Not Without My Mother’s Boots

Not without My Mother's Boots is a memoir written by my (Dido) grandfather, Nicholas Chrustie (Chrustiski) born in Ternopol Ukraine, in 1892 and emigrated to Manitoba at age thirteen. As a boy, Nicholas endured loss and hardship. This began with his eldest brother's early death and continued with his family's extreme poverty at the time. He worked long hours out on the prairie wheat fields; he once tutored a student for a slice of bread while wearing the hardship in his mother's boots to school because his parents could not afford to buy him a pair of boots. Nicholas shared a special bond with his mother, a determined woman, who encouraged him to persevere, even in the face of sorrow, hunger, and toil. He embraced her coda and created for himself a brighter future in Canada, the land he came to call home.