Katrina Ewanishan Yurko

"Kay: A Story 85 Years in the Making"

I always wondered what would be the one word to best describe my mother. It was a challenge to put it mildly, but the only one that really fit was "unique." Everything about her personality, cooking and even her golf game was her own. (The sentiment is sincere. I'm seriously not bucking for a "daughter of the year" prize.) All my life, I've been a history buff whether it was Russian, American or Sports. I decided to tailor my birthday present to commemorate her history through personal memories and part historical detective. Here's the story of Catherine Yurko, part facts and everything else.

The Early Years

In my opinion, a person's birthday was considered a special day, and my mother's was no exception. She was born on July 21, 1925 as Katarzyna Iwaniszyn (Catherine Ewanishan) in Nowosiolki, Poland not far from the Ukrainian border. Katarzyna was the third child of Szymon Iwaniszyn (Samuel Ewanishan) and Tacjanna Kuzio (Tatiana Ewanishan). In search of a better life, the Iwaniszyns made the decision to emigrate to Canada. On June 8, 1928, my grandfather was the first family member to arrive in Quebec City after sailing on the Duchess of Bedford from Liverpool, England. After a cross country train trip to Edmonton, he ultimately settled in Hairy Hill, Alberta.

Due to high travel costs, the rest of the family had to emigrate to Canada over an extended period of time. The next ones to make the journey were my grandmother and my uncle Jaroslaw Iwaniszyn (Larry Ewanishan), who got to travel for free because he was only a baby. Even though a year had passed, they managed to travel the same exact route my grandfather took from Warsaw, Poland on the Montrose through Southampton, England that concluded in Montreal on July 5, 1929. The following year my grandmother worked in the fields in order to arrange a similar trip for my mother, her brothers Wlodmiers Iwaniszyn (Walter Ewanishan), Semko Iwaniszyn (Samuel Ewanishan) and an uncle Semen Kuzio to join the family. They all arrived in St. John, New Brunswick on 4/21/1930, which included changing trains in Montreal in order to join the rest of the family in Hairy Hill.

While in Hairy Hill, the Ewanishan clan worked to settle down in their new surroundings. Some new additions were added in the process. First, a sister Anne was born in 1930, but she had unfortunately died of an infection six weeks later. My mother's younger brother Nick was born in 1932 and her sister Olga followed two years later. Besides the arrival of new siblings, she had to adjust to a new school in Hairy Hill where she only spoke Ukrainian. In addition to a language barrier, my mother was born with two dislocated hips which provided physical challenges as well. In search of better opportunities the family decided to relocate to Two Hills, Alberta in 1936 where things started to change for the Ewanishans for the better, especially my mother.

She managed to blossom from a girl struck by circumstance to a fearless individual who could tackle anything.

Life Lessons

After she moved to Two Hills, my mother started to find her own identity through education, outside interests and developed her personal beliefs. In June 1939, she had her first surgery to make her leg longer in an effort to relieve some of the constant physical discomfort she endured. During her six week hospital stay, my mother had the opportunity to meet the Queen of England who was visiting Edmonton. She felt very fortunate versus a number of children who would never walk. This hospitalization made Mom realize as bad as she had it, there were others worse off than her. (A phrase that she used to help give her children a better perspective about how some problems weren't that important in the grand scheme of things.)

Even with the physical pain, Mom was a top notch softball catcher playing for the town of Two Hills. This physical prowess would certainly help later in life. She worked very hard in school taking and passing the government exams to attend high school. Mom attended Alberta Business College for a year. Mom paid for a business college by grading eggs which was difficult for someone born with dislocated hips. After graduation, Mom got a secretarial job at Burns and Company. On February 13, 1945, she had her first day of work expecting only a paycheck. What my mother also gained was a lifetime friend, and eventual sister-in-law, in Mary Paul. Mary's friendship was a constant companion to my mother over the years that sustained just about anything until her death last year.

Love, Marriage and Everything Else

I'm sure that many children tend to overlook that their parents had lives of their own before they came into the picture. Instead of glazing over it, I decided to examine how Catherine Ewanishan and Michael Yurko became "Kay and Mike." They managed to find each other through a war where the odds weren't always so clear.

During the course of World War II, romance was often put on the backburner while soldiers went off to fight in the war. Love was definitely a factor for my parents, but time was definitely a factor with the war happening. On March 17, 1945, my mother became engaged to my father and ended up marrying him a week later just before he deployed to England to serve in the Royal Canadian Air Force. While my father fulfilled his duty overseas, she continued to work at Burns and Company as she awaited his return from the war.

After the war ended, my dad attended the University of Alberta getting his undergraduate engineering degree and where he started married life with my mother. While they lived in Edmonton, my sisters Donna (May 10, 1947) and Janice (December 6, 1948) expanded the household. Our Family relocated to Montreal where my father earned his Masters degree in Engineering Physics in 1951 from McGill University. While my father attended school, she took care of their growing family that included my brother Allen's arrival on September 25, 1951. Mom raised three kids with a small government stipend by stretching limited available funds. This included making clothes for the children and darning socks that seem to last forever. She was a crucial factor in making sure my father studied by providing her famous bran muffins for the study group. Another move happened when our family went to Ottawa, while my father worked for the government. There were two additions to the family with the birth of my brother Richard on October 30, 1953 and my birth on December 11, 1954. To her credit, my mother kept the house running very efficiently for a year while my father was working in the United States coming home on weekends.

After that year, my family decided it was better to immigrate to the United States so that we could be together every day. On July 7, 1960, our family came into the United States through Ogdensburg, New York before settling in Hastings on Hudson, New York. A year later, we relocated again to Levittown, New Jersey, which was later changed to Willingboro, New Jersey. It was there my parents were blessed with a surprise in the form of a sixth child when my younger sister Linda was born on June 20, 1963. Our family had often joked that she'd be the only one of us who could become President of the United States. (Could you imagine a Yurko in the White House? The possibilities are endless.)

When my father started his own electronics business, my mother and all of the older children contributed their blood, sweat and everything else to help the company succeed. With his company doing so well and Mom's insistence about the importance of a college education for all of her children, all six children earned college degrees. There was the opportunity to build a house on 80 acres in Hainesport, New Jersey. My folks were able to purchase a second home in Orlando, Florida where they could enjoy the game of golf anytime they wanted. My mother proved to be quite the golfer, even though she got into it later than my father did. She managed to get a hole in one when she played on the charger course at Bay Hill. She also won the Club championship at Bay Hill at the age of 80. Later, my mother won the championship for the nine-holers.

Over the years, my mother has dealt with countless physical and mental challenges. There have been four hip replacement surgeries, a few mini-strokes, gall bladder surgery, blood pressure problems and rotator cuff problems to name a few. Unfortunately, Cancer has one of the many obstacles that struck our family, which culminated with the death of my father in 1994. My mother also had to deal with how heart disease and cancer affected five of her six children. Luckily, we've proved that we're survivors like her and can beat anything thrown our way.

Despite all the health problems, the good times have definitely outweighed the bad ones. Graduations, weddings and births of six children, twelve grandchildren and six great-grandchildren are very special milestones in our family history. Writing this story has been a special way to salute the women who was instrumental in shaping us all. It will be very special to be able to acknowledge my mother in Maine on her 85th birthday for all she has done for us.