NEWS AND VIEWS: The Great Mohicans (10/03/04)

NEWS AND VIEWS

The Great Mohicans

by Lida Chopivsky-Benson

August 26 marked the one-year anniversary of the passing from this world of our Mother and "Musi Baba," Sophia Klepachivsky Chopivsky. In thinking about her, I began to reflect with great respect on that entire generation of Ukrainian immigrants.

During their time on earth, this generation, these "Great Mohicans" arrived in this country where freedom, human rights and prosperity are on a very high level, but that didn't satisfy them. They wanted their children and grandchildren to know their roots, know about the homeland their grandparents loved above all else and for whom they, with all their youthful strength and energy, jumped at the chance to serve and defend their Ukraina. Even though our Mama and these Mohicans never lived in their beloved Ukraine, they taught us a love for her, taught us to hold true to her and to our 1,000-year-old faith. There are now so few of these soulful Mohicans left.

During the late 1940s when they sailed through the English Channel, our parents had no idea what the future would hold for them. They worked tirelessly so that their children could have the best of everything. They weren't afraid to roll up their sleeves and put in an honest day's work at whatever job they could get.

The education of their children was a priority. This education included not only degrees from the nation's finest universities, but they also wanted to instill in us a love of our Ukrainian culture, our faith and our Ukraine. They lived in between one world and another. They were DPs connected heart and soul with the previous generation and the Old World, but wanting their children to be equals in education and profession with peers of the country in which they live.

We, their children, were born in this great United States, but our Musi, like the rest of her generation, strived to convince us, to implant in us that we are of Ukrainian stock, that we come from a faraway and precious Ukrainian land. Our Musi trembled and prayed to God that her children and grandchildren would be proud that they are Ukrainian Americans.

Let us all take their loyalty and pride as an example of how we should live, for that is the greatest homage we can give this great generation of Mohicans.

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