Mrs. Olena Hryn

Obituary

Olena Hryn b. June 8, 1922, d. March 4, 2018.   It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our dear mother and grandmother Olena (Lesia) Hryn. Born Olesia Peleshuk in the village of Podil in the southern Chernihiv region of Ukraine to schoolteacher parents in 1922, she was destined to personally witness some of the century’s most dramatic events before reaching Canada in 1948 at the age of 26: mass terror, the great famine (Holodomor), Soviet and Nazi occupation, war, refugee status, and finally permanent emigration from her homeland. She obtained her medical training both in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Göttingen University in Germany. In Canada (Toronto) she worked as a bacteriologist at Connaught Laboratories, Sick Children's and Sunnybrook hospitals, and at the University of Toronto School of Dentistry before leaving work to dedicate herself to raising her family. She was active in the life of the Ukrainian Canadian community: at St. Andrew’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, St. Vladimir's Institute, the Hryhorii Skovoroda Upper Classes in Ukrainian Studies. In 1990, together with her husband of many years Nicholas (Mykola) Hryn, she moved to Winnipeg, where she took up the post of editor of the magazine Promin, the official publication of the Ukrainian Women's Association of Canada. After retiring in 1997 at age 75, she spent her time between Winnipeg and North Port, Florida. Predeceased by her parents Fr. Yuriy and Anna Peleshuk and her husband Nicholas, she leaves in great sorrow her daughters Halyna and Mariika Hryn, her son John Hryn and his wife Megan Schagrin, grandsons Alexander and David, step-grandson James, niece Olena Vecherya and family, and relatives and friends in Ukraine and in Canada. We will sorely miss her intelligence, caustic wit, adventurous spirit, courage, and mostly her extraordinary capacity for love and sacrifice to her family and to her country. Eternal memory, Vichnaya pamiat’!   Evening services will be held at Cardinal Funeral Home at 92 Annette Street, Toronto, on Friday, March 9, 2018, at 7 pm (viewing from 4 pm). Funeral service at St. Andrew’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, 1630 Dupont Street, on Saturday, March 10, at 12 noon, with interment at Prospect Cemetery, followed by a wake at St. Andrew’s Orthodox Church.

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