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were kind, helpful, and respectful people, both morally and financially. They demonstrated a steadfastness of purpose that inspires me to this day. They lived together for 55 years, celebrating their 50th anniversary in 1956. After a short illness, Wasyl died on Sunday August 6th, 1961 at the age of 74. Anna died on Sunday September 22, 1974 at the age of 85. She had planted her own garden in the spring of 1974.

    Mother standing in front of her Saskatoon home a short time before her death.

School!
    The story of my experiences at the one-room rural school was one of initiative, determination, achievement, difficulties, disappointments and, above all, courage. In March 1924, when I turned five years old, I entered grade 1 in Riel Dana School, a typical rural one-room schoolhouse, two miles from our farm. In the summer we walked to school. In winter, we travelled by horses hitched to a caboose. The horses were kept in a barn near the school house, and it was our brother Steve, a lover of horses, who hitched and unhitched them, and who took us to and from school.
    For my first day of school, my older sister, Jean, had made me a burgundy velvet dress embroidered with beads. That dress was the envy of all. Although the idea never entered my head, I think I must have been the cutest kid in the bunch!
    Mrs. Savella Stechishin was my grade 1 teacher. I loved her, and I loved my new life. In later years, Mrs. Stechishin enjoyed meeting with me socially, and she always praised me to her friends. I admired this gracious lady, and I believed in her life philosophy. When anyone asked her advice, she humbly said, “My goal always is to be my best, to embrace a healthy lifestyle, and to accept new challenges. Be positive and happy. Be your best today. Do I think older is better? Yes I do!” Mrs. Stechishin passed away recently. She published the famous cookbook, Traditional Ukrainian Cookery.
    My brothers and sisters and I would rush to finish our farm chores so that we could get to school and play before classes started. Our favorite game was softball, if we had a bat and if we could find a ball. In some schools, naughty students would take the globe and use it as a ball.
    Some teachers would suspend their globes near the ceiling as protection against being ‘borrowed’. In other one-room schools, mice enjoyed the glue used to make the globes and would nibble away at foreign lands and sections of ocean.
    Although I really wasn’t a serious athlete in school, I did like softball. Mary Scherban Lelach and I were the only two girls on the rural school championships baseball team. After school ended at 4 o’clock, we would often walk 6 miles to a neighbouring school, play the ball game, and walk back home sweaty and tired but happy.
    Another favorite game was called “Anti, Anti Over”. One group of kids would be on one side of the schoolhouse, and another group was positioned anxiously on the other side. Someone would throw the ball over the school roof, and you would try to catch it. Then the opposing side would rush over and try to take a prisoner. The group that had the most prisoners won. It was great fun, and it made you tough.

    The Rak School softball team in 1931 with me in the first row.
    We played hopscotch and marbles as well as skipping rope. At lunch time, we would conjure up pageants and pretend we were at a wedding. Someone played the bride, a groom and, of course, we would need a priest and bridesmaids. We had so little in the way of game equipment and props, or stories from the cinema to model, that we made the most of our imaginations. Remember, this was the era before electricity and television.
    I enjoyed school, liked my teachers, and was curious about the stories we read in library books. I learned to read, print, write and, eventually, to type. Little did I know at the time that it would become a valuable asset.
    I excelled in every subject—mathematics, history, science, geography, and social studies. I