HIST 3991 Environmental History – Assignment 1- Exercise #2: Family Environmental History
September 29, 2022 By: Jennifer Marshall
Exercise #2: Family Environmental History
My family history is complicated and diverse. With the help of www.ancestry.com, and many family records, over the past few years, I have been able to trace back my lineage through my great-grandparent’s generations. Both my father’s and mother’s families had members that emigrated from the Ukraine, and Russia. We also have unconfirmed information that older generations may have come from Poland as well. Many of the older generations of my family spoke fluent Polish, Ukrainian and Russian, although most could not write.
When researching my family history, there has been many ‘hiccups along the way. As most of my family emigrated to Canada in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, boats were used as the main form of transportation. Many of the passenger manifests note different names than people possessed. This is partly due to many of my family members having very thick, heavy accents when they spoke, or broken English, and being unable to write their names. For example, my paternal grandfather, Carl C Sankey, boarded an emigration boat with a completely different, and far more traditional name. Sankey was actually created by the men who penned his name on that original passenger manifest, many years ago. This has unfortunately stalled my development of our family tree, as our best guess to the original last name is somewhere in the realm of Sankanovich.
My father is one of eight children that grew up on a farm in North Battleford Saskatchewan. His mother was a cook in a local restaurant, and his father was a milkman (along with many other men in the family) at the local dairy. My grandfather (on my father’s side) was born in 1910, in Kiev, Ukraine, to an extremely poor family and emigrated to Canada to find a better life. Inadequate lands and unstable politics in the Ukraine at this time, forced his family to relocate for hopes of survival. Carl C Sankey was driven to create a better life for himself and served in the Royal Canadian Airforce during World War II, and was awarded various medals. Many members of his family settled and began farming in Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, most struggled financially for their entire lives, living mainly off the farmlands and cattle. Some of our family still maintains farmland in Saskatchewan to this day.
My maternal grandmother was a farming housewife. One of fourteen children, out of only five that were born in Arlee, Saskatchewan, Canada. The remaining brothers and sisters were all born in Russia. My great-grandmother was born in 1883, in Chentsy, Tver’, Russia, while my great-grandfather was born in 1871, in Aparnikovo, Tver’, Russia. He served as a Christian Pastor, and their family was forced to emigrate to Canada, due to religious persecution. My grandmother also grew up very poor, in a family with many mouths to feed. Russia, at this time, was facing extreme poverty, land shortages, economic instability, and food insecurity. When they relocated to Saskatchewan, the family began farming and living off the land. My maternal grandfather was also a wheat farmer in Viceroy, Saskatchewan. He was born in 1911, in Votelevke Kiev, Russia, and emigrated as a young boy to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Both my maternal great-grandmother and great-grandfather were born and raised in Votelevke Kyiv, Russia to poor families that farmed and worked with religion.
My family generations come from humble beginnings, hard working farmers, pastors, and military backgrounds. As I mentioned earlier, some of our family still owns, and actively works high volume production farmland in Saskatchewan. They no longer use horses and walking plows to till their land. Nor do they milk their cattle by hand. Technological advancements have certainly made farming far more efficient, and increased production levels significantly. As I have aged, I have come to understand the value that our family places on the environment. As a child, my mother and grandmother always had huge gardens, fruit trees, and were very environmentally aware. We did not waste water growing up, we hung our clean laundry out to dry, and we ate the food we grew (in addition to store-bought groceries). As an adult now, I have my own flower and vegetable gardens, fruit trees, herbs, and citrus bushes. I compost, recycle, return, and reuse as much household waste as possible. I am conscious of our water and electrical usage as well. My children participate in prep, planting, maintenance, harvest, cleanup, and food preparation. It is important to me, that my children place the same value on our environment that our ancestors did.