Ken Gigliotti \/ Winnipeg Free Press archives\nCanstar Community News Supplied photos Orysia Tracz was born in a displaced persons camp in postwar Germany and is now a respected Ukrainian scholar living in Winnipeg.<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\nA writer, researcher, translator, lecturer and a consultant, Tracz’s activities often reached across Canada, the U.S., Australia and Ukraine. <\/p>\n
Born in a displaced person’s camp in Germany in 1945, her parents were post-Second World War refugees who immigrated to New Jersey when she was four. She grew up, she once wrote, with the “Ukrainian ways” her parents had grown up with in Ukraine, and even as a child had been fascinated with those customs.<\/p>\n
She met her husband in New York, married and moved to Winnipeg in 1968, happy to have found a city where Ukrainian traditions flourished.<\/p>\n
Her passion led to four decades of writing for various publications including the Winnipeg Free Press, and The Ukrainian Weekly, a New Jersey-based newspaper distributed throughout North America. Often her column for the latter paper fondly focused on people and places in Manitoba.<\/p>\n
She said her readers had been asking her for years to compile her articles about Christmas traditions into a book. She finally did just that. First Star I See Tonight: Ukrainian Christmas Traditions was published last year and it is a beautifully designed collection.<\/p>\n
Tracz was recently awarded the Shevchenko Medal in 2016 by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress for her contribution to Culture and Arts. She shared her knowledge with so many others including an online writing group she was involved with. <\/p>\n
One of the group members, Ontario based-author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, said that “for nearly two decades she shared her expertise with me and other members of our close knit writing group…I was thrilled when Orysia published First Star I See Tonight and was looking forward to more books on other aspects of Ukrainian traditions… A devastating loss on so many levels.”<\/p>\n
Tracz inspired many closer to home as well. Local composer and director Danny Schur said, “She delighted in bringing her Ukrainian heritage to the Canadian mainstream and, for that, she was a profound influence on me — one of her so-called ‘Born again Ukrainians!’ ”<\/p>\n
Tracz leaves us with her many gifts, the beautiful songs and stories of Ukrainian culture that have inspired, informed and enriched the lives of so many of us, including mine.<\/p>
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":248183286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_classifai_error":"","_classifai_text_to_speech_error":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,21,14],"tags":[],"education-subject":[],"media-literacy-topic":[],"post_topic":[],"content_type":[24],"class_list":["post-404796626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-correspondents","category-news","category-times"],"acf":{"short_title":"","seo_title":"","deck":"","story_tag":"","byline":"Cheryl Girard","updates":null},"apple_news_notices":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/times\/2016\/12\/05\/author-an-inspiration-to-many","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Author an inspiration to many","url":"http:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/times\/2016\/12\/05\/author-an-inspiration-to-many","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/times\/2016\/12\/05\/author-an-inspiration-to-many"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/04\/e-comm-westk-girard-dec7.jpg?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/04\/e-comm-westk-girard-dec7.jpg"},"articleSection":"Community Correspondents","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"feedloaderapi"}],"creator":["feedloaderapi"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Our Communities","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2016-12-05T17:10:00Z","datePublished":"2016-12-05T17:10:00Z","dateModified":"2016-12-05T17:14:40Z"},"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t