The American Dream

She was born in Broday, Ukraine in 1896. Her father worked in a pulp and sawmill factory and could only come home weekends. They lived in a one room home with a straw roof and a clay dirt floor and cooked on an open grate and a clay oven. They washed clothes in a stream.

She had five brothers and one sister, and she attended school from age 7 to 13. Then, she went to work for 25 cents a day.

Because of the threat of war in May of 1914, when she turned 18, she left for Canada with one of their neighbor’s families because everyone knew that war meant a disaster for young girls. Sure enough, World War I broke out two months later in July. The sea voyage took a month and she was supposed to stay with a distant aunt and uncle in Alberta, Canada but they did not show up. It took her weeks of working as a maid to make her way across the country by train to reach Alberta where she found her aunt and uncle on a homestead farm.

Within a year she met and married a ship’s interpreter and they had two sons, but unfortunately, all three died in the 1918 flu epidemic. How could life be any harder? Two years later she married William, and they started a homestead of 1,000 acres in the tiny village of 200 Ukrainian immigrants called Myrnam. With a lot of hard work in brutal weather the farm became successful. Even so,  they lived in a one-bedroom cabin with their 8 children speaking mainly Ukrainian and some English.   

 

But the family that was left behind in Broday, Ukraine suffered a lot. Her parents and youngest 6-year-old brother were sent to a camp in Russia where the treatment was cruel. They were starving most of the time and when their six-year-old boy kept crying from hunger, a Russian soldier cut off his ear and gave it to him for food.

After the war, they returned to their home which was in shambles. Finally, in 1932 they sailed for Canada and joined the rest of the family there.

Unfortunately, William died at age 54. One of the sons, Wally, a good student, was 18 at the time. He was a very cheerful, observant young man, and the lessons he learned from his family and the other Ukrainian immigrants about hard work and determination set him on a course for life. As he came to know the local pharmacist, he decided that he wanted to do something else besides be a farmer. So, Wally worked his way through the university in Alberta.

Here is where his American Dream began. Always longing to come to the USA, he transferred to USC in California and graduated from there with a degree in pharmacy.  He had a long and successful career as a pharmacist and eventually headed the pharmacy department of a major hospital in Los Angeles. He married and had two sons, both of whom, with the same work ethic, graduated from college and have exciting careers themselves. In addition, the four granddaughters are all honors students.

A similar story can be told of my Latvian grandparents who came to the USA to escape oppression because my grandpa was a Baptist minister in Riga, Latvia.

Here is my Latvian grandfather, his sister and his three sons, my dad on the right, before my grandmother arrived from Latvia.

As I see what is happening in the Ukraine today, I wonder if we who were privileged to be born here and our children and grandchildren really appreciate what our ancestors went through to get here. Do we really understand what freedom is?

We are a young nation that has made a lot of progress in 200 years with the only document in human history that includes “the pursuit of happiness.”  But we have made mistakes–bad ones such as slavery and the mistreatment of Native Americans.

I saw some of that discrimination as a child in Memphis, Tennessee. I experienced discrimination here in California as a woman when I was working in sales in a male-dominated industry. As a beginner, I knew that I had to work twice as hard to prove myself and so I did! Even so, some of the men resented me when I became highly successful. I just pretended that I didn’t see it.

But I applied the same principles that my Latvian grandparents and dad did–hard work, determination, persistence, and trusting in God…the same values that I taught my children.

But what about today?

I have seen great changes in my lifetime and changes happening today in my children and grandchildren’s lives. For example, today, I have a very multicultural family. Two of my grandchildren are half Chinese, and two of them are half black. How we all love each other!

Yes, our country still has a long way to go.

We are not a perfect nation. We have lots of issues in America today. Yes, we need to protect our borders, but at the same time help others like the Ukrainian people. Our veterans need help. Education, health and the homeless are still big concerns. There is still discrimination. But we’ve come a long way, baby!

My heart breaks as I see what is happening in Ukraine now.

As I have watched the innocent Ukrainian people suffer, I have become more and more aware of what we have in America…the treasure that we have in our constitution, our three branches of government, the ability to vote a leader out of office if he’s not good, the freedom of the press, the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion.

When my grandparents sailed into New York harbor in 1909, this is what they read on the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.  (Emma Lazarus 1883)

Somehow, as we also protect our borders, we must remember that some of our greatest successes have come from poor immigrants who came here looking for better opportunities.

Here’s one of my favorite hymns:

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me
Let There Be Peace on Earth, the peace that was meant to be.

With God as our Father, Brothers all are we
Let me walk with my brother, In perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me Let this be the moment now.

With ev’ry step I take Let this be my solemn vow
To take each moment and live Each moment in peace eternally
Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me

Songwriters: Jill Jackson / Sy Miller

Let There Be Peace on Earth lyrics © Music C

In facing the threat of another war in Ukraine, I wonder, what can I do? What can you do?

There are many worthwhile organizations through which we can donate to help the Ukrainians. I have chosen Samaritans Purse.  UNICEF and others are doing a good job.

 

As an animal lover, I choose to donate to organizations that are helping starving, abandoned pets and getting them out of there. The ASPCA comes to mind.

In summary, please think about these two concerns:

1. Most of all, we can pray for Ukraine and donate wherever we can.
2. May each of us have a new God-given appreciation of the gift of freedom given to us by our ancestors that came to America, and that Ukraine will have that same freedom too.

President Lincoln delivered the 272-word Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863 on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

NO! THE AMERICAN DREAM IS NEVER OVER AS LONG AS WE STAND FOR FREEDOM,

AND AS LONG AS WE ARE WILLING TO WORK HARD NO MATTER WHAT OUR CIRCUMSTANCES ARE, AND NO MATTER WHAT OUR BACKGROUND IS.

AS WE CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR UKRAINE,  LET’S ASK GOD’S DIRECTION FOR OUR LIVES AND FOR OUR NATION, THAT THIS GREAT REPUBLIC WILL CONTINUE.

GOD BLESS AMERICA, AND GOD BLESS EVERY ONE OF YOU!

Annie Farris