Ancestors
I have been connecting with my female ancestors lately. I did a Family Constellations/Ancestral Healing workshop in January 2024 (https://familyconstellations-usa.com/about-us ). It was intense and emotional and challenging….but I connected beyond my mom and Grandmother. I felt the struggle and hardship of my ancestral line. I vowed to live MY life to the fullest and to enjoy the resources and leisure that my female ancestors never had.
My Mother’s family was Rusyn and lived in the Carpathian Mountains. They both emmigrated away at the very beginning of WW1. My Djidji (Grandfather) lived in what is now called Habura, Slovakia. My Baba (Grandmother) lived in what is now Velyky Berezni, Ukraine. It was all part of the Austro-Hungarian empire back then.
The Tsar Ferdinand was shot in Croatia in 1914 and Germany invaded Poland. Habura, Slovakia sits in a mountain pass that has been used for eons as a trade route connecting the Black Sea with the Baltic Sea. As the Germans were coming over the pass and approaching DjiDji’s village, they learned that all young men were either being conscripted to the German army or they were shot. The 6 brothers all escaped in the back of a hay wagon. Three ended up in New York, including my Djidji who was 14 years old and 3 found passage to Brazil. One daughter stayed behind. I got to visit with her descendants and learn the stories on my 50th birthday “Back to the homeland” trip.
My Djidji worked in the coal mines in Pennsylvania and then moved up to the labor gang in the open hearth in steel mills. He never learned to speak English although he did become a US citizen. I remember helping him study for his citizenship test. He memorized all of the answers in English word for word….but never had a conversation in English.
Baba’s family lived in Velyky Berezni, Ukraine. They were Rusyn and spoke Rusyn language. My Baba’s Mother crossed the aisle and married a Hungarian - Janosh Fussazari. He was a Magistrate for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I don’t know the name of my Great Grandmother so I will call her Anna. I’m searching through old family papers to discover her name.
Anna did the unthinkable and went outside her religion and culture and fell in love with the handsome government official. Anna’s family was Byzantine Catholic (Greek Catholic) and Janosh, being Hungarian, was Roman Catholic. When I did my “Back to the Homeland” tour and visited the villages, I found that Anna was buried in an unkempt Greek Catholic cemetery and Janosh was buried in the pristine Roman Catholic cemetery.
Then Anna again made a bold move. She sent her youngest daughter, Julilana to America when the war started. For a peasant family in that area, saving up for passage to America was almost insurmountable. But Anna’s husband made it possible so my grandmother was sent to America when she was 14. My Baba never saw her Mother again.
And that courageous decision resulted in me living a life my female ancestors could never have dreamed of. I have resources to live comfortably. I have leisure time to pursue my many interests. I am not working my fingers to the bone caring for everyone else. I decided to live my best life for them.
So on Nov 8 this year, I will light a candle and call out Anna’s name and thank her for sacrificing being near her daughter so she could have a better life in America. I will thank her for all of the opportunities that I have had by being born in America. I am grateful to all of my ancestors but especially for “Anna” who had vision and courage and followed her heart.
