in 1975. If she ever saw her son Uno again, I don’t know. Uno Vehik had escaped the arrests of 1941 and had managed to get out of the country into an American refugee camp in Germany. He fell in love with a fellow refugee from Ukraine and the couple got married in the camp in 1946. With their countries no longer existing (noone wanted to return to the Soviet occupied Estonia or Ukraine after 1945…), there was no way back. They could apply for a passage to Venezuela, the only country still accepting displaced persons at the time. In the 1960s, Uno moved his family to the United States. Uno died in New York in 2004.

I’ve added these photos to Geni.com. I’m currently trying to reach out to Uno’s daughter Milvi Vehik but so far have had no success. Keep your fingers crossed that these photos will go home too!