Ukrainian Hand Embroidered Dress in Honor of My Babcha 

My Babcha was a spe­cial woman. Her sto­ry is quite remark­able and the lessons she taught me were even more so.  I only hope to be as strong as her and pass on her spir­it to others.

Aside from her wis­dom, her love of sewing was passed on to me. My babcha was an incred­i­ble seam­stress! She was self taught and used her skills as a seam­stress when she moved to America.

Before my babcha’s pass­ing in March (at the age of 93), I fin­ished my first Ukrain­ian embroi­dered dress. My babcha was very sick and it was uncer­tain whether she would make it to East­er. How­ev­er, she always want­ed to die on East­er and we all believed she would make it to East­er day. (There is a Ukri­an­ian myth that if you die on East­er, you go straight to heav­en.) But sad­ly she did­n’t make it or see the Ukrain­ian embroi­dered East­er dress. But I’m sure she got a glimpse of it up in heav­en!  (And I have no doubt that she is guid­ing me through my cur­rent projects!)

Dress is hand embroi­dered (took lots and lots of time to stitch)

Linen

Ful­ly Lined

Invis­i­ble Back Zipper

 

This is a compressed story of my babcha’s life (Written by my aunt but modified to be in my voice). 

My babcha, Katary­na, was born in 1920 in West­ern Ukraine.  Her father, pri­or to World War I, voy­aged to Amer­i­ca to work in the coal mines of Penn­syl­va­nia, while he built a home­stead  for his fam­i­ly in west­ern Ukraine. My babcha’s par­ents set­tled to rear eight daugh­ters, farm­ing and wood­carv­ing in that qui­et, pic­turesque vil­lage in the rolling foothills of the Carpathi­an Moun­tains. As a child, my babcha vowed nev­er to leave her home or her fam­i­ly. Lit­tle did she know of the adven­tures that lay ahead!

My babcha’s faith in God and her spir­it of self­less ser­vice were instilled ear­ly in her life. Ear­ly child­hood was a hap­py time for her. Those who knew her thought she was a bright and pre­co­cious child. Although her father had insisted

that his daugh­ters acquire an edu­ca­tion, his untime­ly death at the age of 46 brought those plans to an abrupt end. My babcha was nine years old. With­in the next year and a half, she lost her sis­ter, Rose, to tuber­cu­lo­sis and her sis­ter, Sophie, who suc­cumbed to a virus. With the addi­tion­al deaths of three nephews and a niece, life in the her fam­i­ly became very sad.

Her moth­er, unable to cope with all the tragedy, sent my babcha away to work as a com­pan­ion to a Ukrain­ian priest’s young daugh­ter, who was recov­er­ing from a spinal injury. As a companion/nursemaid, my babcha became endeared to the fam­i­ly. It was dur­ing this time, liv­ing on the church estate until the age of 19, and assum­ing more and more house­hold respon­si­bil­i­ty, that church became impor­tant to her.

When World War II broke out, my babcha found her­self liv­ing in one of the most tumul­tuous areas — the geo­graph­ic tri­an­gle con­sist­ing of Poland, Ukraine, and Czecho­slo­va­kia — with the Nazis to the west and the Sovi­ets to the east. At the begin­ning of the war, she was sent to a school for kinder­garten teach­ers where she excelled. Fol­low­ing her grad­u­a­tion, she man­aged a vil­lage pro­gram. How­ev­er, as the war inten­si­fied and the front moved to her town, there was more impor­tant work to do. The Ukrain­ian cler­gy were being exter­mi­nat­ed and the Ukrain­ian church­es and cul­ture were being destroyed. She spent the war years active­ly work­ing to help save the Ukrain­ian church and her her­itage. As a result, she was sen­tenced to ten years of hard labor by a Sovi­et war court, but, by mirac­u­lous cir­cum­stances, was retried and released. At that point, she fled on foot to a Czecho­slo­va­kian con­vent where the Sis­ters bought her a plane tick­et to Belgium.

In Bel­gium, my babcha met and mar­ried her hus­band (deceased since 1980); She gave birth to her first daugh­ter, my “Cha Cha Ola”, in France. As a dis­placed post­war fam­i­ly spon­sored by inter­na­tion­al relief, my babcha, her hus­band, and my aunt were wel­comed to the Unit­ed States by the radi­ance of New York Har­bor’s Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty on Christ­mas Eve, 1950. Their sole pos­ses­sions con­sist­ed of five dol­lars, a wick­er trunk of cloth­ing, and a radio. After liv­ing their first year on the east coast, the fam­i­ly moved to Flint, Michi­gan, seek­ing work at the rec­om­men­da­tion of dear friends. My Dee­do (grand­fa­ther) found work with Gen­er­al Motors; My babcha gave birth to two more daugh­ters, my Cha Cha Nusha and moth­er; and togeth­er, the fam­i­ly joined a com­mu­ni­ty of approx­i­mate­ly 50 dis­placed Ukrain­ian refugee fam­i­lies. In addi­tion to being a devot­ed moth­er, my babcha was a mas­ter seam­stress, sewing cloth­ing for many peo­ple in her com­mu­ni­ty. She also worked in the alter­ation depart­ments of Maas and Vogue stores.

It was dur­ing this time that my babcha’s long rela­tion­ship with the Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute of Flint began. She was per­pet­u­al­ly vol­un­teer­ing on myr­i­ad of com­mit­tees from the boom­ing post­war Flint inter­na­tion­al scene through the 1980s. High­light­ing that era was her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the inter­na­tion­al dance exhi­bi­tion, tele­cast from the IMA on Dave Gar­roway’s (t’s a Wide, Wide World and Flint’s cen­ten­ni­al parade. My babcha also was fea­tured annu­al­ly for her Ukrain­ian East­er egg (pysanky) workshops.

Whether bak­ing her tra­di­tion­al bread (pas­ka) and pas­tries, mak­ing pyro­hy, or sewing cos­tumes, my babcha was always lend­ing a hand to ensure that tra­di­tions were pre­served and hand­ed down to the next gen­er­a­tion, which, in her case, now includes eight grand­chil­dren and three great grand­chil­dren. Ever hard­work­ing, my babcha lived a fruit­ful life, while serv­ing her fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty, and coun­try. Her spir­it is still very present in the hearts of her daugh­ters and grandchildren.

I love you babcha <3