Wasil & Mary Kulmatycki Krochmalny

"My Father could do the cossaki dance when he was 7 years old!

He was a musician - he played the piccolo, the violin,

the bazuki. He could play anything. God, those people

could do anything! He was only a teenager, and he

built a house. They were born working."

They came to the USA seperately around 1905.

They were from a village called Pomorzhani In the

Ukrainian part of Russia. The village was wholly

destroyed by the Nazis. It was near the pre-medieval

city of Lvov, which was then part of Austria, and called

Lemberg. Mary was the oldest of many siblings, and her

father raised horses for the Russian army.

I visited this site in Rotterdam in 2003. We were told that most immigrants from Eastern Europe to the USA departed from this port, and first had to go through this processing center. It went through me like a wave, and I could almost see the young woman who became my grandmother limping up these stairs, determined. Aunt Elaine said she limped because one of the draft horses once stepped on her foot when she was tending them.

She had a garden.

This is a view from about 1960 of the Par-3 Golf Course in Fort Lauderdale, Florida - the garden that Jay Krochmalny built with his partners. That is the New River winding through. In the Early 70's it was taken by emminent domain, the soil to be used as fill for the 'new' I 95 going through. Today it is the home of The African American Cultural Research Center.

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© mary krochmalny everett