In Mother’S Memory Community Pours Out Hearts For Bereaved Ukrainian Family Living In Colville

No stars shine in the sky above the family’s Colville trailer on this chilly night. A wood stove keeps it warm inside.

In the kitchen, 13-year-old Nina Dashkovska sings a Ukrainian folk song as she cleans in preparation for dinner.

The oldest daughter, Nataliya, 16, mixes water, potatoes, cabbage and sour cream for borscht.

Both girls talk about their mother, who taught them to sing and cook. Now they must take over their mother’s role as homemaker.

Vera Dashkovska died Christmas Eve of a heart attack. She was 39. Her family thought her health was good when she moved to the United States from the Ukraine five years ago. “My mom made a lot of Christmas food. And then she died,” Nina says.

Nine children listen as their father talks about Vera’s untimely death.

She was getting firewood as the family dressed for church. She sat down on a chair by the door, asked for a glass of water, closed her eyes and died.

About 250 Ukrainians came from Seattle, Moses Lake and Colville to attend the funeral on Jan. 2.

This was the first death in this new and growing community of about 15 families from the Ukraine and Russia, a family friend said.

Word of the tragedy passed beyond the immigrant community to most of Colville. A funeral fund has been set up at the Colville branch of Washington Mutual. The town’s Rotary Club donated clothing and food. A school counselor intervened after hearing Nataliya planned to drop out of the ninth grade to become a replacement mom. Now she’s enrolled in a home-school program.

“She wants to be the first to make it through high school,” said Rick Stout, principal at Fort Colville Elementary. He noticed a growing number of Russian and Ukrainian students and set up special programs to help them adjust. About 60 are enrolled, or about to enter, local schools, he said.

Strangers and friends alike are watching over the family.

Some bring food. Before dinner, a new friend comes with a bag of bananas and apples and a container of homemade cookies. She also brings a box of magnetic letters and a little chalkboard for the children.

Five kids crowd around the father, Nikolay, to see the brightly colored letters.

One of the girls, Lybov, 7, spells as best she can on the chalkboard: “Moma is in heven. Moma is love.” She erases it, writes it over and over again.

Dinner’s almost ready, and Nikolay takes a seat with the two oldest sons: Leonid, 18, and Victor, 17.

The father’s eyes are heavy. He rubs his face often. He speaks very little English. His children speak English, except for the two youngest boys, Valentine, 2, and Slavic, 4.

Metal bowls of borscht are placed at each setting.

“It smells like there’s a different cook in the house,” Victor says. Nataliya locks eyes with him. “No offense to you,” he adds softly.

The family gathers around the table. Nataliya and Nina cover their heads with prayer scarves as the father leads a prayer.

After offering thanks for the meal, the two oldest daughters take their seats, flanking their father. Nataliya sits closest to the range and refrigerator.

“Slavic, good, huh?” Victor sasys to his toddler brother.

“Da,” the infant says with a smile. They all laugh.

Nataliya rises to cut up onions for her father - the way he likes it. She saves the skins to cook with eggs on Easter. Her father shakes his finger at Slavic and Valentin who are blowing bubbles into their soup.

He has sliced a wedge of dark Russian bread for everyone from a home-baked loaf. The children take turns reaching for sour cream to put in their borscht.

Tonight, they carry on without their mother and remember her and their journey.

In the Ukraine, they lived in the biggest home on the street, hand-built by Nikolay.

He also worked in a greenhouse, cut and sold firewood, raised cows and pigs. They lived in Berezno, about 150 miles west of Chernobyl, the site of a nuclear accident in 1986.

People began feeling ill after that, Victor says. The soil was badly contaminated. Children who played outside would often get bloody noses. Other people, like Nikolay, tired easily.

Looking for a better life, the family sold their home for $10,000 and moved to Seattle, then Moses Lake. Victor found work in a Burger King, but the rent was still too high. The family shopped around and bought a small piece of land in Colville and a single-wide trailer.

They’ve been in Colville for four months, but no one’s found work yet.

Nikolay, speaking through Victor, says his chest hurts sometimes and his wrists go numb. His sons make him rest.

“I don’t let him work because I can’t afford to lose him,” Victor says.

The handsome teenager quit his job to rejoin the struggling family and help support it. He arrived two hours before the funeral. He last saw his mother five months ago.

“She was going to come over to pick me up, but I guess she couldn’t make it,” Victor says, lowering his eyes.

Word of the tragedy spread quickly to Spokane. A Colville pastor called Russian churches, including Slavic Pentecostal Church in east Spokane.

Senior Pastor Viktor Vyalkin told his congregation about Vera Dashkovska the next day. The church has raised $2,500 so far toward funeral expenses, said Valendin Godun, a real estate investor in Spokane who immigrated from the Ukraine. Godun expects other churches are doing the same.

St. Vincent de Paul, 2913 E. Trent, also is accepting donations for the family.

That and welfare help, but they still worry about making next month’s payment on their plot of land. Victor has resumes out.

Mostly, they talk about their mother.

Before the meal is over, they all stand. Nina and Nataliya put on the prayer scarves again, bow their heads.

Their father says he is grateful for the shelter and food.

As bedtime nears, they are all reminded of what they need most - space. Two bedrooms is not enough.

Six children sleep in one room in three beds. The boys sleep in the other. Nataliya shares a bed with the youngest boy.

A shrine is built above the dresser with photos from their parents’ wedding in 1977. Carnations from the funeral and the mother’s favorite scarf are set beneath.

It will stay up forever.

A pair of half-knitted, green mittens are part of the shrine. Nina picks them up.

The needles are still in the yarn.

“Mom was making my little sister gloves,” she says. “But she never finished.”

Map of Ukraine