Michael Luba Family - by Mrs. M. Luba (Annettie Pushka)

After a five week's voyage in the "Mont Blanc", my brothers John, age 17 and Peter, age 11, and I, a baby of ten months, arrived with our parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Puska, in Canada from Europe in 1900.   There were several different families in our group.  After travelling two weeks by train from Toronto, we arrived at Shoal Lake.  We were taken fifty miles north to Ranchville to our our home - a tent.  Dry bread and slough water sustained as until flour was purchased from Birtle.  It took four days tramping through bush for father to return carrying a bag of flour on his back.  Many tears were shed as he set out on this trip for fear he would be lost or killed by wild animals.  Before long it was learned that Snake Creek, with a small store, was only 12 miles away.

I remember a wash board my father mad to help mother scrub the clothes clean.  My denim dress was washed every Saturday ready for Sunday and another week's wear.  When I was eight years old, I made a dress from flour sacks.  By the time I reached school, it was in pieces.

Father was forced to find work at $4.00 a month in an English settlement further south.   He was away for four lonely months.  Returning in September, a log house, plastered with mud and roof of sods, was built.

Snake Creek church was built in 1906 and Ruthenia, my first school, was built in 1908.   Mr. William Hrushoway and Mr. Jacob Mayowski were two of my teachers.

I was nine years old when I walked three-and-a half miles barefoot to enter school for the first time.  Lunch was plain bread sprinkled with sugar or salt.  Dried rabbit skins made warm lining for shoes in the winter.  I was out of school for a month in the spring to lead oxen while my father plowed, harrowed with two harrows and sowed grain by hand.  I was absent for a month from school stooking sheaves.  In grade four, at age twelve I had to leave school to pick stones and pull roots on new breaking.

My husband, Michael, came on the same boat as we did, at three and one-half years of age.  He had no chance for schooling.  In the winter he had to stay indoors to help his mother with two younger children.  When he was 14 he drove a horse and bull as a team to break the land.

There was difficult times but friendly.  I thank God for helping us out of our miseries and for giving us good children:
Pauline, Paul (both deceased):
Nettie (adopted) Mrs. Glushka, three children - Sonia, Elizabeth and Joan
Peter - principal of Vincent Massey school in Brandon, Recently appointed as Inspector of Schools, married Olive Kachur, Three children - Bob, Barrie and Kathy
Emily - Mrs. Chatalurnyk, two children - Debbie and Lasha
Helen - Mrs. D Johnson, graduate of Misericordia School of Nursing and of Brandon Mental Hospital, one daughter, Tania
William - married Jean Duchak, five children - Ronnie, Larry, Donna, Sherry and Beverley
Paul - married Kay Solonychny, three children - Richard, Gerald and Danny

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