In Memory of  Peter Trimpolis (Gurinow)

August 12, 1911 – December 5, 2011

Peacefully, during the early morning of December 5, 2011, our beloved father took his last breath surrendering his spirit to our Creator and slipped into the temporary sleep of death at 100 years of age.

He leaves behind to cherish his memory his daughters, Helen and Lilly (Terry); and two grandsons, Steve and Evan. He also leaves behind one brother and two sisters, as well as numerous nieces and nephews in Ukraine. He was predeceased by his dear wife Mary in 1998 and only son Walter in 1979.

Peter was born in 1911 in the tiny village of Nyzhnya Pokrovka in Kharkov, eastern Ukraine. His happy childhood forever changed when the Soviet government under Stalin orchestrated its collectivization campaign and confiscated his family’s farm in the 1929 "dekulakization". Consequently, at the age of 18, Peter, along with his family of 10, as well as much of his village were exiled to the cold far north in Russia. Escaping forced labour, he criss-crossed the USSR as a fugitive, working where he could under six false names in order to send food packages of dried bread to keep his family from starvation. During these 10 years, he was able to learn the electrical trade which he went on to practise in Canada.

In an ironic twist, in 1941 he was conscripted and forced to defend Moscow in the Red Army during the German invasion as a medic. After surviving four German death camps, he avoided repatriation to the Soviet Ukraine and became enlisted in a displaced person camp which eventually led to his arrival in Canada in 1947. Even though he arrived with no money, family contacts or the English language, he was grateful to God for his new homeland, where he could be free from any further oppression and persecution.

He worked in a lumber camp in Thunder Bay, Ont. for one year. Through his new found friends, the Towsciks, he began to correspond via letters with a nice Ukrainian girl in Winnipeg. After a brief visit to Winnipeg to meet Mary, they married in 1949, and started a family and a new life together.

Peter began to work in construction throughout the Province, as well as in Dryden, Ont. and Winnipeg, Man. which included the wiring of the Manitoba government’s Norquay Building. He felt very proud to have the opportunity to contribute back to the economy of his new homeland. After working at CNR for 13 years, he retired in 1976, but still kept working hard maintaining rental properties.

Peter loved spending every summer at the cottage he built at Lester Beach on Lake Winnipeg in 1961. It was paradise to him. He would often say: “Why would anyone want to go for a holiday to any other place?” To him it was better than Barbados or Hawaii. Nothing made him happier than to spend his time there in the fresh air with his family and beloved neighbours, such as the Skinners and Hedleys, to name a few.

During this time, our father was able to compile the scribblers he had filled up for 50 years and to finally self-publish his memoirs. In 1998, the Ukrainian version of his story, Ternystyi Shliakh Zhyttia was published, and in 2000 upon its translation into English: My Rocky Road of Life. It was really important to him for history not to forget that the 1932-1933 Ukrainian Famine Genocide which claimed seven million lives actually began in 1929 and into 1930 when at least three million additional innocent people lost their lives due to starvation, sickness, and the freezing cold during their exile in the far north. Therefore as a result, more accurately, 10 million Ukrainians perished. Our father enjoyed visiting with multitudes of people from all over who came to visit with him, share their stories, and pick up a signed copy of his book. Due to the encouragement from his many readers, at the age of 96 our father began and completed his second book, My Life in Canada.

To purchase Peter Trimpolis’ memoir book “My Rocky Road of Life” in Ukrainian or English or “My Life in Canada”, please contact Lilly Burky at 204-269-1614.

Deep are the memories

Precious they stay

No passing of time

Can take them away

We love you Tato and Dido.

Vichnaya Pamyat!