52 Ancestors: #17 Wasyl Demosky

Amy Johnson Crow at No Story Too Small has issued herself and her readers a challenge for 2014. It’s called “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks”, and as Amy explains, the challenge is to “have one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on one ancestor”.

For the 17th week of this challenge, I chose Wasyl Demosky (ca 1883-1933).

Wasyl, my husband’s paternal grandfather, was born in Russia in about 1883. He was a younger son of Mikhail (Michael) Demofsky (Demosky) and his wife, whose name is unknown to my husband’s family.

Wasyl, his widowed father and other relatives immigrated to Canada from Russia in 1899 and settled in what became the province of Saskatchewan on land set aside by the federal government for the use of Doukhobor pacifists like themselves.

In about 1903, Wasyl married Luchenia Tomelin, a Doukhobor immigrant. I recently wrote about her here.

Demosky (Demoskoff) family, 1920s

This family portrait was taken about 1926 to 1928. Wasyl and Luchenia (in traditional Doukhobor dress) are sitting. Their youngest son Bill (my father-in-law) stands between them. At the back are (left to right) Mabel, Pete, Fred and George.

Copyright © 2014, Yvonne Demoskoff.