When Wolodymyr and Jaroslawa Smilyj came through Germany to America with their sons Wasyl and Iwan, settling in the truck-gardening town of Parsnip, New Jersey, there was some disagreement about the spelling of their names. Wasyl insisted on the German spelling Smilyj, which he said corresponded to the international system of transliteration, even though some Americans pronounced it “Smillidge.” In fact, even some Ukrainians began to tease him about it, calling him “Mr. Smillidge.” As for Iwan – as soon as he was old enough, he changed his name to John Smiley.
They were bright boys, worked hard, and both got into Harvard College. John rowed with the Crimson heavyweights, joined the Porcellians, and went on to law school. He made law review and clerked with the Wall Street firm of Thayer, Wickersham and Postlethwaite, where he landed a partnership-track position. Wasyl majored in Slavic philology and, lacking the funds for graduate study, returned to Parsnip. There he worked managing the post office, which had become notorious for its inability to deliver weekly newspapers on time.
An astute and handsome fellow, John Smiley married a daughter of one of the firm’s partners, Bunny, and soon had three sons – Eliot, Lowell and Leverett. The Smilies sent their children to upscale tennis camps (Plast didn’t meet their standards). Although John occasionally took them to the local Ukrainian church, soon the pressing demands of soccer, rugby and lacrosse elbowed out the long, boring and incomprehensible services. Later, John and Bunny moved to Silicon Valley, where John developed Thayer, Wickersham’s California corporate practice. As the boys were off to Exeter, Andover, and Choate, John and Bunny could enjoy a box at the opera, season’s tickets for theater and ballet, winter vacations at their Tahoe cabin, and summer weekends at Bohemian Grove. Eliot grew up to be a corporate lawyer like his father, while Lowell and Leverett became a financier and a neurosurgeon, respectively.
Back in Parsnip, Wasyl was active in his community. He sang in the church choir and organized Plast. When it came time to marry, he made it known that he was looking for a Ukrainian wife characterized by intelligence, virtue and beauty. As he later explained it, he could find many candidates with one of these traits, and several with two of them, but none with all three. At the same time, he was not exactly the most eligible bachelor around, being neither a doctor, nor a lawyer, nor an engineer. So he stayed single.
Work at the Parsnip Post Office was not demanding. This gave “Mr. Smillidge” time for politics. He organized a committee for the defense of Soviet political prisoners, and wrote scores of letters to the editor of the Parsnip Prognosticator, a few of which were actually published. But The New York Times did not even respond to his offers of an op-ed. He spent hours at Aristotle’s Diner vainly trying to convince the village Marxist of the justice of the Ukrainian cause. He signed up for chartered bus trips to New York to demonstrate in front of the Soviet Mission to the United Nations, and to Washington to picket their Embassy. He made sure the Parsnip City Council issued a declaration on Ukrainian Independence every January 22, and manned the Ukrainian booth at the Parsnip Salad Days Summer Festival. When Wasyl was invited to speak about Ukraine at the local Moose club, the members were so impressed that they urged him to contact the folks at the State Department. But for some reason the Ukrainian American organizations in the big city declined to sponsor him.
When Ukraine declared independence, John and Wasyl were elated, and shared their enthusiasm in a long telephone conversation. Both wanted to do something for Ukraine. But when it came to specifics, Wasyl was at a loss. What, after all, can you do with a degree in Slavic philology to help Ukraine? Sure, he knew the language, but anyone with a passing knowledge of Russian could communicate more easily with the Ukrainians than someone who talked like they did in Zhydachiv in 1939. John, on the other hand, was soon invited to consult with the Ukrainian ministries of Justice and Finance, as well as the World Bank. He took a sabbatical and spent several months in Kyiv advising the government on mergers and acquisitions.
Wasyl continued his community activity, teaching at the local Ukrainian Saturday school. As a visiting freeholder remarked, “It’s gratifying to know that Parsnip’s future police officers and firefighters, insurance salesmen and real estate brokers will have an appreciation of Ukrainian history and literature.” But after 40 years of devoted service, Wasyl was replaced by a recent immigrant from Ukraine who spoke standard literary Ukrainian. The New York Times continued to snub his op-eds, and he tired of writing them. He sold his house and moved to the Parsnip Pastures Retirement Community. Gradually he lost touch with the Ukrainian world. When he died several years later, someone wrote an obituary for The Ukrainian Weekly recognizing his contributions to community life. Although his nephews recycled his vast archive of lecture notes and newspaper clippings, his name lives on in the files of the Parsnip Prognosticator.
When John Smiley died of a heart attack while helicopter skiing in the Andes, he left a family trust which ensured that each of his seven grandchildren could live in comfort while pursuing careers as artists, writers, musicians, scholars, or pot-smoking non-entities. (That three of them chose the latter course was no reflection on his grandparenting skills.) The other half of his fortune, however, poured over into a charitable trust that provided annual scholarships for students from Ukraine to study at American universities.
Is Wasyl Smilyj or John Smiley a better role model for Ukrainian Americans? Perhaps the question is not meaningful. Both types contribute to the Ukrainian cause. Besides, we do not control our fate, and our destinies only rarely resemble our dreams.