It’s been a long and hard life for Barbara Krywko, a woman who spent her entire life working on a farm and raising nine children.
Now, she’s 100 years old and she doesn’t know how to be comfortable sitting down and taking it easy. But she’s trying to, anyway. Still, her new suite at the Rosedale facility on Hebert Road doesn’t come with a stove.
Born Barbara Maik in Sarny, Poland, on Sept. 1, 1911, she spent her younger years as an actress and singer.
“I like my home,” she began, in her thick accent. “I would like to go back. Everything change now. People have beautiful houses. Where I born – little shack!”
Her father was killed in the First World War and her mother died a few years after that. She lived with her brother in a neighbouring city.
During the middle to late 1930s, however, things in that part of Europe started to look like they were going to be pretty bad. She met William Krywko and married him in Krakovitz — “in old country” — in the first week of March 1938, just a few weeks before they left for North America on a ship, never to return.
At the time, she still only spoke her native tongue.
“I don’t want to go, just marry. I marry and come to Canada.”
Barbara remembers the particularly arduous voyage, but not fondly.
“No airplane at that time! Land in Halifax. I’m sick all the time! I never go eat. My husband bring me chicken soup. He say, ‘You have to eat something!’ Lots of people throw up on the ship but I never throw up, by not eat. I hate water now. I still hate water,” she laughed.
After they landed in the Maritimes, they made their way west to the Prairies, stopping at Munson, just north of Drumheller. After five years, though, they decided to pack up again and set up a homestead west of Morinville, a piece of land four quarters large that is still family property, managed by one of her sons as a grain farm.
Back then, it had cattle and crops and Barbara worked it all.
“It was wheat, oats, barley were the main ones. We had cattle, pigs …” son Henry began.
“Chickens, turkeys …” daughter Marie added. “We had everything.”
Barbara milked cows, collected the eggs, and still fed her children three meals a day, never stopping to rest. She used to sleep only four or five hours a night, never waking past 6 a.m. lest the morning meal go unprepared.
That’s why her 100th celebration at the end of August was even more special. To have so many people cook for her and praise her for her age and accomplishments must have been a rare treat.
Her birthday party was attended by 90 people including many relatives.
“Full dining room!” Barbara recalled, obviously pleased. “Full of people.”
From her nine children, she has 29 grandchildren, 54 great-grandchildren and now one great-great-grandchild, a “happy family” as she calls it.
“She lives for her family,” Marie said.
As for her longevity, Barbara had no answers about how she managed to make it to the century mark.
“I’ve lived too long. I can’t believe it. I’m still in good shape,” she said. “I don’t know why God keep me so long.”
