Carl (in early years ‘Karl’) Frederick Reppun was the son of Frederick William and Fredericka (Koene) Reppun. He was well traveled in Europe and appeared to enjoy an outdoor life with many activities such as riding, skiing, hiking and sailing. He became a doctor. In 1911, he married Emily Jane Lewis of Llein, Wales, in London, England. In 1913, he had several career options: he could have become an apprentice to a Moscow surgeon or he could have chosen offers to set up a practice of medicine in Archangel (within the Arctic Circle), or in Irkutsk on Lake Baikal in far-eastern Siberia. He chose to be the only physician in the Siberian mining or steel mill town of Tirljian.
At the outbreak of World War I, Dr. Reppun was practicing medicine as a mining company doctor in the village of Tirljia. Being a Russian subject, he was mobilized into the Czar’s army, but remained in Tirljian as the head of the hospital, converted into a military one for the care of the wounded shipped back from the front. Later, the family reviewed options as to where to re-locate. They considered Japan, China and the Philippines, along with Hawaii; they opted to try Hawai‘i. In mid-1920, the Reppun family finally evacuated Russia aboard the last ship taking American personnel to Tsurugu, Japan. On July 4, 1920, they sailed on the Army Transport “Buford” for Honolulu, and stayed there. He died on June 7, 1940, at The Queen’s Hospital, at the age of 57. The Reppuns had three sons: ‘Frederick’ and Eric, born in Russia, and Arthur, born in Hawaii in 1921.)
