Babushka was an amazing woman. She was one of my role models as a youth growing up. She made everything from scratch. She made so many of our dresses when my sister and I were little...cute gingham dresses with ruffled pinafores, Ukrainian blouses, skirts and so much more. She knit, crocheted, made lace and embroidered.
She washed clothes in an old wringer washer, didn't have a dryer, everything was dried on a clothesline outside or in the basement in the winter months. She ironed and starched everything from underwear to shirts and sheets. She used an old Orange Crush bottle that she poked holes in a plastic cap and sprinkled all the clothes with water before she ironed them. Everything was white and crisp and clean and smelled wonderful. Her beds had huge fluffy comforters and pillows filled with down feathers that she made herself by actually plucking the feathers herself from chickens that she bought at the West Side Market. Every chance we got my brother, sister and I would take running leaps into the middle of the fluffy beds and sink into the middle laughing and getting yelled at by Babushka that she just made the beds!
She made all the the relatives boxes and boxes of cookies for Christmas every year without fail...she would pull out the heavy machinery and be mixing and rolling out cookies and cutting out shapes and dusting with sugar or nuts. She made the best "khrustyky" or angel wings with powdered sugar. Once, when I was 5 or 6, I put on my little apron (that she made for me, of course) and so eager to help, I couldn't wait to throw my khrustyky into the hot oil but my Babushka warned me that the oil wasn't the right temperature but I was so impatient I threw mine in anyway and then they promptly burned to a crisp and my Babushka said "See?" And she quietly and patiently fished out my blackened khrystyk out of the oil. It gives me such great pleasure and happiness that my older two sons had the amazing fortune to bake and do the same things with Babushka years later. To this day I can remember the aromas and taste of the jams especially the Damson Plum jam, meat-filled peirozhki and all the things my Babushka made.
She was way ahead of her time! She spoke several languages and would talk to her girlfriends in their native tongue. She could do complex math problems in her head, she also used an abacus, she walked or took the bus was self sufficient in every way except she didn't know how to read and write. She was illiterate. She had to quit school in the 4th grade in Ukraine to work as maid for a wealthy family to help support her 12 other sisters and brothers. She always asked my sister and me to teach her how to read and write in Ukrainian. In the evenings she would pull out her notebook and "Bukvar" (Primer) and we would practice with her. She never had a bad word about anyone and was the kindest gentlest person I knew. She was my hero, my Babushka, I miss you so.
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