When asked how she was feeling on any given day,
one of Eva Krawchuk's favorite responses was "102%!"

Eva immigrated from the Ukraine in 1923 to become a proud Canadian citizen. In fact, her greatest source of personal pride was the fact that she and her husband worked hard to raise enough money to bring the rest of the family from the Ukraine to Canada.

The eldest of five children, Eva was a strong woman. While earning money in the Ukraine for her poor peasant family by working for another local family, she gamely took on feeding their pet bear. In her new country, the first man her father suggested she marry she rejected as "not good looking enough!"

On August 12, 1923, she married Nicholas Krawchuk and they had two children, Walter and Nadia. Eva would live long enough, 102 years, to enjoy five grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild. She supported their accomplishments through gifts of money and ongoing encouragement. Eva would say that it's the little things that make you love someone – all the things they do over your lifetime that add up to them caring about you, and you caring about them.

Eva was also very supportive of her husband in his business, Custom Built Upholstering. A self-taught cook, she would entertain local furniture buyers with her amazing baking and traditional Ukrainian foods to help win contracts.

One of her great joys was attending concerts in her beloved Ukrainian culture, and she passed down much of this culture to her children and grandchildren. Each time one would visit, she would give a small keepsake, often a Ukrainian handicraft, as "something to remember me by." She inspired the bestseller Something to Remember Me By.

Her greatest hardship was seeing her husband develop Alzheimer's. When it became impossible for her to care for him at home, she reluctantly went against family expectations and put him in a nursing home. But the caring she showed in visiting him every day, often bringing him the foods he loved, was a model of compassion for her family.

The historical event that had the greatest impact on her life was the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the conflict that followed. She recalled soldiers coming to her family's home, taking away all the vegetables they had grown and their livestock, and beating her with the end of a rifle. She learned firsthand about violence and seemed to make a personal promise to herself that she would practice kindness and compassion.

Eva believed in the strength of community, often commenting that "you can't do much with a single straw, but a bundle of straws makes a broom with which you can do much work."

Though she only received an elementary-level education, Eva read the newspaper every day and was eager to discuss current events. Through her own search for knowledge and her great need to leave something of herself behind, she taught her granddaughter Susan V. Bosak many of the values that led to the founding of the Legacy Project.

Eva's greatest hope for the future was that her children and grandchildren would make the most of the educational and career opportunities open to them.

Two phrases that describe Eva Krawchuk are strength in the face of hardship and challenge, and a warm, joyful laugh. Baba, you have certainly left us much to remember you by.

www.legacyproject.org

Contributed November 26, 2007
By granddaughter Susan Bosak

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