Our Family Heritage
This is the family site of Jacob and Martha (Matrona) Wywka. Our family traces our heritage back to the Ukraine, however some members were born in Poland as the borders kept changing. Both Martha and Jacob were Ukrainian and spoke that language all their lives. They never did learn to speak English. Jacob taught himself to read Ukrainian. Martha and Jacob arrived in Canada on July 12, 1929 with three of the five children. Nettie was not allowed to board the ship because she had a cold. Martha’s oldest daughter, who was also named Martha, stayed behind and both sisters came across a year or more later.
The Wywka family went to Saskatchewan (Martha had a brother who lived there—John Teransky. She also had a sister there ? Boyko.) They got a farm in Ketchen, a very small community in Saskatchewan between Preeceville and Hazel Dell, about 200 miles east of Saskatoon.
The children who travelled with the parents to Saskatchewan were John, Stella, and Mike. Other children were born in Saskatchewan. The order of the children was: Martha, Mary, John, Stella, Nettie, Mike, Annie, Pauline.
Three family members died as children. Mary died very young still in the Ukraine. John died when he was about 15 from an ear infection in Saskatchewan and Pauline died in B.C. on February 8, 1950 from nerve disease.
Martha married Nick Mykytyn and had children. The family stayed in Saskatchewan. Martha died in Porcupine and is buried in Saskatchewan. Some of her children live now in Saskatchewan and some in B.C.
In 1943/44 Stella and Anne moved to Vernon B.C. to work in the orchards and canneries. The rest of the family followed later. Jacob and Martha bought a small clapboard house in Vernon, at the north end of Swan Lake. John Teransky and his family lived next door. Later, they moved to Rutland where there was another big group of Ukrainians who had Ukrainian church services in the basement of the church just as they had in Vernon.
Martha died in 1957 and Jacob died in 1960/61. Both are buried in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery in Vernon.
Nettie married Mike Baran in Saskatchewan and moved to B.C. when their first born was only a month old. Nettie’s other two children were born in Vernon and Kamloops. Nettie passed away in 1995 and is buried in the same cemetery in Vernon as are her parents and sister Pauline.
Mike married later in life to Gloria Rogers and helped raise her four children and then they had two more. They lived in Ladner and Aldergrove, B.C. Mike died on April 14, 2009 where family has the ashes in Aldergrove.
Annie married Bill Tutyko and had several children. She lived in Nanaimo for 33 years, then Annie and her two youngest moved to Kelowna, B.C. In 1997 she moved to Abbottsford to be closer to her family. Annie died February 17, 2014 and is buried with her sisters in Vernon. She is survived by two sons, a daughter, and a grandchild.
The only surviving child of Martha and Jacob is Stella Bechthold, who turned 90 on August 17, 2014. Stella married Delmer Bechthold and together had 3 children. The family lived in Vernon, Falkland, Abbotsford, and Rutland B.C.. Delmer died in 2010. Stella and Delmer had a number of grandchildren and great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.
This site is a place where all of us can share our stories and stay connected.