REFLECTIONS: Remembering Uncle Slawko - Jaroslaw Opyriuk (06/26/05)

REFLECTIONS: Remembering Uncle Slawko - Jaroslaw Opyriuk

by Lubomyr and Nadia Luciuk

He was a shy man, a quiet man, or so we had come to accept. Yet, as we sifted through his papers, long secreted away in an old cookie tin, much that we had not known about him was exposed. In many respects the path of his life paralleled the history of his homeland, 20th century Ukraine.

Jaroslaw Opyriuk, or "Uncle Slawko," as we always called him, was born in a small village, Volosiv, now western Ukraine but then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He never knew his father, Wasyl, a soldier lost in the Great War. His widowed mother, Ustina (Bagaliuk), was left in desperate straits. Thankfully the two Zakh sisters, daughters of a wealthy landowner, Czechs by nationality, accepted Jaroslaw as their own, providing him with a somewhat pampered life, and his mother with work and shelter.

Ustina later became Petro Luciuk's wife, and Jaroslaw was joined by a half-brother, Roman and half-sister, Paraskevia. It was in the inter-war period that he also came to know our father, Danylo, the start of a lifelong friendship that would endure a second world war, exile and resettlement, carrying on to the very last day of Slawko's life.

His privileged position secured Slawko a better education than the norm. He became an accountant, with a cultivated taste for literature, classical music and poetry, which he also wrote. He rose to a position of administrative responsibility within the Ukrainian cooperative movement and remained working for the betterment of his people under the Polish, Soviet and Nazi occupations.

Escaping westward in 1944, when it became clear that Ukraine would again fall under the Communist yoke, he and Danylo found asylum in the Freiman Kasserne Displaced Persons Camp, just north of Munich. There he took an active role in cultural life, foreshadowed by his having earlier starred as Taras Bulba in a theatrical rendition of Mykola Hohol's famous work about the Kozak chieftain.

In 1949 Slawko was selected for emigration to Canada, officially identified as a lumber camp worker. It is doubtful he would have fared well in northern Ontario's forests. Luckily our mother, Maria, intervened with her supervisor at Kingston's Hotel Dieu Hospital, Sister Elizabeth Rouble, and secured a kitchen job for "Jerry," as he was known to staff there. He would work at the Dieu for the next three decades, eventually becoming chef. The certificate of appreciation he received on retirement became one of his most cherished documents, carefully preserved. That several of the nursing sisters he knew, decades ago, attended his funeral to bid their good-byes was one reminder of how appreciated he had been. Some of our earliest memories are of playing in the hospital's basement, being treated to still-warm apple pie, a perk of having our "Uncle Slawko" in charge of the ovens.

Although he became somewhat reclusive in later life, Slawko remained committed to all things Ukrainian - particularly the arts, the Ukrainian Catholic Church and various charitable and educational foundations.

His generosity helped sustain Lubomyr during his doctoral research. When the resulting book appeared, exploring the post-war refugee community's struggle for Ukrainian independence, Slawko was delighted for, always a voracious reader, this tome treated a topic close to his heart. He kept himself informed, continuing to read even after he had to be taken to Kingston General Hospital.

Slawko died peacefully, having witnessed the Orange Revolution herald a real chance for democracy in Ukraine. Buried in Canadian soil, he was also covered with a handful of earth brought from Volosiv. And so he rests in peace, having served the country that gave him shelter while staying true to the land of his ancestors.

Meanwhile, we secure comfort from the words that a nurse caring for him spoke on the very evening he died. She said she appreciated how very gentle and good our Slawko was, all the more remarkable given the many hardships he faced over his long life.

Indeed, his course was much like Ukraine's. Both endured and so both are finally free.

Lubomyr and Nadia Luciuk are Slawko Opyriuk's nephew and niece.

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