Interview with Marcelline Basarab 1.1

Segment Synopsis: Maiden name: Myroslavka Budyk. She was born in Rama, Saskatchewan, in 1919 on January the 26th. She grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan and later moved to Winnipeg. Her parents got married in Canada, in Winnipeg; originally, they came from villages Kryven´ky and Kochubyntsi in Ukraine. Her husband has already passed away at the time of the interview. She moved to Manitoba before the war, around the 1930s.

Subjects: family farms; farms; names

Segment Synopsis: The interviewee attended a usual country school; there were eight classes. She had two brothers and four sisters. She identifies her ethnic origin as Ukrainian.

Subjects: families; schools

Segment Synopsis: The family lived on the farm. For breakfast, they used to eat porridge, muesli, eggs. Borshch was also a usual meal. For Christmas they made kutia, perogies, they also used to prepare perogies. The typical daily food which they produced on the farm was potatoes, cabbage, perogies, oats. They also had cattle (many cows) and chicken. There were many wild berries (raspberries, strawberries and other). In the store, they used to buy sugar, flour.

Subjects: Christmas; beef cattle; berries; breakfast; farms; meals

Segment Synopsis: They did not wear any unique clothing; many things were self-made (skirts, dresses, etc.). As a child, she was responsible for some kinds of work, like looking for chicken eggs, water. The brothers used to help their father on the farm. The mother was making the garden, went picking berries (later she prepared jellies out of them), they did various salads and also donated them.

Subjects: clothing; family farms; meals

Segment Synopsis: The house was white; they had many pictures of religious character on the walls.

Subjects: pictures; religion; walls

Segment Synopsis: There was a river close to their house. Once, the interviewee got lost as she was a child (around the age of ten) while looking for berries. The neighbour found her and returned to her mother.

Subjects: missing children; rivers

Segment Synopsis: The members of her family did embroidery. They attended the Ukrainian Catholic church named Dobrovody, went there every Sunday.
For Christmas, they prepared a turkey and kutia. People used to sing songs. They celebrated in January. For Easter, they made baskets which they took to the church; they also did pysanky.

Subjects: Christmas; Easter; Easter eggs; churches; crafts; embroidery; pysanky; singing

Segment Synopsis: Her father was very strict with going to the church; they went there every Sunday. It was about a two-hour walk.
For birthdays there were no cakes or presents. Dominion Day and Thanksgiving were not celebrated. Halloween was celebrated as children loved it. They used to sing on Easter and Christmas a lot (in Ukrainian). People used to tell diverse stories from the Old Country; some of them were even hard to believe.

Subjects: church services; holidays; national holidays; oral tradition; religious holidays; singing; walking