Life with Ivan - The Fishmonger who became a Builder

1953

Of course Ivan Mauric was never going to spend his new life in Australia as someone else’s employee.  By August 1953 he and Danila were free of the Government’s two-year work commitment that was part of their assisted passage to Australia.   The family moved first to a shared house in Guildford then to Hurlstone Park.  Shortly thereafter Ivan bought a fish and chip shop nearby.  At last Ivan was his own boss!  It’s easy to forget now that in the mid-1950s there was no McDonalds, no Pizza Hut, no KFC or indeed any fast food chains.  The only “fast food” available was fish and chips or the local Chinese restaurant.  For the entrepreneurial-minded Ivan the shop seemed like a good way to make money.

First Years in Australia

But Ivan’s early months as a fishmonger were a disaster.  Ivan later recounted that he had no idea of what to buy at the fish markets and commented that customers frequently returned to the shop complaining that the fish and chips they had bought were either raw or overcooked.  Danila burnt herself badly at the shop one day when a slab of solid dripping slipped into the fryer, splashing hot fat up her arm all the way past her elbow.

Danila serving in their fish shop at 308 Pacific Highway, Crows Nest, 1958

Slowly Ivan and Danila got the hang of the shop and business improved.  By August 1954, just four years after they arrived, Ivan and Danila had made enough money to buy a large federation house in Fitzroy Street, Kirribilli and a nearby fish-shop in Broughton Street, opposite Milsons Point Railway Station.  Moving from Sydney’s southwest, where their friends from the old country were concentrated, to the lower North Shore must have been a big deal for them, but for Ivan it was a further step towards integrating the family into their new homeland.
 
45B Broughton St, Kirribilli.  A hair salon today, but the site of the Maurice fish shop in the mid-1950s
Kirribilli proved to be a very successful move.  The Fitzroy St house was large and came fully furnished although Ivan did not even realise that furniture was included when he bought the house.  More importantly it was already tenanted on the upper level, allowing Ivan and Danila to pay off the mortgage quickly.

Margo Keats. A wonderful, kind woman and an important influence on Danny as a child

One of the tenants was an older, childless couple—Margaret ("Margo") and Len Keats — who quickly adopted Daniel almost as their own son.  Daniel practically lived with the Keats after school during the week, including having evening meals with them virtually every night.

After dinner Daniel would sit with Margo and Len, listening to the evening radio serials and subjecting them to make believe and other games.  Daniel's favourite game was getting Margo and Len to act as as passengers on a bus while Conductor Danny sold them bus tickets (that Len had laboriously constructed out of cut-up newspaper).  Margo was deaf from childhood, but that disability never slowed her down.  She frequently took Daniel into town to go to the cinema and for shopping excursions.  Danila greatly appreciated having this child-minding service, enabling her and Ivan to focus their time on building their new business.  Margo’s involvement meant that Daniel had a thoroughly “Australian” early childhood.

Meanwhile the shop was going well.  Its location, close to the railway station and a pub, was great with people stopping by on their way home to pick up a quick evening meal.  Fridays were especially busy.  In those days Catholics had to avoid eating meat that day so fish and chips was the perfect easy meal.  The shop trade benefitted from a regular large order every Friday when one of the priests from nearby St Aloysius Boys College would buy fish and chips for the whole teaching staff.  Ivan never forgot those large priestly Friday orders and when, years later, it was time to send Daniel and his brother Rick (born 1960) to high school St Aloysius was his natural choice.

The Fitzroy St house today is little changed externally from when Ivan and Danila owned it more than 60 years ago. However inside it’s been extensively renovated, restored to a single home replacing the multi-dwelling residence it was in the 1950’s

Back to Europe for the first time

By 1957 Ivan and Danila were prosperous enough to travel back to Europe for the first time to see their families and show off how well they were doing in their new country.

Danny and his cousin Adriana outside the Mian family home in San Lorenzo Italy, 1957

As illegal escapees Ivan and Danila could not safely re-enter Yugoslavia.  No doubt this was also one of the factors in Ivan and Danila becoming Australian citizens the previous year.

Even with their new name and Australian passports Ivan and Danila stayed with Ivan’s sister, Alma, in the small town of San Lorenzo Isontino near Gorizia and their relatives crossed the border into Italy to see them.  But they did allow Daniel to visit travelling on the back of the motorcycle with Danila’s brother, Milan.  The family stayed in Italy for several months, long enough that Daniel started school with his cousin Adriana, even learning some Italian.

Family Re-United in Crows Nest

After returning to Australia in late 1957 Ivan and Danila left Kirribilli, purchasing a combined house and shop in the heart of Crows Nest at 338 Pacific Highway.  Ivan looked for new ways to expand his business.  Later he boasted that he was the first fish and chips shop to offer fresh whole chickens for sale.  Ivan would buy the live chickens at the market and kill them, but Danila was left with the unpleasant job of de-feathering and gutting them.

In 1958 Ivan paid for a visit to Australia by his Austrian-based sister, Ernesta (“Nešta”).  She arrived aboard the MV Oceania in November. At the same time Ivan sponsored his youngest sister Alma, husband Renato (Edi) Mian and daughter Adriana to Australia.  The Mians arrived in February 1959, initially spending time at the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre, where Ivan and Danila had also started their new life nine years earlier. The two families lived together at Crows Nest.  With Nešta there as well the house above the shop at Crows Nest felt very crowded but it was the first, and only time, that Ivan was re-united with two of his sisters for any extended time.

(L to R) Edi, Ivan, Danny, Adriana, Nešta, Danila and Alma in the living room behind the Crows Nest shop, 1959

Entering the Building Trade

About this time Ivan had his introduction into the building trade.  Through a friend he learnt of an opportunity to buy a large dilapidated house in Frederick St, Ashfield.  Ivan renovated the house, and converted it into flats, initially for renting out.

Ivan's first building project, a large terrace house in Frederick St, Ashfield converted to flats, 1959

One of Ivan’s tenants was Gerry Harvey, a young guy selling vacuum cleaners and fridges door-to-door.  Gerry went on to found first the Norman Ross chain of stores with partner Ian Norman.  Later Gerry started the Harvey Norman group on his own.  In time this was to make Gerry one of Australia’s largest retailers.  Ironically Gerry Harvey was to select Slovenia as the first overseas location as he expanded the Harvey Norman franchise internationally in the mid-1990s.

The Ashfield experience was positive enough that Ivan began to think more seriously about the moneymaking opportunities in building.

By 1960 the Maurices and Mians had moved to a larger house at 456 Millers St near the Cammeray shops.  The house was cheap as it was already earmarked for resumption and demolition to make way for the planned Warringah Expressway.  Ivan worked out that he would be ahead in the deal.

In July that year the Maurice’s second son was born.  Daniel convinced his parents to name him Ricky, after Ricky Ricardo in the popular TV show of the time, I Love Lucy.

Rick at three months, Oct 1960

Not long after Rick’s birth Danila went through a very dark patch in her life.  This may have been brought on by post-natal depression and the stress of managing all of the family’s affairs while Ivan travelled alone to Slovenia.  Whatever the cause Danila suffered from acute anxiety, resulting in her hospitalisation for several weeks.  She never spoke about this episode later, but it certainly did affect her over the rest of her life.

Meanwhile Ivan purchased his fourth, and what turned out to be his last shop.  This was a small Milk Bar on the corner of Pacific Highway and Herbert St, opposite the old St Leonards Railway Station, on the site of the current Forum centre.

The Milk Bar was not really the focus of his attention for long.  By 1963 Ivan took on his first large scale building venture, the construction of a block of flats in Christie Street, St Leonards in partnership with a more experienced Croatian builder, Ned Milat.  Ivan went on to build another block of flats with Ned in Mosman the next year.  But the two fell out and from 1964 onwards Ivan was building on his own.  Initially this involved two more blocks of flats in Lane Cove, one of which he named Danila, in honour of his wife.  By the second half of the 1960s he decided to focus on single dwellings instead.

Ivan built houses throughout the north shore of Sydney including Mosman, Artarmon, Lane Cove and Northbridge.  More than once Ivan would move the family into a newly constructed house and live there for the first year or two so at that time the Maurices were always on the move.  By the mid-1970s Ivan switched his building focus to factories, as this seemed to him less troublesome than residential construction.

On the deck of the apartment Ivan built above the Alleyne St factory. L to R: Ray and Anita Norbis (friends of Ivan), Danila, Pat & Patricia Robinson and Ivan. This is one of the last pictures we have of Patricia as she succumbed to cancer just a few months later

One of those factories was at 61 Alleyne Street, Chatswood.  Subsequently Ivan built an apartment above the factory to which he moved the family in 1975.  It was not a move or location that Danila enjoyed.  They were living at the time at Harden Ave Northbridge in what was undoubtedly  Danila's favourite house, comfortable and close to shops.  At Alleyne St she felt very isolated in what was an industrial part of Chatswood, far from the shopping centre.  Without even a convenient bus service and never having learnt to drive Danila was dependent on Ivan for her transport needs.

Ivan & Danila outside their house at Rodney St, North Ryde, 1987

Still after many years of struggle and hard work it seemed that at last she and Ivan could enjoy life.  By the mid-1980s both boys were married and Ivan and Danila had moved again to a large house in Rodney St, Ryde, a perfect place to pamper their grandchildren.

Later life

But Danila’s life changed in 1988 when she had a fall while at a Chatswood shopping centre.  She badly damaged her knee and was unable to walk for many months.  No sooner had she recovered from the effects of the fall when Danila was diagnosed with cancer.  She died in March 1990 after a long and painful battle with the disease.

Without Danila Ivan was a lost man.  He continued to keenly follow the property market and it was common to find him poring over the property ads in the newspaper for hours or attending auctions “for fun”.  Quite a few times Ivan would end up “accidently” buying a property, but his later purchases never proved to be as lucrative as those in the early years.  Different market conditions and tougher tax laws meant that the relatively easy profits he had enjoyed in the 1960s and 1970s were no longer available.

Ivan married a second time in 1992, to Nada Jereb.  He had been first diagnosed with prostate cancer in the mid-1980s but the disease did not seriously affect him until 1996.  His health steadily deteriorated from then.  Ivan died in August 1997.   The Maurice family has had no contact with Nada since Ivan’s death.

Coming a long way

In the forty-seven years since they had arrived in Australia Ivan and Danila had come a long way from Bonegilla and that first fish and chips shop.  Certainly Ivan was financially successful for a man with no more than third grade schooling, which he had gained in another country and another era.  And Ivan was rightly proud of what he and Danila had achieved for themselves and their boys in Australia.