Name: Web of Stories, Page 4, Clip 9 - Peter Chitruk by Zembrzycki in According to Baba, Web of Stories, Page 4
Duration: 5 min 8 s
Description: Peter Chitruk talks about his mother’s bootlegging business and some of her run-ins with local police officers. Clip Length: 5:09

A Culture of Similarity: Getting Through the Depression as a Ukrainian Working-Class Family

While Sudbury’s Ukrainians were engaging in public confrontations to solidify their differences, they were also struggling to make ends meet in their private domestic spaces. The Depression was a common economic challenge, which cut across the community’s divisions. In order to survive, Ukrainian fathers and their sons assumed breadwinning roles while Ukrainian mothers and their daughters undertook those roles that were accorded to housewives. Significantly, mothers also became important financial providers, subsidizing the family economy by taking in boarders, bootlegging, gardening, and farming.

Baba’s memories about the 1930s serve as a window into understanding these roles and survival strategies. When her father’s shifts were cut back at the International Nickel Company’s Frood Mine, her mother tried to make ends meet through the family’s boarding business. Many of the boarders however could not pay their bills and so Baba’s family eventually lost their home and business because they were unable to make the monthly mortgage payment. Fortunately, Baba’s family had another home into which it could move. Other Ukrainian men and women had similar experiences. Whether they were Catholic, Orthodox, progressive, or nationalist, most, as this web of stories makes clear, went to great lengths to make ends meet during this period; this was a common immigrant challenge that was often made worse by the economic crash.

According to Baba, Web of Stories, Page 4

Baba recalls the Depression and the circumstances that her family faced during this period. Clip Length: 2:14

Web of Stories, Page 4, Clip 0 - Olga Zembrzycki

Nick Evanshen discusses his memories of growing up in a large boarding house. Clip Length: 1:17

Web of Stories, Page 4, Clip 1 - Nick Evanshen

William Semenuk remembers how a number of his father’s friends babysat him and his siblings after his mother died. Clip Length: 0:26

Web of Stories, Page 3, Clip 2 - William Semenuk

Vera Babuik (nee Havrachysky) remembers her parents trying to get relief and how they managed to make due during the Depression. Clip Length: 2:03

Web of Stories, Page 4, Clip 3 - Vera Babuik

Tom Zaitz recounts his family’s Depression-era experiences. Clip Length: 2:54

Web of Stories, Page 4, Clip 4 - Tom Zaitz

Peter Chitruk talks about his mother’s bootlegging business and some of her run-ins with local police officers. Clip Length: 5:09

Web of Stories, Page 4, Clip 9 - Peter Chitruk

Baba recounts her memories of the Chinese man who had a laundry business on this lot, remembering how she and her friends teased him.

Interviews                    

Memoryscape, Clip 20 - The Chinese Laundry

Baba recounts the Priemski family and the fundraising functions held in their boarding house for St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Church; the house was demolished and the lot is now empty.

Memoryscape, Clip 21 - The Priemski Boarding House

Baba remembers her interactions with the bank’s manager and his role in the community.

Memoryscape, Clip 22 - The Bank

Baba speaks about her childhood memories of this home, where she spent her childhood.

Memoryscape, Clip 24 - The House on Frood Road

Baba shares her memories of this lane, which is located behind the home in which she spent the bulk of her childhood.

Memoryscape, Clip 23 - The Back Lane

The Burke family used to live in this apartment building. Baba was close friends with Lorraine and Irene Burke and recounts her memories of playing with them in the neighbourhood.

Memoryscape, Clip 25 - The Burke Family

Before St. David’s Catholic school was built, this was an empty lot. Baba recounts the fun she and her friends and brothers had here. This is the last stop in the neighbourhood, if you are walking the route.

Memoryscape, Clip 26 - St. David's School

Stacey Zembrzycki was born and raised in Sudbury, Ontario, and currently resides in Montreal, Quebec, where she teaches in the Department of History and Classics at Dawson College. The granddaughter of two miners who came from Warsaw, Poland, and Mossey River, Manitoba, to work in Sudbury’s nickel mines in the postwar period, she spent the bulk of her childhood in their homes, listening to their stories but mostly those told by her grandmothers.

Web of Stories, Page 4, Clip 9 - Peter Chitruk

Zembrzycki

Related tracks