Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 12, 1963, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press monday August 12, 1963 31 years Joy and pain retold Winnipeg Ger becomes muscovite Ellen Romanova is a native of Canada who has lived in the soviet Union for the last 31 years. In this Story she tells a Canadian press reporter of her life during those three decades. By Alan Harvey Moscow up any Cana Dian wishing to peer behind the Stony soviet mask of veto and recrimination should have a word with Ellen Romanova. She knows the Story from the inside. Starving hanging out in hovels or banding together to steal. Men and women exhausted from Lack of sleep and Over work hardly Able to do their sums went to evening classes existing mainly on Black bread and cabbage when the people finally built something out of their blood and sinews along came the War and knocked it ail Down. Talking breathlessly once she got started this Spunky big hearted woman who was once a raving Beauty and still draws stares at 46, poured out the she has lived through it for Story of a crowded life in the last three decades sharing privation and suffering with her soviet countrymen As the world s first socialist revolution bumped along its stoical course from dirt roads and mud huts in 1917 to space ships and sput Niks in 1963. She is a unique "canadian1 interpreter of the soviet scene because she was born in Winnipeg and grew up there and in Saskatoon acquiring an accent that still has an impeccable Prairie twang because she is neither an embittered misfit nor a one track zealot and be cause she flaunts a stubborn in dependence rare in this intimidated capital of communism. From scratch thirty one years ago Ellen Romanova sat in a Grade 8 classroom in William Whyte school in serenely contemplating Many Happy years in Canada. Months later at the age of 16, she was in the soviet Union with her Mother and two Young Brothers there to stay through thick and thin. With a balanced View maintained even at the height of the stalinist terror mrs. Romanova acknowledges that mistakes were made in the past but appeals for a greater Effort of understanding by the West say ing she sincerely believes closer contacts could do much for both sides. No other people in the world could have withstood what the russians she said. They started from scratch. They had nothing after the revolution no doctors no teachers no engineers nothing. The country was hundreds of years Back in the Sticks. The people were mostly illiterate. Young vagabonds the aristocrats and the experts were either dead or had fled. Thousands of Motherless fatherless homeless children roamed the country ragged and snatches of a Park Bench be Side the huge Lenin sports stadium and later in her two room ninth floor apartment by the Moscow River. Records a Boon Over a dish called summer flapjacks made from a recipe in the july 1958, number of an English Magazine she apologized for the glaring Green get around to a finishing pointed to a pile of Pat Boone records. I love the language i was born with and listening to the records brings Back Happy she motioned to the Bath room. And that s my Pride and Joy. I m in it two to five times a Day no kidding. I can t get Over the Novelty of having a Bath of my own. I m a fish by mrs. Romanova Nee Given thai is a sturdy spirited Good natured woman with handsome Copper hair. She has been through so much that nothing worries her now. She spares no Effort for people she likes and is careless about Money. The move that changed her life came in 1932. Her Mother from a poor family in the Ukraine emigrated to Canada in 1910 after working As a govern Ess. There she met and mar ried another Ukraine Emi Grant by coincidence one of her former pupils. Indescribable the marriage broke up. The determined woman from the Ukraine went Back to Russia taking her three children though she knew the difficulties. No words can describe recalls Ellen. When i think Back i am astonished that it All seemed one big adventure. The Russia that i live in today is a new world. Everything was so different then. The inconveniences were soundless. To people living in established countries it is hard to convey the full flavor. You have to live through it live with it. There was the Wrabness of it All the Way people dressed the Lack of yet there was the tremendous friendliness and the Joy of the people when they found we had come to share their troubles and help restore their ravished country. They had a Pride in the fact that it was their country that it belonged to them and de Pended entirely on their efforts. I think finally that the Root of their strength and endurance lies in the knowledge that what has been achieved at such in human Effort they will give up to no one whatever the armchair naps after arriving from Canada the family lived in an old hotel near the Kremlin. They had no room and the four of them took turns getting rest in a kind of armchair thing in the corridor Good training for Tough Post War years when she lived 11 years in a basement room 12 feet Square. Her first husband a Navy Man was killed in 1941 when his trawler hit a mine. Her kid brother Joe a promising Sculp Tor died along the hundreds of Young volunteers in an untold epic of heroism outside mos cow. Her other brother Alex lost his right leg below the knee after five operations. He now is a Moscow press photographer whose work has won awards in several countries including Canada. Mrs. Romanova is separated from her second husband and lives with her 23-year-old Stu Dent son by her first marriage. Her Strong body and laughing eyes betray few signs of a gruelling life. A Pell Mell per son she dashes about Moscow in a Small tin can of a car doing Odd jobs connected with the English language trans lating interpreting dubbing films and teaching. Dress for butter her son was born in 1939 and she stayed at his Side through the War travelling on cattle trains living in a cubby Hole at a circus through the kind Ness of a group of midgets Selling her last Canadian dress to buy a tin pail full of butter and fat which was All the nourishment she could get for a Long time. She has no complaints about the past. Looking at conditions today she says she is not a politician and therefore no competent to pronounce on the merits or demerits of any polio ical system but what a been achieved Here could no have been achieved under different system. Everything had to be unde centralized government co n communal services in the so Viet Union she says Are the cheapest and Best in the world she praises the free Medica services Nursery schools of children the comprehensive educational system the encouragement accorded special talents the attention to sport the extremely Low rents of apartments and the stipend paid to a worthy students in Thi free universities. Clean canadians mrs. Romanova s Mother who knew no English on land ing in Canada and became a teacher in the language a Yea later died in 1939. Ellen s father Jack Given Hal now 80 lives in Saskatoon. I would love to see dear of dad and Canada once More think Canada is a wonderful country and the people Are clean and healthy minded. I am Happy to have two great countries to Call my own there is so much trouble in the world. Two giant systems Are at strife. The world wants peace. Surely a Way can. Be teacher gets Post with govt. Winnipeg teacher s. I. A. Bul lock has been named to the Mani Oba department of education As assistant director of curricula education minister Stewart me Liean announced Friday. The appointment was effective August 1. Formerly head of the history department at Grant Park High school or. Bullock has taught in the Winnipeg and seven Oaks school divisions for seven years. A graduate of Cambridge University he came to Canada in 1957. Soldiers killed Luebeck West Germany a four British soldiers were killed and three others were seriously injured when their army truck was hit by an express train at a Grade Cross ing on the Baltic coast near Here sunday. A fridays air conditioned for your Comfort ladies9 sportswear footless All new stretch ease seamless footless. Fit any size choose from capris Short popovers Jamal Cai sleek Lender slims in a variety of colors. To 11. Of sturdy non slip elastic. Men s suits Good selection of colors. Smart single breasted models. Sizes 36 to 46. 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