Interview with Mary Picklyk 1.1

Segment Synopsis: The interviewee was born in Wide, Manitoba, in October 1927 and grew up 70 miles Southeast from Winnipeg. Both parents were born in Manitoba. The grandparents from the fathers' side came from Chernivtsi in Ukraine (Hrynyk was their name), and the mother's parents came from the Kyiv area (village Duplyshchy). Her parents were both born in Wide, Manitoba. Mrs. Picklyk's husband was born there; at the time of the interview, he had already passed away. Earlier, they also lived in Ontario; it was in 1958-1965.

Subjects: family histories; immigration

Segment Synopsis: She finished grade 10 of high school but could not afford to continue education. Mrs. Picklyk earlier worked at the Hudson's Bay in sales and modelling departments. She and her husband were involved in musical activities. She played the violin for 25 years. Her husband was a musician and used to accompany him to various Ukrainian cultural events.

Subjects: education; events; high schools; music; violins; work

Segment Synopsis: There were five children in the family. One of her sisters had poliomyelitis, the family was poor. They used to grow vegetables and did a lot of gardening. The interviewee identifies herself as a Canadian and a Ukrainian. Most of her family were all from Bukovyna.

Subjects: disease transmission; ethnic identity; farming; gardening

Segment Synopsis: The usual food was porridge. They also ate berries they collected. Borshch, canned chicken meat, fish were typical. They never ate beef earlier. Freezers were not available, so they tried to preserve food: canning, drying and were keeping the foods in the cellar. On Christmas, they prepared perky, kutia, honey, holubtsi, borshch, fruits (apples, dried raisins and other dried fruits). On their farm they produced wheat and buckwheat. Also, they kept ten cows for milk. Canning foods were trendy and convenient. In the store, they used to buy salt and sugar and coffee.

Subjects: Christmas; buckwheat; canning jars; cow milk; cows; ethnic foods; grain elevators; wheat

Segment Synopsis: Skirts, blouses (which the mother used to sew) were the usual clothes. They lived the small towns of Caliente, MB and Vita, MB, and their mother used to buy cotton cloth in the local shop and then she would sew the blouses. As a child, the interviewee was responsible for chickens, helping with milking the cows and separating the milk.
Memories of her sisters.
Her father had a lot of work to do with grain. Later he became very sick, and the family needed to apply for welfare in the early thirties. Then he got well and got a new job. The mother used to bake, cook, sew, do gardening. She used to make wedding cakes as well. They made their butter and never needed to buy it; in the forties, they started selling cream.

Subjects: cakes; clothing; illness; labor (work); sewing; social welfare

Segment Synopsis: The family of her father was Orthodox; the family of her mother was Catholic. Memories on Christmas. Her father used to go caroling. The Christmas Eve dinner contained kutia, borshch, holubtsi.
They all used to sing carols. For Easter, they used to prepare pysanky. On Easter Monday, they used to do "ulyvannia"-to pour the water on the neck saying "Khrystos Voskres" and were giving Easter eggs. Usually, the boys were doing it to girls.
They celebrated birthdays, used to prepare a cake and do a small party with small gifts if they could afford it. Dominion Day was not celebrated. Thanksgiving was celebrated; they used to prepare a turkey. The children loved Halloween, but their family did not appreciate it a lot. New Years and Malanka (on 13th) were celebrated. Ukrainian Christmas was celebrated on January 14th.
The interviewee shares her memories of one Malanka play she participated in the 70s in Dauphin in the community hall. She and her husband were playing music in that performance.

Subjects: Christmas; celebrations; ethnic foods; holidays; religion