From Victor Kubik

Tribute to Nina Kubik 40 years after her death in August 19984

Augutst 2024

Forty years ago, on August 19, 1984, our Mother, Nina Kubik, left this earthly life. I was right there with my brother Oleh, my wife Beverly, and with nurse Mrs. Seymour Peterson at our home in Farmington, Minnesota. We heard her breathe her last. At the last, before she faded, she bravely declared that she was not afraid of death.

We read Psalm 23:4 together: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

She affirmed her love for all of us as her children, and Oleh and I responded in kind.

She repeatedly expressed how much she loved all five of her children and wanted them to love one another.
The first person I called was Lydia, who was with Tanya. Then Oleh called Eugene in Texas, where he was a student at Ambassador College. Then her friends, Don and Colleen Erickson who were as close as family. Then there were so many others including the Marych’s in Edmonton, Alberta who were compatriots in their escape to freedom in 1945.

Our mother, Nina, was an exceptional woman who was tested through one adversity after another. At age eight in 1933 she lived through and survived the Holodymer, the artificial famine imposed on Ukraine that starved six million people to death.
Then in 1941 the Germans invaded and she was caught in a field with bombs exploding around her that caused her tremors and shaking in her hands for the rest of her life. 700 people died in that raid.

In 1942 at the age of age 16 she was taken to Magdeburg, Germany as slave labor to work in a shoe factory. Then as the war ended she had to flee from After the was she had to flee where the Russians came. She and Dad were married at Lyssenko Refugee Camp in 1945. I was born in 1947. They waited four years to come to the refuge of the United States.
She was an excellent, caring mother and wife. She and Dad looked after all the children, and they cared deeply about each one’s development and potential.

Our memory of Mother Nina is not only a benchmark date written on a stone; it is a living testimonial in all who knew her and were her friends and family in how that memory lives in continuing deeds and outcomes in those who knew her and were affected by her.