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Beginnings of the
Ukrainian Settlement
in Toronto, 1903-14
By: Zoriana Sokolsky
From: Polyphony Summer 1984 pp. 55-58
© 1984 Multicultural History Society of Ontario
The arrival in Toronto of twenty-three-year-old Panteleymon (Peter) Ostapowich
with his two friends, Wasyl Neterpka and Strachalsky~ on April 15, 1903,
marked the beginning of the Ukrainian settlement here Born in East Galicia
(West Ukraine), they first immigrated to the eastern United States and then
from the coal mines of Pennsylvania came on to Toronto in search of work,
as many other Ukrainians were later to do. Walking along the commercial
streets of Spadina and Queen and windering what to do next, they were overheard
by a Galician Jew who was distributing bread from his horse-drawn carriage.
The good man brought them to his bakery on York Street and arter feeding
them and giving each a loaf of bread took them to his friend's house at
49 Nelson Street where they took up residence. Next morning their landlord
led them to the Canadian Railway Company where they began work laying sewer
pipes at fifteen cents an hour. Two months later, with a rumour of better
pay in the mines, Neterpka travelled to Sudbury, but returned empty-handed
when the miners there went on strike.
Strachalsky began a new job at a piano factory and Ostapowich receved work
at a mattress factory and later at the Harris Abattoir (Canada Packing Company)
where he stayed until his retirement in February 1947.
The first Ukrainian immigrants to the city were young, single men whose
prime purpose was to earn money either to buy a farm in the Canadian prairies,
or to return home to farm. Thus, they were always on the move in search
of higher paying jobs, no matter where, and it was not until the outbreak
of the First World War and the passage of the War Aliens' Act on August
2, 1914 whereby most of them had to register and report regularly to the
police station-that the Ukrainian immigrant community became more stabilized.
They were excellent workers and were well-liked by their foremen. Lacking
a knowlage of the English language and any professional skills they worked
as labourers at all types of jobs, often the hardest and most dangerous.
They lived in the Ward-in the heart of downtown Toronto, at that time the
primary immigrant receiving in Jewish boardinghouses of their fellow-countrymen.
Homesick and lonely, they sent money home to help their families and wrote
glowing and enthusiastic letters about conditionsns here. As brothers, sisters
and friends began to arrive, the first marriages took place. It is estimated
that in 1906 there were about twenty Ukrainian couples, and in 1908 John
A. Kolesnikoff, the first Baptist missionary to the Slavs in Toronto, reported
to the Baptist Home Mission Board that there were over 400 Ruthenians (as
Ukrainians were then called) living in the Ward. As immigration picked up
and more Ukrainians arrived, there were some 2,500 Ukrainians in Toronto
by the beginning of 1911.
Since no social insurance or workers' relief programs existed, the young
immigrants most feared sickness, work accidents and unemployment during
the winter months. To counter the threat to livelyhood and well-being a
group of men met in a private home on Curch Street across from the St. Michael's
Roman Catholic Cathedral in 1906 to form the first Ukrainian benefit society
Tovarystvo Sviatoho Mykhaila). It was probably the same which was renewed
on October 10, 1910 and which received a charter on November 27, 1911 under
the name of the Ruthenian National Benefit Society in Toronto. Its purpose
was to help financially in case of sickness or disability, as well as to
unit in brotherly love all Ruthenians living in Canada and to , spread enlightenment
in the Ruthenian and English languages among the members and to try for
their social and spiritual well-being.' ' Renting the Labour Temple hall
at 67 Church Street for dances, it aiso became the first social centre for
Ukrainians in central Toronto; and in 1913-14 it formed its first drama
club and a choir, which, under the direction of Humeniy Tymofiy, staged
two performances in the same hall. In 1914 the society changed its patron's
name to Taras Shevchenko and in 1926 to the Ukrainian People' s Home Association.
Culturally Ukrainians formed a surprisingly homogeneous group as most came
from the villages and towns of East Gaiicia, but religiously they were a
diversified group. Although they were predominantly Ukrainian Catholics
of the Byzantine rite (Uniates), a large number were also of the Latin rite
(Roman Catholics), known as latynnyky. A much smaller number were Ukrainian
Orthodox (of the Byzantine rite) from the regions of Bukovina and central
Ukraine. Being used to a well-organised church life at home, they found
themselves without their own priests and spiritual help in the Ukrainian
language. Thus, the Orthodox turned to other non-Ukrainian Orthodox churches
(Russian, Bulgaro-Macedonian, Syrian), latynnyky attended the Polish Roman
Catholic services started by Father Paui Sobczak in 1906 at St. Mary's Roman
Catholic Church at Bathurst and Adelaide Streets, and Ukrainian Catholics
(Uniates)-although many attended Polish services-waited for their own priest.
When in 1911 the St. Stanislaus Church at 12 Denison Avenue was donated
to the Polish Roman Catholics by Eugene O'Keefe -the Roman Catholic philanthropist-latynnyky
formed the majority and the basis of the St. Stanislaus parish, and a Ukrainian
and Polish centre evolved in the vicinity of Queen and Bathurst Streets.
In 1908 John A. Kolesnikoff, a native of Kherson, southern Ukraine, was
hired by the Baptist Home Mission Board for missionary work among Ukrainians,
Poles, Russians, Bulgarians and Macedonians. He opened three missions in
Toronto-one at 426 King Street East, where he resided with his family and
where the main activities took place, the second at 10 1/2 Alice Street,
which was later moved to Elizabeth Street and then to York Street, and the
third was opened in 1913 on Dundas Street in West Toronto. The last two
were for Ukrainians, Poles and Russians and, beside the regular Bible readings,
offered reading-rooms with various publications and evening courses in English
and native languages. Regular Christmas dinners were held at the King Street
mission, and in 1911-12 Dr. James Simpson conducted a free dispensary once
a week. In 1908 Kolesnikoff began publishing a religious four-page magazine,
the Good Friend, in Ukrainian, which next year was enlarged to sixteen pages
and renamed the Witness of the Truth. In fact, it was the first Ukrainian
publication in eastern Canada, a bi-monthly which regularly appeared until
the fail of 1917 when Kolesnikoff became seriously ill. His other works
in Ukrainian consisted of several religious pamphlets and a book of 125
religious songs called the Ukrainian Arfa. In 1915 Kolesnikoff's Slavic
mission consisted of fifty-three people, predominantly Ukrainians and Russians.
In 1910 Wasyl Cwior opened the Ruthenian-Ukrainian Bookstore Prosvita on
York Street, which was also Toronto's first Ukrainian printing shop and
a mail depot for those men who did not have a fixed address. Cwior, who
knew the Ukrainian literary language well and who was a Baptist, edited
Kolesnikoff's Ukrainian publications and helped to print them. In 1918 he
sold his bookstore to the newly formed, educational and literary Taras Shevchenko
Prosvita Society, and the bookstore was run by Nykola Chabal until 1975
when it closed.
Almost from the beginning Ukrainians also began to settle in the west Toronto
Junction, which in 1907 was annexed to the City of Toronto. Centred around
the Canadian Pacific Railway yards, this area was quickly becoming industrialized
and the new plants were offering many jobs. Ukrainians located close to
the plants, but when the first Ukrainian church was built at 143 Franklin
Avenue in 1914, the area surrounding it became aimost exclusively inhabited
by Ukrainians making Royce Avenue (now Dupont Street) its main axis. Here
the Royce Avenue Hall was rented for social activities and around 1910 Paul
Baran opened the first Ukrainian grocery store. West Toronto evolved into
the main Ukrainian settlement in the city, which could be reached from the
city centre by the Dundas streetcar.
Lack of Ukrainian clergy was not only a great problem to Ukrainian Catholics,
but also to the Roman Catholic Church in Canada. By 1910 the Canadian Roman
Catholic Church hierarchy had agreed on establishing a Ruthenian (Ukrainian
Catholic) bishopric for Canada in Winnipeg in the hope of solving the problem
and decided on its financial and spiritual support. Thus on November 25,
1910, when the primate of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in West Ukraine,
Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky-while touring all major Ukrainian settlements
in Canada and the United States-visited the Archbishop of Toronto, Fergus
P. McEvay, a foundation was laid not only for the support of the first Ukrainian
Catholic bishop, Nicetas Budka, but aiso for the establishment of a Ruthenian
parish in Toronto and a Ruthenian theologicai faculty for the training of
Ruthenian priests at the soon-to-be-opened St. Augustine's Seminary on Kingston
Road. Three months later Rev. Dr. Charles (Carlo) Yermy had arrived, and
when St. Augustine's opened in 1913, Rev. Dr. Ambrose Redkewycz was on staff,
teaching the Ruthenian rite to six Ukrainian students of theology.
However, the Ukrainian Catholic community knew nothing about the concerns
of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toronto and in February 1909 succeeded
in obtaining Father John A. Zaklynsky who celebrated the first Mass in a
private home at 25 Edith Avenue in west Toronto. He, however, did not stay
long, and the community was happy when Father Leo Sembratowicz agreed to
commute occasionally from Buffalo. When Father Yermy arrived in Toronto
in February 1911, the old St. Helen's Roman Catholic Church, at the corner
of Dundas Street and Lansdowne Avenue, was given to Ukrainians for worship
until their own could be erected. Regular church life had begun and Father
Yermy proceeded to organise the parish, but in June, offended by some parishioners,
he suddenly left. Again Father Sembratowicz helped out until Father Joseph
(Osyp) Boyarczuk, sent by Bishop Oter Ortynsky of Philadelphia at the request
of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toronto, had arrived in February 1912.
The energetic thirty-two-year-old priest at once began to organise the parish
and collect money for the building of the church. He founded the Brotherhood
of St. John the Baptist (Bratstvo Ivana Khrestytela, a sick benefit society),
the church choir and a drama club, which in 1912-14 staged four major productions
.
On December 12, 1912 Toronto Ukrainians welcomed their first Ukrainian Catholic
bishop to Canada, Nicetas Budka, when he stopped in the city on his way
to Winnipeg. With the assistance of Father Boyarczuk, he celebrated his
first Mass at the old St. Helen's Church, which was filled to more than
capacity.
In May 1913 a house was purchased at 143 Franklin Avenue to serve as the
rectory, and in July construction of the church across from it had begun.
To reduce the costs, parishioners helped with the excavation in their free
time. The church was finished in the spring of 1914 and was consecrated
by Bishop Budka on Palm Sunday. It became the focal point of Ukrainian life
as the church hall was used for various parish activities, performances,
concerts, lectures and meetings: a Ukrainian language school for children,
educational courses for grown-ups, the benefit society, drama club and the
church choir.
When the First World War broke out the Ukrainian community was on the way
to a well-organised life, and Toronto was already the largest Ukrainian
centre in eastern Canada.
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