STASHYNSKY, Ewhenia - Drew her last breath at home on August 13, 2021 after fifteen months of declining health and increasing inability to walk or talk.
She leaves behind in grief her eldest son, Roman, and his wife, Olya.
Ewhenia (aka Eugenia, Genya, and Heni) was born in southeastern Poland in the village of Pawlokoma, where 366 or more of its Ukrainian inhabitants were massacred by soldiers of the Polish Home Army in March 1945.
But she was raised by her maternal grandmother and her uncles in the nearby village of Hlidno (Polish: Hłudno) while her parents were in France labouring as guest workers during the Great Depression.
In 1942 Genya was forcibly taken to work in the Third Reich, where she survived the Allied bombing of Berlin before fleeing from the city and finding work as a farmhand. When the Second World War ended, she found refuge in the international camp for displaced persons near Heidenau in the British occupation zone of northern Germany.
From there she immigrated in 1947 to Nottingham in the UK, where she met her first husband, Illia Senkus (1921–91), in 1949 and gave birth to Roman in 1952. In 1957 the family immigrated to Toronto, where the second son, Myroslav (1960–2020), was born.
In 1986 Genya and Illia moved to St. Catharines. There Illia died in 1991 and Genya married Jaroslaw Stashynsky in 1997.
In 2004 she moved back to Toronto, where she lived in Roman’s home. In 2013 Genya suffered another stroke, and thereafter she was taken care of by Roman, Olya, and a companion, Myroslava Matys.
Genya was a devoted and affectionate mother and a loyal spouse. Until she fell ill, she loved to read, embroider, garden, travel, get together with friends, and recite Taras Shevchenko’s poems.
She will be missed by her surviving friends in Canada, her relatives in Lviv and Moscow, and particularly by Roman and Olya.
Visitation will be held at Cardinal Funeral Home, Toronto on August 16, 2021. The service will take place at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church, 4 Bellwoods Ave, Toronto on August 17, 2021 at 10:00 AM.
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