It may have taken her a number of years, but Vera Barisenkoff has finally fulfilled a promise she made to her aunt Mary when she was just a young girl.
The 81-year-old has published Mankiya:A Memoir, the story of her aunt’s life and the many trials and hardships she endured.
Mary Evdokimoff was born in 1888 and was one of the original Doukhobor immigrants to Canada. Barisenkoff, known as Vee Konkin as she was growing up, was always fascinated by her aunt and would spend hours talking to her about her history. She would take notes, sometimes on newspaper scraps or whatever pieces of paper she could find and tuck them away in an old cigar box.
Barisenkoff told her aunt that one day, she would write her story. In writing her story, she has preserved and passed on a unique family history and the story of a woman who endured much.
After experiencing the childhood hardships of relocating to a strange, foreign land, tragedy struck Mary shortly after becoming engaged to the “light of her life.” Mary had been suffering from adenoid and tonsil problems. A midwife came through town and declared she could treat the adenoids with an ointment.
Mary surrendered to the treatment of the midwife, not knowing the ointment contained sulfuric acid. By morning, Mary would be in excruciating pain and no longer have a nose.
This would send the 17-year-old Mary away from her family for years while she underwent surgery after surgery in a larger city to repair the damage. In the meantime her family would move from Saskatchewan to British Columbia and it would be to the new Doukhobour settlement in Ootischenia that Mary would finally, several years later rejoin her family.
She found that people could be very cruel because of her disfigurement.
While away, Mary was tutored in English and would use those skills to become an interpreter for the community, helping many who were unable to communicate with medical professionals.
Mary continued to persevere, finding jobs outside of the Doukhobour community to earn money for herself and escape on occasion from those who would torment her.
Later in life, a second tragedy struck Mary when she was in a car accident that killed three of her family members. She was left with a shattered cheekbone, missing gums, two broken collarbones, an arm broken in two places, two broken legs, a sprained wrist and cracked ribs. Hospital stays and surgeries would once again become the normal for Mary for quite a while.
Mary kept a sense of adventure her whole life, taking her first plane trip long after she had reached her senior years and taking her second plane trip when she was 89, going on an adventure to California that included visits to Disneyland, Universal Studios and Hollywood.
Mary died at the age of 97, but her legacy lives on through her niece and now the printed page.
Mankiya is published by iUniverse and can be purchased locally at Castlegar Pharmasave, the Doukhobour Discovery Centre, the Castlegar Station Museum, Otter Books in Nelson and Crockett Books in Trail. It is also available on Amazon.
