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Bingo! East Village woman hits the century mark

Presenting Teklya Husiak with a City Council proclamation were Councilmember Rosie Mendez, kneeling, and her aide Carlina Rivera, holding proclamation. At right is Husiak’s son John.  Photo by John Blasco
Presenting Teklya Husiak with a City Council proclamation were Councilmember Rosie Mendez, kneeling, and her aide District Leader Carlina Rivera, holding proclamation. At right is Husiak’s son John. Photo by John Blasco

BY ALBERT AMATEAU | “I’m old — O.K.,” said Teklya Husiak, with a dismissive wave last Thursday when her birthday was announced during the weekly bingo at the Selfreliance Association of American Ukrainians on Second Ave.

The announcement turned into a major celebration when Oksana Lapatynsky, the full-time social worker at the association, welcomed City Councilmember Rosie Mendez to Teklya’s 100th birthday celebration.

“I don’t feel anything like my age,” Teklya said to a visitor from The Villager.

Carlina Rivera, Mendez’s legislative aide, read a City Council proclamation recognizing Teklya as an esteemed resident of the community since 2001, when she moved from Brooklyn to the East Village. A family celebration, including five grandchildren, had taken place a few days earlier on May 8, Teklya’s actual birthday.

Regulars at the Thursday gathering sang two different versions, with several verses each, of “Mnohaya Lita” (Many Years), a traditional hymn that serves as the Ukrainian equivalent of “Happy Birthday.” Teklya needed only one breath to blow out the three candles on the birthday cake and she polished off her slice of cake in short order.

She was born in 1916 near Chicago to an immigrant couple, Danylo and Kathryna Petryk, according to a biographical sketch written by her son John. In 1920, when Teklya was four, she moved with her parents and her American-born brother and sister back to the family home in Fedropl, a village near Peremyshl, a city in a Ukrainian district under Polish control.

With the clouds of war looming in 1937, her parents sent Teklya, 21, and her American-born brother and sister back to the U.S. Their parents and five other siblings were arrested by the Russians after the war and were sent to Siberia as part of Stalin’s resettlement policy.

A few years after arriving back in the U.S., Teklya met John Husiak, a Ukrainian immigrant who was serving in the U.S. Army at the time. They were married in 1944.

“I know my dad was in the Army guarding prisoners of war in Michigan,” John said, adding, “I still have his Army coat.”

After the war, the couple moved to Brooklyn and had three sons, Daniel, who died in 2008, John and Stephan. Teklya became a widow in 1977 but continued to live in Brooklyn until 2001, when she moved to the East Village.

“We’ve been friends for 15 years,” said Nataly Duma, president of the Selfreliance Association for 20 years.

“She is a remarkable woman,” said John’s wife, Carole. “When I was first married 24 years ago, I was anxious about fitting in with the family. I wasn’t Ukrainian and I was Jewish — very far from her world. She was a little standoffish at first but we worked at it. It took us about a year but we grew to accept and love each other,” Carole said.

“My mother has voted in every major election since 1940, and she intends to vote Democratic in this year’s general election,” said John. “All she really wants is for the Department of Transportation to repave the southwest corner of Second Ave. at E. Seventh St., so that she can cross the street safely and easily to St. George’s Church and the Selfreliance Center for the weekly bingo,” he said.