The events in the Ukraine, and the overwhelming sympathy for and identification with Ukrainians by Canada, have found me reflecting on how much my country has changed over the last 50 years. Also how in some ways it has not. And I have been thinking about Claire.
I married into a large Irish family, at least on my mother-in-law’s side. The Dalys were reputed to be brimming with brains. Whether merited or not, my husband’s grandmother Nellie cultivated the reputation. Over 70, and widowed for many years, she still taught school when I met her and drove a red Mustang. It was a mistake to interpret this as a sign of frivolity, she was a woman of steel and in the early 70s the Mustang declared her authority. Her four sons left the Miramichi for non-farming careers and for wives with whom they had smaller families. Her five daughters were all teachers – what brainy women did in those days. While the others stayed on the Miramichi and had families of at least eight children Claire, the youngest daughter, left for the west.
Claire married a Ukrainian, John Lesyk. She was in her late 30s and he was somewhat older and a school principal. Like Claire, John had grown up on a farm though unlike the Dalys’, the Lesyk farm was still a going concern. At the time a Ukrainian seemed almost as foreign to a Miramichier as someone from space might now. Ukraine had been part of Russia for years indeed it was the favored Baltic entity, since Khrushchev himself was Ukrainian. Eastern Canadians had little knowledge of or interest in Ukraine.
The wedding took place in Edmonton. If Nellie ever came out West to visit Claire and John, I never heard of it. Claire returned to the Miramichi regularly during summer holidays, sometimes on her own, more often with one or two of their four children, and on several occasions she brought John. There were always very large summer gatherings at the Nowlanville farm which was the Daly headquarters and it was easy to see that John was not one of the family. He tended to be quiet whereas the Dalys were gregarious, witty and opinionated. John drank very little (bizarre!). He was usually found standing apart. Though I was always warmly welcomed by any and all Dalys, as a more repressed WASP I sometimes found them overwhelming so gravitated towards John. In time I understood that he did not feel shy or lack confidence, rather though this was never expressed, he was at least as leery of the Dalys as they might be of him.
It was odd. There were large numbers of Canadians who had immigrated from both Ireland and Ukraine. In both cases they fled famine in their native countries. Both were strongly shaped by Catholicism though in two quite different forms. Both had been regarded as somewhat peripheral by the Central Canada establishment.
But they differed in their politics. The Irish were overwhelmingly Liberals at least in New Brunswick. The Ukrainians were overwhelmingly Conservative at least in Alberta. Before too long Claire started voting Conservative also. And did so for the rest of her life. As Liberals were in power much more than Conservatives, Irish descendants were well represented and shared in that power. They harboured no political grudges and as time passed they switched parties depending on issues. In Alberta the descendants of Ukrainians remain deeply committed Conservatives to this day. A vote for the NDP can be tolerated as an indulgence but a vote for the Liberals was and remains almost unforgivable. Perhaps this dreadful war will have the unanticipated benefit of softening the Albertan sense of alienation within Canada. Especially as its consequent oil revenues pour in!