The Name
The name Soljak & Rosenfeldt is drawn from of one of my great-grandfather's
business ventures.
He left his home in Dalmatia, in the former Yugoslavia, in the early 1900s at the age of 14. Travelling with three brothers, Petar took passage on a fishing boat to Italy, then a steamer to New Zealand where the brothers joined many of their countrymen on the gumfields of Northland.
Although trained as a stonemason, Petar tried his hand at a number of enterprises and by 1910, he was in a partnership trading as Soljak & Rosenfeldt.
This business bought cut flax from Maori tribes in the Tauranga area and shipped it by steam launch to flax mills.
The launch, the Romp, was built in kauri by Robert Logan snr in the mid-1880s and has outlived both partners. Immaculately restored by the local harbourmaster, she is now moored in the Ngunguru River near my home in Northland.
Also still surviving are the family cottages in the former Yugoslavia, where my great-grandfather was born. Built from stone in 1791 and 1880, they still stand in the tiny village of Orah.