Martin Bobowsky

Biography

Martin Bobowsky was born on 11 November 1880 in Howilow Wielke, Bec Husatyn, Galicia (now western Ukraine) to Jendryzy Bobowsky and Maria Chuderska.¹ Martin grew up on the estate of his father who was a baron or landowner. Not being the eldest son in the family Martin was not Jendryzy’s heir. His parents expected him to join the priesthood.

Martin chose instead to emigrate to Canada sometime between 1902 and 1905. Like many eastern European immigrants at the time Martin settled in North End, Winnipeg. He found work as a machine moulder at Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) where he made castings at the CPR shop on Logan Avenue. On November 2, 1907 Martin married Anastazia Kondratiuk, also an immigrant from Galicia. On August 15, 1909 Anastazia gave birth to the couple’s first child, daughter Aniela. The family lived on the second floor of a house at 629 Pritchard Avenue.

During the winter of 1909 – 1910 the Bobowsky family moved from Winnipeg to Coleman, Alberta in the Crowsnest Pass where Martin got a job as a coal miner. In August 1910 baby Aniela died shortly before her first birthday. Four months later Anastazia gave birth to the couple’s second child, Olga Eugenia, in Coleman.

The 1911 census taken in June records Martin, Anastazia and Olga (nicknamed Lily) living in Coleman. The family had taken in five boarders, all miners and all probably ethnic Ukrainians from Galicia.

Sometime in the following 12 months the Bobowsky family left Coleman and moved back to Winnipeg where their first son Paul was born in August 1912. Four other children followed over the next eight years. When he returned from Coleman Martin initially worked for the City of Winnipeg as a labourer, a job he probably landed with the help of his father-in-law who was a long time city employee. Between 1914 and 1929 the Bobowskys lived in a string of eight small rented houses in North End Winnipeg moving every few years.

Circa 1915 Martin got a job as the circulation manager for Czas, a Polish language weekly newspaper that opened in 1914. He was well educated, fluent in both Polish and Ukrainian. As circulation manager Martin would have been responsible for maintaining subscriber lists, overseeing delivery operations and increasing the newspaper’s subscribers.

The 1916 census recorded Martin and his family living at 866 Redwood Avenue. Martin, age 37, was working as a printer.

Bobowsky family in 1920. L to R: William, Martin (seated), Paul, Olga, Angela, Millie, Anastazia (seated)

In early 1919 Martin left his job at Czas and joined Ukrainian Labour News which began publication in the newly opened Ukrainian Labour Temple. Historian Peter Krawchuk, in his book Our History: The Ukrainian Farmer Labour Movement in Canada, 1907 – 1991, touches on the launch of the new Ukrainian language Communist newspaper²:

“[Daniel] Lobay was the paper’s first editor, [John] Navis its administrator, John Zelez the linotype operator and Martin Bobowsky the expediter”

Martin’s employment at Ukrainian Labour News was probably interrupted by the Winnipeg General Strike in May-June 1919. This largest and most influential strike in Canadian history was forcibly put down by the RCMP of the day. On June 17 “the Ukrainian Labour Temple was raided by the RCMP, all correspondence, account and address books were confiscated, and the print shop and offices were ransacked”³.

This probably explains why, sometime in 1919, Martin purchased or opened a bookstore at 305 Selkirk Avenue near Main Street. The Bobowsky family lived above the shop. The following year he moved the store and his family to 568 Selkirk. In March 1920, when daughter Amelia (Millie) was born Martin was back working as the circulation manager for the Ukrainian Labour News. At the time of the 1921 census was taken Martin was employed as a “clerk” in the “printing office” at the Ukrainian Labour Temple.  The Labour Temple had a printing press in the basement where several newpapers were printed over the years including Ukrainian Labour News and Workers & Farmers Publication.

During the 1920s two of Martin’s relatives emigrated from Ukraine to Winnipeg: his sister, Aniela Bobowsky; and his nephew, Eugene (Joe) Romanov. While there are traces of these relatives in the family records we know little about them.

As the Bobowsky children completed school and entered the workforce the family’s income increased and their circumstances gradually improved. In 1929 Martin purchased a house at 733 Boyd Avenue in North End Winnipeg. In her later years Martin’s daughter Angela remembered the moment:

Our family eventually bought a home with a self contained apartment on the second floor, hardwood floors, a basement with a furnace to heat the house, an extra washroom and a closed in heated veranda with several windows. We were happy and loved our new home.

The 1931 census taken in early June of that year records all eight members of the Bobowsky family living in five rooms at 733 Boyd. Three additional rooms (probably the second floor) were rented to a Polish couple. Martin is listed as a clerk in the publishing business earning $1300 per year. Olga was earning $250 per year and the Polish couple was paying $180 per year in rent.

Circa 1932 Martin and Anastazia ended their marriage with a separation agreement. The terms of the agreement were set by a family affairs committee of the Ukrainian Labour Temple Association. Under the terms of the agreement Anastazia and the children continued to live in the family home on Boyd. Martin undertook to pay weekly child support.

Following the marital breakup Martin moved out of the family home. As the Great Depression took hold jobs became scarce and the Bobowskys could no longer afford to pay the mortgage on 733 Boyd. They eventually lost the house. One by one Martin’s older children left Winnipeg in search of work and eventually settled in Toronto. His wife and younger children followed them to Toronto circa 1937. Martin remained in Winnipeg.

Thereafter records of where Martin lived and worked are sporadic. He moved from one boarding house to another: 584 Pritchard Avenue; 778 Redwood Avenue; 78 Charles Street; 272 Jarvis Street; and probably several others.  Initially he continued to work at the Workers and Farmers publication and the Ukrainian Labour Temple. The Ukrainian Labour News ceased publication in 1937 but was replaced until 1941 by the People’s Gazette. In 1941 the building and its printing press were seized by the Canadian government and sold. In 1943 a new paper, the Ukrainian Word began publication but it is not clear whether Martin, aged 63 at the time, was employed there. In the 1940s he was employed, most likely as a bookkeeper, by MacDonald Brothers, a diversified manufacturing company. According to his daughter Angela he eventually retired and worked part time preparing tax returns for Winnipeg restaurants:

We eventually all left home (at different times) and settled in Toronto except for my father. He stayed in Winnipeg, living in a room on Main Street by himself. In his retirement years he earned a living doing income tax returns for several restaurants on Main Street. In his spare time, he played checkers regularly with men his age. 

Circa 1954 Martin travelled to Toronto to visit his children and grandchildren. It was the first and only time he had seen his children since they left Winnipeg in the 1930s and his only time with his grandchildren (with the exception of Karl Magid who had been born in Winnipeg). While in Toronto Martin stayed with each of his children in turn. Angela later wrote:

He came to Toronto to visit us a few years after my mother died and stayed for about two months, dividing his stay among his children. I was happy to spend time with my father and get to know him. We asked him if he would ever consider living in Toronto, but he said he would miss all the friends and acquaintances he met daily in North End Winnipeg. I enjoyed his visit and believe my children did as well. He taught them to play checkers and always let them win. I missed him when he left. We asked him to stay, but he didn’t like Toronto where he would walk for hours and not meet a familiar face. 

I don’t remember keeping in touch with him on a regular basis during our long separation of about thirty years, other than exchanging birthday and Christmas cards and an occasional letter. But when he returned to Winnipeg, we corresponded about two or three times a month.

One of Martin’s grandchildren recalls that he was not in the best of health during his visit to Toronto and struggled through a severe heat wave that Toronto experienced that summer.

Martin retired from full time work in 1952. From about 1953 until 1957 Martin lived in a boarding house at 146 Selkirk Avenue with the owners and five other boarders.

Martin Bobowsky died of a heart attack in his boarding house at 146 Selkirk Avenue in Winnipeg on December 26, 1957 and was buried on December 30 in Brookside Cemetery. According to Martin’s death certificate and Brookside Cemetery records the man they buried on December 30, 1957 was Michael Bobowski. The headstone identifies the grave occupant as Martin Bobowski.

Source Documents

• The Bobowsky Family Bible
• Marriage Certificate of Martin Bobowsky and Anastazia Kondratiuk
• 1911 Census Record of Martin Bobowsky and household
• 1916 Census Record of Martin Bobowsky and household
• 1921 Census Record of Martin Bobowsky and household
• 1926 Census Record of Martin Bobowsky and household
• Winnipeg Directory Listings for the Bobowsky Family, 1906 – 1943
• Death Certificate of Martin Bobowsky (1880 – 1957)
• Brookside Cemetery Register for the Burial of Martin “Michael” Bobowsky

Footnotes

1. Much of what we know about the origins of the Bobowsky and Kondratiuk families comes from entried made by Martin Bobowsky in the Bobowsky Family Bible 
2. The citation from Peter Klawchuk’s book was provided by Lily Stearns, an archivist with the Canadian Society for Ukrainian Labour Research, rather than directly from a copy of the book
3. According to a University of Manitoba paper on the history of the Ukrainian Labour Temple Association