Good Power

1

Owning My Roots

My great-grandmother, Solemia Ushka, was the last member of her family left alive in Minsk, Belarus, during World War I. Before the war ended, she escaped to the United States with her husband, Dan, my great-grandfather, and they settled in Chicago.

Solemia later suffered two more tragedies in her life. Her two-year-old daughter was hit by a car at a picnic and killed, and her husband, a heavy drinker, died from diabetes, leaving her a widow with a son, Paul, but no money and no skills. Solemia also didn’t speak English. A stout and sturdy woman, she took no shame in menial labor and got a job working the night shift as a cleaning woman in the two-towered Wrigley Building on Chicago’s North Michigan Avenue. She spent most of ...