This post is in response to the ActiveRain March Challenge: Sharing The Gift of Who You Are, thanks to Patricia Feager and Lew Corcoran.
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I am second generation American. My grandparents on both sides of my family came to America in the early 1900’s from Ukraine. They migrated because life was very hard back there, and I grew up hearing stories of how they settled in and raised my parents in and around the Philadelphia area.
My father’s parents moved around a bit after they were married. My grandfather would purchase farms at auction. He would sell things from his farms in the city, as a huckster, using a horse and wagon as transport his goods for sale. His last farm was in Atco NJ, a 40 acres farm, which had a blueberry patch and various other crops, and some livestock. My grandmother worked as a cleaning person for many years to help, then did some small garden work after my grandfather died. Both were hard workers to the end.
My mother’s parents ended up in Conshohocken, where the Blue Route is now located, on a farm where they had eleven children. My grandfather worked in the coal mines in northern Pennsylvania so he was gone for long stretches leaving the working of the farm and raising my aunts and uncles to my grandmother. She was also a runner for a bootlegger during prohibition.
All of my grandparents were hard workers, all carried on their Ukrainian traditions and foods throughout their lives which was passed down to my parents and down to me. I still make many Ukrainian dishes because I crave them and they keep me connected to my roots. Over the years I have been inspired to make pysanky, decorations on eggs with beeswax and dyes, and to keep creating Ukrainian embroidered pieces.
Upon reflection, I still feel my Ukrainian heritage within me that was passed down to me, thanks to my grandparents and my parents. And I continue to honor this fact by the foods I crave and make throughout the year, and the craft work that still makes its way from my heart and through my hands.
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