I was digging through my cabinet of various paperwork and all the way on the bottom I found an old journal. I was very into journalism and writing when I was younger. I actually wanted to be a journalist, among my other crazy dreams, (that quickly passed) when I grew up. This journal was from 2006. I was flipping through, and I see how curious and passionate I was about Christ. It made me smile to remember the past, it was so much easier then..but that's a whole other topic!
I stumbled across a very interesting title "Family Stories" and a flood of memories hit me! I remembered being inspired to interview and ask my grandma questions about our family. Before my grandma Maria married Volodya Poplavskiy she was a Masimchuk and this is about her mother and herself..(this is written from my point of view)
1920s "My great grandma was only 5 years old when both of her parents died. She was the youngest of all her brothers, and she was the only girl. The oldest brother understood that his siblings would die if they didn't find a family. So one day he loaded all of his brothers and one sister into a wagon and pushed it through town so hopefully people would take the kids. My great grandma was not fortunate, very mean and bad people took her into their home. At the age of 6 she would get up way earlier than the whole family and took care of the cows. She took them out and watched over them, milked them, washed them, fed them and brought them back in. then she would finally eat and this was around 7pm. The people were very cruel, they made her labor at such a young age, starved her, and never loved her. At age 15 she met my great grandfather Roman Masimchuk, they fell in love and got married and he rescued her from the evil people. For her wedding all they gave her was a poorly sewn plain skirt. After 10 years of labor and serving her, they didn't repay her kindly."
"When she married Roman she was so happy. They had 7 kids in all. The two older girls died from "tif" at ages 16. My grandma Mariya was the youngest (she was born in the 1940s). She went through hunger and persecution throughout her life but God and her parents were with her always. During times of famine they had two cows where they would get cheese and milk and butter from. And they never starved to death. My grandmas job at about age 5 or 6 was to go out and beg for food on the streets. And also to find any kind of food for the family like potato peelings."
"In 1940 Roman went to America and lived there for 4 years. Just before World War II began he wanted to bring the family over to America. He had tickets and was ready but the Soviet gates closed and they couldn't leave Ukraine. Roman worked on the "jeleznaya doroga" and was not sent to fight in the war.
During WWII some Ukrainians killed a Nazi soldier and the Nazis stormed into town ready to get revenge. Their plan was to kill everyone. They took people our of their homes and lined them up, young to old. My grandma's house was next. The Nazis had already dug a huge hole to bury the townspeople in. Meanwhile all the Christian's were praying to God and crying out for mercy. Our God being a merciful God saved them and He did it through a German Nazi woman. She lived in the town and when she saw what the Nazis were doing she came and talked to them and changed their minds. The Nazis left and didn't kill anyone."
I encourage you to talk to your grandmas and grandpas about their lives so you can truly appreciate you family history and so you can then pass it on.
I will find a picture of my great grandparents and upload it later :)
