RUSSIAN REFUGEES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20926, 4 January 1938, Page 11

RUSSIAN REFUGEES

LOTTERY PRIZE OF £5OOO SYDNEY, December 17. To a colonel in the Tsar of Russia’s Imperial Army, £5OOO was a sum to be lightly spent. To Mr P. Johnson, of Taree, New South Wales, who was once such a colonel but is now a garage proprietor, this sum, representing first prize in the State Lottery, is a fortune. Miss Panara Johnson, his daughter, described the splendour of her family when in Russia before the revolution. Owning wide estates and related to some of the wealthiest families, her father never realised that the “beggarly” sum of £5OOO would mean wealth to him. “He often gave away larger sums than that to charity,” said Miss Johnson. “It was considered bad form among the wealthy families there to be mean in any way. Though £5OOO might have been beneath his contempt before the revolution, it has certainly made him the happiest man in Australia to-day.” Continuing, Miss Johnson said that her father's win was consolation for the long years in which, from the poverty into which he was plunged by the revolution, he worked unceasingly to earn a living for his family. "When he escaped from Russia he had 35,000 roubles,” said Miss Johnson. "They became worthless, and, when I was a baby, they were given to me to play with as toys.” Her father lost his whole fortune in the revolution, said Miss Johnson. His lands were taken from him, and he had to watch helplessly while crazed revolutionists threw £BO,OOO of his money into a fire. When he came to Australia more than 15 years ago, he was unable to speak English, but, aided by Australian friends, he built up a business as owner of a garage at Taree. "I was bom in China, and father left mother and me there with his brother while he came to Australia,” Miss Johnson said. “Then he sent for us, and we have lived in Australia ever since, while father has built up a nice little business here in Taree.”

Wally Stepanoff, a mechanic at the garage, who has a share in the ticket, was also a wealthy man in Russia before the revolution, and a close friend of Mr Johnson.