Ukrainian Embroidered Dress

Ukrainian Russian hand embroidered dress marusya marusya

Ukrainian Hand Embroidered Dress in Honor of My Babcha 

My Babcha was a spe­cial woman. Her sto­ry is quite remark­able and the lessons she taught me were even more so.  I only hope to be as strong as her and pass on her spir­it to others.

Aside from her wis­dom, her love of sewing was passed on to me. My babcha was an incred­i­ble seam­stress! She was self taught and used her skills as a seam­stress when she moved to America.

Before my babcha’s pass­ing in March (at the age of 93), I fin­ished my first Ukrain­ian embroi­dered dress. My babcha was very sick and it was uncer­tain whether she would make it to East­er. How­ev­er, she always want­ed to die on East­er and we all believed she would make it to East­er day. (There is a Ukri­an­ian myth that if you die on East­er, you go straight to heav­en.) But sad­ly she did­n’t make it or see the Ukrain­ian embroi­dered East­er dress. But I’m sure she got a glimpse of it up in heav­en!  (And I have no doubt that she is guid­ing me through my cur­rent projects!)

marusya ukrainian dress russian

Dress is hand embroi­dered (took lots and lots of time to stitch)

Linen

Ful­ly Lined

Invis­i­ble Back Zipper

babcha 2 Ukrainian Costume

 

This is a compressed story of my babcha’s life (Written by my aunt but modified to be in my voice). 

My babcha, Katary­na, was born in 1920 in West­ern Ukraine.  Her father, pri­or to World War I, voy­aged to Amer­i­ca to work in the coal mines of Penn­syl­va­nia, while he built a home­stead  for his fam­i­ly in west­ern Ukraine. My babcha’s par­ents set­tled to rear eight daugh­ters, farm­ing and wood­carv­ing in that qui­et, pic­turesque vil­lage in the rolling foothills of the Carpathi­an Moun­tains. As a child, my babcha vowed nev­er to leave her home or her fam­i­ly. Lit­tle did she know of the adven­tures that lay ahead!

My babcha’s faith in God and her spir­it of self­less ser­vice were instilled ear­ly in her life. Ear­ly child­hood was a hap­py time for her. Those who knew her thought she was a bright and pre­co­cious child. Although her father had insisted

Babcha Ukrainian Costumethat his daugh­ters acquire an edu­ca­tion, his untime­ly death at the age of 46 brought those plans to an abrupt end. My babcha was nine years old. With­in the next year and a half, she lost her sis­ter, Rose, to tuber­cu­lo­sis and her sis­ter, Sophie, who suc­cumbed to a virus. With the addi­tion­al deaths of three nephews and a niece, life in the her fam­i­ly became very sad.

Her moth­er, unable to cope with all the tragedy, sent my babcha away to work as a com­pan­ion to a Ukrain­ian priest’s young daugh­ter, who was recov­er­ing from a spinal injury. As a companion/nursemaid, my babcha became endeared to the fam­i­ly. It was dur­ing this time, liv­ing on the church estate until the age of 19, and assum­ing more and more house­hold respon­si­bil­i­ty, that church became impor­tant to her.

When World War II broke out, my babcha found her­self liv­ing in one of the most tumul­tuous areas — the geo­graph­ic tri­an­gle con­sist­ing of Poland, Ukraine, and Czecho­slo­va­kia — with the Nazis to the west and the Sovi­ets to the east. At the begin­ning of the war, she was sent to a school for kinder­garten teach­ers where she excelled. Fol­low­ing her grad­u­a­tion, she man­aged a vil­lage pro­gram. How­ev­er, as the war inten­si­fied and the front moved to her town, there was more impor­tant work to do. The Ukrain­ian cler­gy were being exter­mi­nat­ed and the Ukrain­ian church­es and cul­ture were being destroyed. She spent the war years active­ly work­ing to help save the Ukrain­ian church and her her­itage. As a result, she was sen­tenced to ten years of hard labor by a Sovi­et war court, but, by mirac­u­lous cir­cum­stances, was retried and released. At that point, she fled on foot to a Czecho­slo­va­kian con­vent where the Sis­ters bought her a plane tick­et to Belgium.

In Bel­gium, my babcha met and mar­ried her hus­band (deceased since 1980); She gave birth to her first daugh­ter, my “Cha Cha Ola”, in France. As a dis­placed post­war fam­i­ly spon­sored by inter­na­tion­al relief, my babcha, her hus­band, and my aunt were wel­comed to the Unit­ed States by the radi­ance of New York Har­bor’s Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty on Christ­mas Eve, 1950. Their sole pos­ses­sions con­sist­ed of five dol­lars, a wick­er trunk of cloth­ing, and a radio. After liv­ing their first year on the east coast, the fam­i­ly moved to Flint, Michi­gan, seek­ing work at the rec­om­men­da­tion of dear friends. My Dee­do (grand­fa­ther) found work with Gen­er­al Motors; My babcha gave birth to two more daugh­ters, my Cha Cha Nusha and moth­er; and togeth­er, the fam­i­ly joined a com­mu­ni­ty of approx­i­mate­ly 50 dis­placed Ukrain­ian refugee fam­i­lies. In addi­tion to being a devot­ed moth­er, my babcha was a mas­ter seam­stress, sewing cloth­ing for many peo­ple in her com­mu­ni­ty. She also worked in the alter­ation depart­ments of Maas and Vogue stores.

My dad and brothers in Ukrainian attire for my babcha's funeral
My dad and broth­ers in Ukrain­ian attire for my babcha’s funeral
Ukrainian attire
Fam­i­ly in Ukrain­ian Attire at my babcha’s Funeral.

It was dur­ing this time that my babcha’s long rela­tion­ship with the Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute of Flint began. She was per­pet­u­al­ly vol­un­teer­ing on myr­i­ad of com­mit­tees from the boom­ing post­war Flint inter­na­tion­al scene through the 1980s. High­light­ing that era was her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the inter­na­tion­al dance exhi­bi­tion, tele­cast from the IMA on Dave Gar­roway’s (t’s a Wide, Wide World and Flint’s cen­ten­ni­al parade. My babcha also was fea­tured annu­al­ly for her Ukrain­ian East­er egg (pysanky) workshops.

Whether bak­ing her tra­di­tion­al bread (pas­ka) and pas­tries, mak­ing pyro­hy, or sewing cos­tumes, my babcha was always lend­ing a hand to ensure that tra­di­tions were pre­served and hand­ed down to the next gen­er­a­tion, which, in her case, now includes eight grand­chil­dren and three great grand­chil­dren. Ever hard­work­ing, my babcha lived a fruit­ful life, while serv­ing her fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty, and coun­try. Her spir­it is still very present in the hearts of her daugh­ters and grandchildren.

I love you babcha <3

Ukrainian Embroidered Dress

Full embroidered Ukrainian dress anagrassia small

Marusya in Ukrainian Dress on Easter with Michael
Marusya in Ukrain­ian Dress on East­er with Michael
Marusya and Michael
Marusya and Michael
My beautiful mother and papa vino
My beau­ti­ful moth­er and papa vino
ukrainian embroidered dress linen

16 thoughts on “Ukrainian Embroidered Dress

  1. Chocha Marisya

    Mary-this is won­der­ful. As I told you at the funer­al, the dress s mag­nif­i­cent. Babcha, I know, is so very proud of you. Chocha Marusya

    Reply

  2. Tricia Morton

    Wow! What an incred­i­ble sto­ry about your Babcha! Thanks for sharing!
    Katie’s dress looks beau­ti­ful! And yours is a beau­ti­ful trib­ute to your fam­i­ly. You’re very tal­ent­ed Mary Grace!

    Reply

    1. marusya

      Thank you and it was great to see you yesterday! 🙂

      Reply

  3. Melwyk

    What a beau­ti­ful memo­r­i­al for your babcha, and such a deep, per­son­al mean­ing behind your busi­ness. Thank you for shar­ing this! As a fel­low Ukrain­ian (but Cana­di­an) I real­ly appre­ci­ate how you’re incor­po­rat­ing tra­di­tion into your very cur­rent sewing and cre­at­ing. So glad I dis­cov­ered you!

    Reply

    1. marusya

      Thank you for the kind words Mel­wyk and espe­cial­ly nice to hear them from anoth­er fel­low Ukrain­ian! I just clicked on your Mag­piemak­ery blog and real­ly enjoyed read­ing your posts, so I’m glad I dis­cov­ered you too 🙂

      Reply

  4. Lesya Danylyuk

    This is so cool what you’re doing!!!
    May I ask you — from which city in Ukraine is your family?

    Reply

    1. marusya

      Thanks Lesya! Near Lviv! Yours?
      Ps- My sis­ter’s name is Lesya too!

      Reply

  5. Iren Glushko

    Wow, this is real­ly good. Your work great. Maybe make it is long, but it is worth.

    Reply

  6. That's Sew Amy

    I’m also Ukrain­ian. I absolute­ly love this dress and your sto­ry. Read­ing through made me miss my Baba. Her sto­ry sounds very famil­iar to my fam­i­ly. My fam­i­ly is from Lviv and Kiev. It’s always great to find anoth­er Ukrain­ian and one who loves sewing as much as I do! I’ve want­ed to make more updat­ed Ukrain­ian gar­ments but so far have only made one skirt for the fes­ti­val: http://www.thatssewamy.com/past-projects/butterick-b4686-misses-skirt/

    Reply

  7. Miroslawa Jaremus

    Hi Marusya,

    My back ground is also Ukain­ian. I have seen a pic­ture of my baba (mama’s moth­er) wear­ing embroi­dered socks around 15 years of age with her best friend Kasia. I also own some embroi­dered blous­es. What a won­der­ful sto­ry aout your babcha. It brought back sto­ries of when my mama told me about her parents.

    Reply

    1. marusya

      Thanks for your kind words Miraslawa! It’s always great to hear sto­ries from oth­er Ukraini­ans. Hope­ful­ly we can keep & pass on our Ukrain­ian ances­tors’ tra­di­tions and arts 🙂

      Reply

  8. Angela

    Your sto­ry about your Babcha is beau­ti­ful! Is it pos­si­ble to pur­chase per-embroi­dered Ukrain­ian fab­ric? I would love to use this as trim on a dress or tunic.

    Reply

    1. marusya

      Thanks for the kind words Angela! I don’t know any­one who sells embroi­dered Ukrain­ian fab­ric. You might be able to find hand embroi­dered shirt pieces for sale. How­ev­er, I’m not sure if Ukraini­ans still make and sell the shirt pieces like they did in the past.

      Reply

  9. SPalahniuk

    Thank you for shar­ing. One day, I hope to vis­it Ukraine to meet my father’s rel­a­tives. I feel like I would be home for the first time as I was born in the US. ❤️

    Reply

    1. marusya

      Thank you! I hope so too! Have a mer­ry Christmas!

      Reply

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