Fonds glen-1859 - William and Anna Pidruchney fonds

William Pidruchney, 1900-1959, was born in the western Ukraine, and his family emigrated to Ethelbert, Manitoba while he was a baby. He received a teacher's certificate in Dauphin and a BSc from the University of Manitoba in 1926. He immediately moved to Vegreville, Alberta as a district agriculturalist with the Department of Agriculture. He married Anna M. Rajchyba, 1909- , in 1928 and they had five children. Anna was born in Gimli, Manitoba of immigrant Ukrainian parents, and the family moved to Prelate, Saskatchewan in 1910. She attended Saskatoon Nutana Collegiate and Normal School, and taught near Glaslyn in 1927 and near Chipman in 1928. She taught Ukrainian-language school until her retirement in 1974. She returned to teaching in public schools after William's death, in Vegreville and High Level. In 1960 she took a homestead in Rocky Lake, Alberta, and ran as an independent candidate in the 1962 federal election.

Anna Raychyba was born to Mike and Eva Raychyba in the western Ukraine. She attended Normal School in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and taught school in northern Saskatchewan prior to her marriage to William N. Pidruchney on July 10, 1928 in Prelate, Saskatchewan. They settled in Vegreville, Alberta where her husband worked as an Alberta government district agriculturalist in the area, and she taught school in Chipman. Together they had five children, Lillian Iris, William Theodore, Myroslawa Victoria, Zenovia Yvonne, and Auvrellia Rose. In 1930 the Pidruchneys relocated to Willingdon, Alberta where Anna Pidruchney was a long time member of the Ukrainian Women's Association, Natalia Kobranska Branch, reorganizer of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IODE), and its first delegate to the Provincial Convention in 1932. In 1944 the family moved to Smoky Lake, Alberta, remaining there until 1944 when they returned to Vegreville. After her husband's death in 1959, Anna Pidruchney returned to teaching and taught in Edmonton, High Level, Willingdon, and Vegreville, Alberta before retiring in 1975.