Where, you might ask, is The Old Country?
Winnipeg, of course! Most of my family is from there, and since I have the excuse of attending a wedding in Winnipeg, I’m going to seize the opportunity to do a bit of sleuthing into my family history.
While my grandparents were originally from the Czarist Russia, they all immigrated to Winnipeg at the turn of the 1900s. The north end of Winnipeg was filled with folks from Eastern Europe, struggling to assimilate into Canadian culture.
My dad’s parents arrived with barely two nickels to rub together. While they were both highly educated (an unusual thing, especially for Eastern European women of that time), my grandfather was forced to open a barber shop to support his family.
Not that this stopped him from talking philosophy and politics with his customers while giving haircuts….and those haircuts could go on for a long time.
His was The Old Reliable Barber Shop, proprietor Solomon Civkin. No one called him by his first name, though. Not even his wife. He was simply Civkin to everyone.
My grandmother, Celia, eschewed housework and cooking, in favour of helping her children with their homework. According to my father, it was his mother who really deserved the medical degree, since she would stay up till all hours of the night studying with him for his medical exams.
Tragedy stuck their family when the oldest son, Alex, died at age 12 from pneumonia.
My grandmother, distraught, felt that since she was meant to have four children and she’d lost one, she should have another. So, that’s what she did, much later in life. Enter Naomi, the baby, who, at around age 17, got a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music in New York. She became a famous concert pianist.
According to stories about my dad’s family, his parents sacrificed everything to ensure that their children had every opportunity life could offer.
In preparation for this trip, I did some research and found the gravesites of my grandparents on both sides, as well as some of their children who died young. It sounds macabre spending time visiting cemeteries, but I’m feeling an emotional pull.
Since I didn’t know many of them during their lifetimes, at least I can “visit” them now. It might help me piece together the stories I’ve been hearing about them since childhood.
All this is by way of saying that I was too self-absorbed and immature to realize the importance of family history until recently.
And now it’s too late to get that information firsthand. If you’re so inclined, do yourself a favour and get to know your elders before they pass on.
Trust me, those relationships are priceless.
Shelley Civkin is a retired communications officer with the Richmond Public Library
