Fonds paa-7483 - Demetrius Metro Ponich fonds

Many families from the village of Toporiwtsi in the province of Bukovyna, Ukraine, left between 1897 and 1899 for Canada. The Poniches were one of twenty families that left in 1899. Dyordie (George) Ponich, his wife, Domka and sons Tanasko (Tom), Metro and Alex, arrived in Alberta in 1899; some of the families they traveled with settled near Andrew, Alberta while the Poniches and a few other families settled just north of Victoria, later known as Pakan, Alberta. The Poniches homesteaded the north-east quarter of Section 26 of Township 58, Range 17, West of the 4th Meridian (26-58-17-W4). Metro, born October 7, 1887, worked as a farm labourer at the age of fourteen, and later worked on the railroad. In 1908 he was hired as an interpreter by Rev. Dr. C.H. Lawford, a medical Methodist missionary in Pakan. In 1909, Metro joined the Methodist Church, and the following year enrolled at Alberta College. He began studies at St. Stephen's College in 1912, and graduated in Theology in 1915 and became an ordained Methodist minister, later a United Church minister. His charges included Andrew, Pakan, Radway, Smoky Lake, Bellis, Cold Lake, St. Paul and Edmonton. In 1915, he married Magdalene Feschuk, daughter of Wasyl and Mary Feschuk; Metro and Magdalene had six sons: George, Peter, Paul D., Vladymir, Paul V. and Andrew. In 1943 Metro retired from ministry and he and Magdalene moved to Kelowna, British Columbia. After living for a time in Vancouver, British Columbia, they returned to Kelowna and organized a Ukrainian Protestant Church there.