Leesa: A Memory that Warms, and Roots that Hold

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💙💛 By Olena Gadomska

Leesa’s family history unfolds between Europe and Canada, across two world wars, the Great Depression, and postwar migrations.

Her story is a journey through generations: from a great-grandmother who taught her how to decorate pysanky, and a grandfather from Ivano-Frankivsk who endured forced labour in Germany, to the present, where Ukrainian festivals and Chrystia Freeland’s speech with lines from the Ukrainian anthem of freedom and independence – “Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished” – brought back her sense of roots and identity.

It is a story about pain and loss, about food and traditions, about language and the choice to remember. Leesa not only rediscovered her Ukrainian “self,” but also passes it on to her daughters.

Father’s Line: Toronto, the Shop and Taking Root

The earliest ancestor Leesa can name is her great-grandfather, Michael. At the beginning of the First World War, he arrived in Canada and soon after joined the Canadian army, departing for Europe to fight on behalf of his new homeland.

After the war, in the early 1920s, Michael brought his wife, his son (Leesa’s grandfather, then a child), and his daughter to Canada. A few years later, the family received Canadian citizenship.

In Toronto, Leesa’s grandfather met and married a Ukrainian woman from Ternopil (Ukraine), who had come to Canada in the early 1930s as a teenager. Together, they had a family, including Leesa’s father Eugene, who grew up as a first-generation Canadian.

At that time, the family ran a grocery shop in Toronto: on the ground floor was the store, where Michael and his son (Leesa’s grandfather) worked, and above it was the home for the whole family. Leesa’s grandmother sewed dresses on order, even wedding gowns — Leesa still has her grandmother’s large shawls as a warm touch of memory. Thus passed the years of the Great Depression and the first postwar decades.

During the Second World War, Leesa’s grandfather was not mobilized, since having young children exempted him from military duty..

Leesa’s great-grandmother lived a very long life, and Leesa had the fortune to know her personally.

“She left warm memories connected with Ukrainian Easter traditions. In the basement of my grandmother’s house, she decorated pysanky, and it was from her that I learned how to make them. But not as perfectly as she did. My great-grandmother drew straight lines on the eggs. Her secret was simple and clever: a thick elastic band wrapped around the egg, and then she traced with beeswax to make perfectly straight designs,” recalls Leesa.

For Leesa, this memory is especially dear — not only as a childhood impression, but as a symbol of family creativity and love for tradition. Her great-grandmother and grandmother were women who always found time for work in the kitchen: they cooked a lot and with love, making the home full of warmth and the smell of food.

Leesa’s great uncle was a pastor for many years in a Ukrainian parish in Alberta, where she still has family. Years later, he officiated Leesa’s wedding in Toronto.

Thus, the family history on her father’s side was above all about work, the shop, school, the English language, and everyday life.

Mother’s Line: War, Forced Labour and a New Start

Her mother’s side carries a more difficult, traumatic history. Her grandfather was from Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukraine), her grandmother — from Łódź (Poland).

During the Second World War, the Nazis forcibly took her grandfather from Ukraine and her teenaged grandmother from Poland to forced labour camps in Germany (Ostarbeiter)[1]. There they met, married, and their daughter was born — Halina, Leesa’s mother.

After the war, the family emigrated to Canada with their two-year-old daughter: by ship to Halifax, then by train to Toronto.

Leesa says: “My grandmother was terrified of thunder — it brought back heavy memories of bombings during the Second World War. Each time the sky thundered with lightning, she would retreat to the basement. This type of trauma never leaves.”

The first years in Canada were spent on a farm — they were sponsored by a great-aunt already settled in Canada. The family needed help with farm work, so the young couple (Leesa’s grandparents) received both work and shelter in the new country. Leesa’s mother’s childhood memories include cows, Ontario orchards, the smell of grass, and the friendly farm dog.

Halina went to school and learned English quickly. At that time, the family faced the common practice of “Canadianizing” names: her mother Halina became Helen — a compromise for pronunciation and convenience. Yet Polish and Ukrainian continued to be spoken at home.

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Leesa’s grandfather finally dared to visit his homeland — he managed to see his relatives in Independent Ukraine. During Soviet times, the family had hesitations about travelling back.

Leesa’s Childhood: School, Language, Family Traditions

Leesa is a second-generation Canadian: her father was born in Toronto, her mother, Halina arrived in Canada at the age of two. She grew up between English-speaking daily life and Ukrainian heritage, which her parents consciously preserved for their children. Her mother spoke Ukrainian and Polish with her parents, and they sent Leesa and her sisters to Ukrainian school.

In Mississauga, Leesa went to St. Sofia Ukrainian Catholic School until graduating grade 8. Every day there was half an hour of Ukrainian language study alongside French, and the rest of the subjects were in English. There were two levels of Ukrainian class at the school: one for children from Ukrainian-speaking homes, and another for those like her — from English-speaking families. By the end of elementary school, Leesa received an award for best results in Ukrainian among the English-speaking students.

“This was my parents’ choice — to preserve the language and culture for the next generation and give me and my sisters the chance to learn the language of our ancestors — Ukrainian,” says Leesa.

Her cousins studied at St. Demetrius School in Toronto, and they also learned to play the bandura and attended Ukrainian dance groups.

“We not only learned the language at St. Sofia school, but also had bus trips to church on special occasions. I vividly remember one trip: we took the bus from Mississauga to the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto). There was an exhibition of William Kurelek, the well-known Ukrainian-Canadian painter. For me, as a child, it was the first encounter with famous Ukrainian art in Canada, which left a strong impression and a feeling of pride in my roots,” recalls Leesa.

During her childhood, Leesa’s family celebrated Ukrainian holidays and customs, and strongly held to kitchen traditions — Paska (Easter bread), brightly coloured eggs, and for Christmas Eve — the traditional meatless supper. Each holiday was celebrated twice — first at her father’s parents’ home, then at her mother’s parents’ home.

One especially vivid memory: varenyky. They disappeared quickly from the table after half a day of preparation. Sometimes Leesa helped her grandmother or mother make them.

“The problem with varenyky is that they’re too tasty. You spend half a day preparing the dough, the filling, cutting perfect circles with a glass, scooping cheese and potatoes, shaping them, and cooking them. You spend four to six hours making them, and they all disappear in twenty minutes,” recalls Leesa, laughing.

The War in Ukraine

Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 became a powerful shock for Leesa and a moment of reconnection with her Ukrainian roots. She speaks of it as an inner push: what had grown thinner over the years suddenly tightened and lit up again, though sadly because of such a painful reason — war in the land of her ancestors.

A symbolic moment came with a speech by Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, herself the granddaughter of Ukrainian immigrants. She began in Ukrainian — simple words that deepened the sense of unity with millions of Ukrainians in Canada and with family spread from Ontario to Alberta.

“The Government of Canada was announcing its unwavering support for Ukraine. Then Chrystia Freeland came to the podium. She said that supporting Ukraine and Ukrainians was the top priority. She appealed – ‘Now is the time for us to be strong’. And it was incredible. Because she is Ukrainian. Because it was about me, about us — Ukrainians all over the world and especially in Canada,” recalls Leesa.

“And then Chrystia added the lines from the Ukrainian anthem, speaking Ukrainian — ‘Ukraine has not yet perished.’”

At that moment, everything connected for Leesa — her childhood Ukrainian lessons at St. Sofia School, making pysanky with her great-grandmother, and family stories about her grandfather from Ivano-Frankivsk. What had long remained distant in memory suddenly came alive and tangible — shining with belonging to Ukraine.

Community, Volunteering, and Passing It On

Since then, Leesa has become more actively involved in community events and initiatives: supporting Ukrainian volunteer networks, journalism, festivals, exhibitions, markets, and helping Ukrainians who fled the war and arrived in Canada after 2022.

Leesa became a volunteer with Grassroots Response to the Ukrainian Crisis and joined their Buddy Program. The program supports Ukrainian newcomers as they adapt to life in the Waterloo Region. It connects local volunteers (“buddies”) with individuals or families, fostering relationships that provide practical help, emotional support, and integration into the community.

She regularly attends the largest Ukrainian Festival in North America at Bloor West Village in Toronto. She also participates in other Ukrainian initiatives, from weaving white camouflage nets and photo exhibits about the war at the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) to refreshing and updating her Ukrainian language lessons on Duolingo.

“Over the past years, I visited the Ukrainian exhibits at the CNE in Toronto. Two years ago, together with other visitors, we wove white camouflage to send to Ukraine. The following year, there was a photo exhibit about the war — one of the images showed a child standing in front of a bombed-out building. It looked like a small art gallery, teaching Canadians about the pain and tragedy in Ukraine,” Leesa recalls. “It’s hard to look at, but necessary — to remember what humanity, kindness, and support mean.”

Her Ukrainian roots continue in her daughters. At Culture Day in school, her daughter wore a Ukrainian-made vyshyvanka sent by an aunt in Alberta and carried the blue-and-yellow flag with fellow Ukrainian students. Later came attempts to learn Ukrainian, a natural curiosity, and new Ukrainian friends who appeared in their neighbourhood after the war started. Cups, carved wooden boxes, pysanky, and embroidery sit on the shelves at home. The fabric of family memory is being embroidered with new threads.

A Home on Two Shores

Leesa’s story is about how a home can stand on different shores: in a basement where the smell of beeswax from pysanky lingers; above a grocery shop in Toronto; in a train car that once carried newcomers from Halifax searching for a new beginning; in a school bus heading to an art gallery exhibit of William Kurelek; and on the lively streets of a modern Ukrainian festival.

It is a story about pain — explosions that made her grandmother hide in basements, memories of forced labour, and losses never chosen. And at the same time — about roots: work, craft, food, holidays, school, and language. About the right to be called by one’s given name and to keep in the heart other names: Michael, the cities of Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Łódź.

Finally, it is a story about return. Sometimes just one “Slava Ukraini!” from a parliamentary podium is enough for memories to awaken — and for roots to become the rope that firmly holds you. Leesa felt it, and now she passes it on — to her children, her community, and to newcomers from Ukraine. Because roots are not only about the past. They are about the choice, every day, to remember who we are, with whom, and for what.

[1] Ostarbeiter (German: [ˈɔstˌʔaʁbaɪtɐ], lit. "Eastern worker") was a Nazi German designation for foreign slave workers gathered from occupied Central and Eastern Europe to perform forced labour in Germany during World War II. The Germans started deporting civilians at the beginning of the war and began doing so at unprecedented levels following Operation Barbarossa in 1941. They apprehended Ostarbeiter from the newly formed German districts of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, the District of Galicia (itself attached to the General Government), and the Reichskommissariat Ostland. These areas comprised German-occupied Poland and the conquered territories of the Soviet Union. By 1944, most new workers were under the age of 16 because those older were usually conscripted for service in Germany; 30% were as young as 12–14 years of age when taken from their homes. The age limit was reduced to 10 in November 1943. Ostarbeiter were often the victims of rape, and tens of thousands of pregnancies due to rape occurred.