Growing Up Ukrainian In Toronto

I was born in Toronto in 1936. I lived above a hairdressing and barber shop run by my mother and father, an aunt and two uncles, at Queen and Seaton streets, in Toronto. The smell of fingerwave solution and the unique odour of a permanent wave still trigger an eruption of memories of playing in the shop. I spoke no English until I went to Duke of York public school, nor did I need to. Playing on Seaton St., I wasn’t aware that English existed. There were enough Ukrainian families on the street that it was like a tribal village or circle of tents in the desert, so oblivious were we to the surrounding population.Our Ukrainian community was so safe that I could play on Seaton St. all day while my parents worked. If I didn’t come home for lunch it hardly mattered. I simply ate with all the other kids at the home were we happened to be playing. Warm, wizened old babas shrouded in black seemed to be everywhere.On Sundays and feast days, the Ukrainian tribe trudged to the Holy Eucharist Ukrainian Catholic Church on King St., near the Don River. Today, forty-five years later, when I exit… Read full this story

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