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20 WWW.UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ТРАВЕНЬ 2016 Celebrating a Life On May 8 of this year, Teklya Husiak, a long-time member of UNWLA Branch 72, celebrated her 100th birthday with her children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and friends of all ages. Her family decided to honor their loving mother and grandmother by writing and sharing the centenarian’s life story. We join the family in congratulating Mrs. Husiak on this special occasion and on a life well lived. Teklya Husiak (nee Petryk) was born May 8, 1916 in Hammond, Indiana near Chicago, Illinois, the first of eight children born to Kathryn and Danylo Petryk. After WW I, the family (which now in- cluded two additional children) moved back to their hometown of Fedropil, near Peremyshl, which was part of Poland at the time. Between the 1920 and 1930 five additional children were born. The family owned a small farm with a single cow named 'Zosyia.' They lived in relative calm under Polish rule and prospered in the pre-WWII years. Between 1920 and 1937, Teklya and her sisters were members of Soyuz Ukrainok of Ukraine and also members of the Prosvita edu- cational society. With clouds of war on the hori- zon, Teklya and her two American born siblings, Elias and Olga, were able to emigrate back to the United States (Teklya in 1937, Elias and Olga in 1938), but only under the auspices of an American sponsor; the Great Depression was still lingering, and the three American-born sibling spoke no English. All three settled in New York City, be- came members of the St. George parish, and con- tinued their involvement in the Ukrainian Ameri- can community. Teklya became a member of UNWLA Branch 72. It was in NYC that she met her husband to be, John Husiak, a Ukrainian im- migrant from the village of Mostyska, which was not far from Teklya’s hometown of Fedropil. They married in 1943 while John was serving in the US Army. The couple settled in Brooklyn, New York, and ran a small plumbing and heating oil supply business after the war. Teklya lost contact with her parents and siblings during the war. Years later she discovered that they had all been arrested and deported to Siberia, victims of Stalin's brutal resettlement pol- icies. Her father perished in the labor camps in Siberia; most of the children were scattered throughout Siberia and the Soviet Union; only her mother and youngest sister, Stefa, were allowed to remain together. Life in America was kinder. In 1947, Teklya's first son Danylo was born. A second son, John, was born in 1948, and a third, Stephen, was born in 1951. Although the family lived in Brook- lyn, not in the hub of the Ukrainian community in the Lower East Side, they remained closely tied to the other Ukrainians through the Church, the Ukrainian Saturday school, the scouting organiza- tion Plast; they vacationed at Soyuzivka in the Catskill region of New York. In 1971, Teklya embarked on a trip to the Soviet Union to reunite with her surviving sib- lings: her brother Bohdan who had returned to Ukraine and lived near Lviv, her sister, Lesia who lived in Kherson, and her baby sister, Stefa who, after returning from Siberia, was allowed to reset- tle only in Crimea where she lives to this day, now sadly as a Russian citizen, a status forced upon her by the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014. It was while Teklya was on this reunion trip to the USSR in 1971 that her husband, John, only 62 years old, died in his sleep at their home in Brooklyn. It was a devastating blow, but Teklya survived and soldiered on, staying active within in family and community circles. Since 2001, Teklya has lived in the East Village community of New York City, near St. George's Church. Teklya is currently a Member at Large of the UNWLA. She attends the weekly bingo sessions hosted by the Ukrainian Samopomich Senior Citizens Center and enjoys spending time with her family: granddaughter Laryssa (daughter of Danylo who died in 2008); son Stephen and his son Michael; and son John and his wife Carole and their three children, Emily, Kathryn, and Elias.
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