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Kost’ Telychko was born in Ohiltsi village, Kharkiv region on May 27, 1907 to the family of Mykhailo and Tetiana Telychko (nee Tymchenko). In 1927 he graduated from the Institute of National Economy. In 1931, he was imprisoned, after getting out of jail, he managed to build a successful career.

By the end of WWII, Telychko lived in Austria, working on construction and Austrian farms. In 1945 he moved to Germany and lived first in Karsfeld DP camp; when the camp was closed in spring 1946, he moved to Mittenwald DP camp, Germany. While in Karsfeld, Telychko became a secretary of the newly founded Ukrainian National State Union organization (Український Нац. Державний Союз). After relocating to the Mittenwald camp, Telychko was elected as the organization's head and participated in all its conventions in 1946, 1947 and 1949.

Telychko arrived in Canada on June 10, 1949, and settled in Edmonton. The same year he became a Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church member. In September 1949, he also joined the Edmonton division of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and remained its member for 22 years. He was also a member of the Ukrainian Self-Reliance Association where in 1950 he served as elected secretary. Telychko worked towards the founding of the Committee for the Ukrainian National Council (Комітет Сприяння Українській Народній Раді), was its secretary for many years and, later, the head of the initiative.

On November 1956 Telychko initiated a radio broadcasts in Edmonton. By 1982 over 381 programs were aired through the CKUA Radio Network. Majority of the programs were written by Kost' Telychko.

He often was elected a convention delegate. On July 6, 1960, he delivered a main speech at the USRL/CYC Convention in Toronto. In the 1970s and 1980s, he also worked as an advisor and journalist, taught at the Ukrainian Saturday school (Рідна школа), was an author of radio broadcasts and newspaper articles. Kost’ Telychko was awarded the Shevchenko medal and many scrolls of honour. He died on April 23, 1999, in Edmonton, Alberta.

Composer Stefania Turkewich-Lukianowicz (b. 1898, Lviv, Ukraine, d. 1977, Cambridge, United Kingdom) was born into a priestly family active in Ukrainian choral music. She studied in Lviv, in Vienna with Guido Adler, in Berlin with Arnold Schoenberg and in Prague with Zdeněk Nejedlý and Vitězslav Novák. She taught theory, musicology and composition at the Lysenko Music Institute in Lviv, Lviv University and the Lviv Institute of Folk Art. In 1944 she fled Ukraine and settled in the United Kingdom in 1946. Her music combined elements of traditional Ukrainian music with the avant-garde compositional techniques of the Second Viennese School, making her the most experimental and innovative Ukrainian composer of her generation, and also Ukraine’s first professional woman composer. Her output includes seven symphonies, four children’s operas, five ballets, chamber music, solo piano music, art songs and sacred choral music, some of which was lost during the Second World War and little of which has been published.

Gregory Turko (February 11, 1888 - March 10, 1977, Edmonton, Alberta) was born “in one of the Carpathian Villages” to a family of Ivan and Anastasia Turko. Gregory went to the Ukrainian Gimnasium in Peremyshl. In 1915, he married Maria Horodetska. Turko worked for the tobacco industry. He fought in WWI and WWII.

Turko immigrated to Canada after WWII through the German camps of Displaced Persons and settled in Calgary. After his wife passed away, he moved to Edmonton, where in 1967, he married Ksenia Shklanka. Turko was a member of the Edmonton Branch of the Brotherhood of Former Soldiers of the First Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army (Станиця Братства колишніх вояків Першої української дивізії Української національної армії в Едмонтоні) and Ukrainian War Veterans Association of Canada.

Source:
Турко, Ксеня. “Спомин про бл. П. Григорія Турка.” Ukrainian News, april 21, 1977, p. 6.

Olga's parents Anna and Andrew Lesik were Stundists who came to Canada in 1903 with their families from a small town called Tarascha near Kiev, Ukraine. Her mother Anna had been married to her father Andrew about a year by then. She was 18 years-old and he was 25. All of mother’s family migrated with them including: Anna's parents Mowchan, Olga's married aunt Nadia, her husband Vasyl, and their small daughter Christina, and her four unmarried uncles – Mike, Stephen, John, and Peter. They settled in Winnipeg, the adults found jobs and eventually built a fine house where they lived for several years. Later they decided to move to Saskatchewan where they took up farms in the south-west of the province. Anna and Andrew had children: John Lesik, Eva (Lesik) Babiuk, Vera Lesik (Vera Lysenko), Olga (Lesik) Vesey born 1907, Nadya and Peter.

Olga graduated from Normal School and taught in rural Manitoba. Because of poor health, Olga moved to teach in Winnipeg. After a number of years teaching her health gave way and she had to resign her position. Olga decided to move to British Columbia. For a short while she taught in interior BC, and then moved to Vancouver and then to Vancouver Island where she worked as a principal of a four-roomed school. Olga got married and had her daughter Nina in Victoria. Since Olga's husband didn't have a job, they had to move to Vancouver where they stayed first with Olga's sister Vera Lysenko. Their son David was born with the serious heart condition and he died during heart surgery at the age of six. Olga taught Aboriginal children in Bella-Bella, on the Campbell Island. Eventually she returned to Vancouver, and in 1962 they bought a house in North Vancouver.

Olga's brother John Lesik was the first Ukrainian-Canadian in all of Canada to become a dentist, practicing in Alberta and Ontario. Her sister Eva (Lesik) Babiuk raised three children on her own, working at the Hotel Vancouver until retirement. Vera Lesik (pen name Vera Lysenko) worked as a journalist and was one of the first Ukrainian-Canadians writing in English: Men in Sheepskin Coats, Westerly Wild, and Yellow Boots. One sibling (Nadya) died in a street car accident at an early age. The youngest brother, Peter Lesik was a radio operator in the Second World War.

Olga was a member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, hosting yearly garden parties. She translated stories from Ukrainian and some of these were published in The Flying Ship. Some of her translations were African folk tales and stories from ethnic regions from the former Soviet Union—still unpublished. She studied Russian at night school and with a private teacher. Later on in her life she went to UBC part-time, enrolling in upper grade Slavonic Studies, where she studied Ukrainian, the Russian language, Russian history, art and culture, and translation. She finished fourth year studies at the age of 76, having achieved excellent grades. In her eighties she helped to re-publish her sister Vera Lysenko’s novel Yellow Boots.

Composer and musicologist Wasyl Wytwycky (b. 1905, Kolomyiia, Ukraine, d. 1999, Summit, USA) was born into a family of teachers spent part of his childhood in Prague. He studied at the Kolomyiia Gymnasium, the Lviv (Underground) Ukrainian University and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where he completed a doctorate in 1932. He taught at the Music Institute in Przemyśl and worked for the Ukrainian Publishing Institute in Lviv. During the Second World War he moved to Austria. Following the war, he lived in a displaced persons camp in Bavaria, before immigrating to the United States and settling in Detroit in 1949.

As a composer Wytwycky was interested primarily in chamber music, composing works for string quartet, piano trio and four-hands piano, as well as choral arrangements, incidental music and a ballet. Wytwycky published over 250 musicological articles and wrote monographs about composers Michael Hayvoronsky and Maksym Berezovsky.

Doris E. Yanda, community leader and author, was born on March 16,1905 in Gimli, Manitoba to Anthony and Anna Konashevich, Ukrainian pioneers who arrived in Canada in 1900. The family moved to southwestern Saskatchewan and Doris completed her secondary education in Saskatoon where she attended the P.Mohyla Institute. Throughout her life and career, she continued her education at the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Alberta.

She began to write at an early age and wrote poems, articles and stories under the names of Dorothy Yanda, Elizabeth Young and Daria Mohylianka. She was editor of the Women’s Page in the newspapers, Ukrainian Voice and Ukrainian Farmer. She was also on the editorial committee of the Ukrainian Voice.

In 1923, she was one of the organizers of the Ukrainian Ladies Society of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and she held various executive positions including vice-president and president. n June, 1926 she married DmytroYanda, a lawyer. In 1926 she was one of the founders of the Ukrainian Women’s Association of Canada (UWAC) and held various executive positions at the local, provincial and national levels for many years. In 1933 and 1934 she was National Vice-President and Provincial President of Alberta and in 1935 and 1936, she was National President of the Ukrainian Women’s Association of Canada. She convened the Ukrainian National Handicraft Exhibit in 1935. In 1952, Mrs. Yanda was honoured with an honorary life membership in the UWAC. She was also active in the National Council of Women and the Women’s Council of Canada.

She was a member of the Canadian Authors’ Association since 1934. She has published numerous articles including books of poetry, in Ukrainian and in English. She has published twelve books on various literary subjects under several pen names.

During the Second World War, she was very active in voluntary war work in Edmonton. She was involved in numerous organizations such as Red Cross, War Savings Stamps, Regional Advisory Committee of the Wartime Price Control Board and others.

In 1948 she was involved with the British Columbia Flood Relief Fund and she also wrote on this disaster for the popular press.

She was also active in the Local Council of Women in Edmonton. Through her work she facilitated the immigration of many Ukrainian Displaced Persons and Refugees to Canada. In 1949 she visited over twenty Displaced Persons Camps in Germany with her husband for three months and they made speaking tours on their return to Canada. She was also involved in voluntary work to assist the newly arrived Ukrainian Displaced Persons.

She was widowed in 1969 and then married John McMullan. She is recognized as a master weaver and taught weaving in Edmonton and organized courses at the Banff Centre - School of Fine Arts from 1976 to 1987.

During her life, she received many awards and distinctions from various national organizations and from the Ukrainian community including the Taras Shevchenko Medal.

Helen Kozicky was born on February 6, 1916, in Calgary. Her mother came to Canada as a 2 year old child, and her father was 18 when he came. Her family was Greek-Catholic. During the Russian revolution her uncles and father came first to the USA and then to Canada; her father was a president of the Ukrainian church. Her mother grew up in Vegreville; she belonged to the Ukrainian Catholic Women’s League.

During the WWII, in November 1942, Helen Kozicky went overseas as a Sergeant. There were 8 women from each province. She took a course on driving a vehicle and repairing it. She was part of the Alberta Women’s Service Corp, first female contingent overseas to provide services for the Headquarters. Ukrainian Canadian Services Association was established in 1944; Ukrainian Club in London. Kozicky was the Secretary of the Club for 2 years.

Helen Kozicky died in Calgary in 2007.