LYNDA'S CORNER - CHWEDCHUK

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(Son) Daniel (Daniil) Chwedchuk (1876-1949), b. STARA STRELNA, BELORUSSIA, d. SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS, and Catherine (Ekaterina) Woytowich (-1921), b. probably STARA STRELNA, BELORUSSIA
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1930s

SOURCE

Shirley Ribble

PARTICULARS

Full Name: Anton Chwedchuk
Address: Springside, Saskatchewan, Canada
Trade of Occupation:
Place and Date of Birth (When Known):
Subject
Citizen
Of: Strelmo
Married Single Widower (Widow): Married
Name of Wife:
Parents
Subjects
Citizens
Of:
Age:
Years:
Height Feet: Inches:
Colour:
Complexion:
Colour of Eyes: Blue
Colour of Hair: Brown
Visible Distinguishing Marks: None

NAMES OF MINOR CHILDREN

NAME DATE OF BIRTH PLACE OF BIRTH

Leonard Chwedchuk Feb. 19, 1923 Strelno, Grodno, Poland
Lydia Chwedchuk June 29, 1926 Strelno, Grodno, Poland

August 25, 1986 of a copy of the original 1930s Canada Citizenship Registration Certificate

Note: The birth dates for both children are incorrect. Correct dates are:
Leonard: February 10, 1923
Lydia: July 10, 1926

1931

Work Card
Anton Chwedchuk
Springside Sask
Usual Occupation: Section Hand & Telegraph operator
Length of Residence: 2 Years
Date Registered: September 15, 1931

Chwedchuk, Anton, Poland (Country), Labourer (Occupation), Springside , Sask (Residence)
Chwedchuk, Leonard, Minor child
Chwedchuk, Lydia, Minor child

OUR PARENTS BUY A FARM

Mother [of Leonid or Leonard (Leonia) Chwedchuk (February 10, 1923-September 26, 1999)] was anxious for us to have a place of our own for the following summer, where there would be space and buildings for a farming operation large enough to keep her and father busy in their retirement years. So father searched, and that winter found a 30 acre property with a house and a couple of sheds near 3A Highway north of Welland. The price was about $3000.00, but with no money for a down payment, father could not get financing from any bank. However, he met John Sidak, a fellow Ukrainian who was prepared to take a chance on getting his money back. He charged 6 % interest, which was quite high in those days. The agreement was duly signed on April 1, 1941, and we moved in shortly after the tenant, a Frenchman named Eli Beaudoin, had found a new residence for his family.

The farmhouse was a three-bedroom, one and a half storey wooden clapboard structure built in 1916, with no insulation in the walls nor in the ceiling, heated by an old oil furnace in the basement that provided hot water heating to radiators in each room. It was later converted to gas. There was a bathroom with a tub, which was supplemented with a shower head soon after we moved in , so that father could clean up the grime and sweat more easily after coming home from work. Two of the bedrooms opened directly to the kitchen, but the third one was located beyond the dining room which was on the far side of the living room, in series fashion. The attic was unfinished, and was therefore suitable only for storage. There was also an 80 foot deep drilled well with good water, and a concrete cistern which collected soft rain-water from the roof We had electricity to light each room, a telephone, pumps to provide hard and soft water pressure and another one to drain the sump well.

An old, concrete-block septic tank looked after the waste discharge, but the tile bed was too low to handle the effluent in the spring when a near-by creek overflowed its banks and prevented proper drainage. That septic system was to give us many headaches in the years to come. Beyond the house was a garage and some tumble-down poultry sheds, and beyond that, half a dozen very old apple trees which had long ago passed their prime productive years. A dozen or so rows of blue grapes had been abandoned for many years at the west end of the property, and the creek cut off about ten acres from the rest of the farm. Near the vineyard, an acre or so of land had been stripped of topsoil by the previous owner or tenant, and the ten acres on the far side of the creek might also have received similar treatment, for the soil looked poor compared to that of a neighbor beyond the fence, and never produced a decent crop ...

As expected, mother had turkeys on her mind before we were even unpacked, and ordered a hundred or so poults from a turkey farmer in the district. That put pressure on father to start repairs to one of the poultry sheds immediately, find and buy an old car for hauling feed and for driving to work, and arrange for a contract with Purina Feeds to supply feed on credit until the turkeys could be sold between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Unfortunately, the young poults again had to be kept indoors for a month or so, and occupied the living room beyond the dining room. Poor Lydia was assigned to the bedroom beyond that, and had to make her way past the poults ( they were kept within a confined space by a round, corrugated cardboard enclosure ) to get to the living quarters and the bathroom. She was not a bit amused.

The poultry sheds were eventually repaired, and frames with wire mesh floors were built inside so that the droppings would fall through and the turkeys would be less likely to catch some disease. The wire floors were set about three feet above ground level to permit the droppings to be cleaned out periodically. As the birds grew bigger, similar, larger wire-mesh frames on posts were built for them outside, with tin-covered roofs to provide protection against the weather. Father bought an old horse and plow, and plowed up a few acres where we planted some corn, using a hand and foot- operated planter which had separate compartments for the corn kernels and the fertilizer. The task of trimming and re-stringing the old grape vines on to their supporting wires was left to me that spring, but the following year we decided to discontinue the vineyard and plowed it under ...

Leonard Chwedchuk, From Revolution to Depression (Memoirs of an immigrant family from Eastern Europe arriving in Canada in 1930) (Ottawa, January, 1999), pp. 90-91.

1961