Item - April 4, 1946

• Ukrainian

• Cyrillic

April 4, 1946

To the Most Honorable General
and Mrs. E. Udovychenko
Paris, France

Most Honorable and Dear Mr. and Mrs. Udovychenko,

By the time you receive our letter in France, it will likely be around Easter. Therefore, we send You our festive greetings—we greet You in our Ukrainian tradition: Khrystos Voskres! Our holiday wishes for you are sincere and come from the depths of our hearts. May joy reign in your hearts on the Day of Christ’s Resurrection. And may our hearts be filled with faith in the near Resurrection of our own statehood.

Heartfelt thanks to You for the kind letter from the first of the last month, which we received together with Your small “photo,” for which we are especially grateful. Your entire letter seemed to us filled with serenity and faith - and that brings us joy, especially knowing the difficult conditions in which You wrote it. We are gladdened by Your public work abroad, where you strive to offer help to those in need. We value Your letters and cherish them. We will gladly do whatever is within our power and are thankful for your observations and suggestions.

So, to the first matter: the sending of men’s clothing for those in need. We have made arrangements for the clothing to be sent. You should receive it at Your address from such large Canadian cities as Montreal, Toronto, Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. So far, we have not received confirmation from our branches, but we believe it will come soon.

These days we are sending You two food parcels. A list of items will be enclosed with the letter. The packages we send will carry the return addresses of individuals, although they are being sent on behalf of the organization—this is required by postal regulations in Canada.

Mrs. Petliura writes to us often. We are happy that we can offer her even that small assistance. Compared to what she has given to the nation - the most precious things in life - our help seems so small. We never mention her personal life or especially her late daughter Lesia in our letters to her, so as not to touch that most painful part of her noble soul. And she also does not mention it, guarding it deep within her motherly feelings. We were so pleased to learn that You will write something about her. Here in Canada, we know so little about the late Lesia Petliura. We would be very grateful for this contribution and would publish it in the Ukrainian Voice. Please also send a photo - it is important. It would be very [helpful] if You could describe where Mrs. Petliura lives. Could we also kindly ask for a photo of Mrs. O. Petliura, if You have one? In general, we kindly ask You to do everything possible in this regard, and for Your work we will be deeply grateful to You.

If You have more such materials in your collection - perhaps notes from your experiences and observations during these years abroad - we kindly ask you to send them to us. For instance, it would be interesting for us in Canada to learn about the state of the Symon Petliura Library in Paris.

Please also write to us about which food items are most lacking for You. We wrote to Mrs. Petliura about this, but she has not had the courage to tell us what she needs most.

We were pleased to read that you are interested in the work of our women’s organization, the Ukrainian Women’s Association of Canada. This year marks the 20th anniversary of our national work in the Ukrainian cultural field in Canada. And our work comes with challenges. Many of our Ukrainian people have settled in rural colonies, on farms. Homesteads are separated by dozens of miles. But where there is even a small group of Ukrainians, there also arise bastions of Ukrainian culture - churches, community halls. People travel far to gather. One priest serves ten, sometimes even twelve churches. Services are held in turn. In larger cities it is easier, as there are more Ukrainians - but also more assimilation pressure and a diversity of opinions. Our most important duty as an organization is to place the mother, the woman, as guardian of our rich culture and tradition. Our work, though it requires much labor and dedication, is joyful and bright in its purpose—our better future.

We send our most heartfelt wishes to Mrs. Udovychenko.
We wish both of You all that is good and beautiful.

With festive greetings and respect,

THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE UKRAINIAN WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF CANADA

President