60TH ANNIVERSARY
Church marks Latvian family’s arrival
The Alks family arrived in East Aurora in May 1949 after having been forced to flee Russian-controlled Latvia until Stalin’s brutal rule.
Sunday, Vitauts Alks and Zinta Alks-Malejs returned to First Presbyterian Church to commemorate the 60th anniversary and give thanks to the church that sponsored their arrival.
They almost landed in Illinois instead.
Voldemars and Elza Alks left Riga, Latvia, with their four children in October 1944. They lived in a displaced persons camp in a U. S.-occupied zone of Germany before their arrival in Western New York.
Because their father had worked as a technical director of a dairy processing plant, they were sponsored by a dairy farmer in DeKalb, Ill. That was rescinded after an older brother got measles, and the family was instead sponsored by the East Aurora church.
The family lived on Paine Street, directly across from the house of worship, for seven years. The Alks family later moved to South Buffalo to take advantage of public transportation. Voldemars Alks worked in a factory there and became a member of the carpenters union.
The siblings now live a mile apart in North Buffalo, with a brother in St. Louis and a sister in Wilmington, Del.
But First Presbyterian Church remains special to the family.
“Even though we do not physically reside here, I think in a spiritual sense, in America, this is our first home,” said Vitauts Alks, a retired medical researcher and hospital pharmacist at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. “This is where we first encountered Americans, where we encountered the kindnesses of the congregation.”
“We had a wonderful life here. I came here today and I felt like I remembered the feeling, everything,” said Alks-Malejs, a retired Maryvale teacher.
“Rev. [Gibson] Lewis, who was first here when we came, was like a father to me. I was 5 years old, the youngest. His daughter, Cornelia Dopkins Lewis, was like my good friend and took me to Sunday school. They were wonderful.”
Lewis was present at the church service, which included the family’s gift of inlaid wood artwork purchased in Latvia that featured three prominent churches in Riga, and a violin solo by Inge Malejs-Yanoski, Alks-Malejs’ daughter.
“I thought it was the most gracious and kind expression of gratitude,” Lewis said.
She said refugees involved in later uprisings against Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe also came to the church and settled in the area, including 10 Hungarians in 1956.
The Rev. Langdon Hubbard III said the church has been doing some soul searching for what its mission should be, and the Alkses’ commemoration helped put things in perspective.
“I think the timing of this was perfect,” he said, “because it’s brought back a piece of the past of who we were, and a reminder of who we still want to be, that same face that opened its doors to a refugee family in Latvia.
“We still are that loving church committed to justice and compassion in the world. I think the Alks family have really reminded us of who we are.”
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