Michalina Mihalasky

Michalina “Micki” Mihalasky was a force of nature, who rose above the hardships of World War II, communism, a forced population resettlement and immigration to a new country, to become a thriving wife, mother, grandmother and American citizen.  She was a nurturing and generous person who looked after her family with boundless energy.  Micki departed the sufferings and disappointments of this fallen world on Friday, February 21.  She now awaits future resurrection and reunion with her Savior and her loving family.

Micki was born a Carpathian mountain highlander, a Lemko, in 1935.  Her family farmstead was situated in the village of Milik, situated in a small valley among the low foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, near the Poprad River, in what is now southeastern Poland.  For the first 12 years of her life, she and her family of subsistence farmers lived without electricity or indoor plumbing.  Her family eked out a living from the poor, rocky soil as well as from the tourist trade at the mineral water health spas that dotted the region.  The family became successful enough to open their own small dry goods store.  Nevertheless, life was still hard, and her mother, Maria, lost her first two children before Micki’s birth.  Her father, Vasyl Knapik, was remembered for his hard work and Maria for her generosity.  Micki often recalled for her children how Maria would feed passing beggars, give them clothing and clean their own filthy clothes in a cauldron of boiling water.  From her parents, Micki had a sterling example of hard work and generosity that stayed with her always.

As was the custom at the time, they cooked at home with a wood-burning stove and stayed warm by its residual heat at night.  Among Micki’s chief responsibilities from a very young age, were to feed the livestock and take the cows out to pasture.  She was an unwilling and uninspired student in the kitchen, according to her own mother.  Despite this, her future family would later benefit from what everyone agreed were her excellent cooking skills.  Her son, Mark and her daughter, Susyn, will always remember her tasty chicken soup with dumplings, stuffed cabbage and especially those awesome overstuffed roast beef sandwiches.

World War II brought an early end to Micki’s country youth, when the Nazi German and Communist Russian armies invaded both her peaceful homeland and her very family home.  Her home, being one of the larger and more “comfortable” in the area, was occupied by officers of both armies as they passed through at various times, while she and her family were forced to live in the root cellar.  Micki’s father, Vasyl, joined the anti-Nazi partisans, putting his family at great risk by so doing, and forcing Micki and her mother to hide in the woods on more than one occasion, in order to protect themselves from violence.  Despite this, Micki greatly admired her father’s strength and courage, and repeated something he’d often said to her when facing difficult tasks: “It simply has to be done.”  Micki disliked hearing this from her father as much as her daughter, Susyn, would later dislike hearing it from her, but it has proven to be a valuable life lesson.

Following the War, in 1947, Micki and her family were forcibly resettled away from their home at gunpoint, along with their entire village and the region’s population.  This permanent forced resettlement away from their homeland occurred as part of a large number of “ethnocidal” forced population resettlements of entire ethnic groups taking place at that time in history.  These cruel undertakings were intended by the communist governments of that day to destroy the cultural consciousness of borderland people groups considered to be politically “unreliable.”  Micki’s family, now grown to 3 surviving children, was settled into a war-damaged farmstead from which the original German owners had themselves been previously forcibly expelled. Their “new” home had no windows or doors and had long since been stripped of anything of usable value.  From this hard, traumatic start, 12-year old Micki would have to build a new life, along with her devastated family.  Micki’s father, Vasyl, insisted from the beginning that Micki, as his eldest child, should go to college, get an education and help her people.  It simply had to be done.  Vasyl was a strong believer in education, teaching himself to read by reading the Bible, the only book that subsistence farmers would typically have at home.  This knowledge caused Micki’s father to take his family and leave the local village church in order to live a life more consistent with the Bible.  That was hard for Micki, but it simply had to be done.

While in college, Micki was introduced to her husband, John, an American college professor of the same cultural and Bible-based background, who had been born in Passaic, New Jersey.  She married him in 1958, but was for a year disallowed from migrating to the US by the communist authorities, who insisted that she serve as a “spy” for them during what was then the height of the Cold War.  She refused to do so and eventually, they relented and allowed her to leave the country. Micki was finally able to join her husband in America in 1959.  She was proud of her new homeland and became an American citizen in 1968.  She fully embraced the American dream, buying a home with John and, very characteristically of her, driving big, American luxury cars.  She favored Lincoln Continentals, Chrysler Town Cars and Chrysler New Yorkers, large vehicles, which the petite 5 ft. 1 in. Micki handled with remarkable skill and dexterity in those tight, busy Passaic streets.  The fact that she occasionally had trouble seeing over the dash, did not in any way deter her self-confidence.  She was also a bit of a “lead foot” who was known to charm her way out of the occasional speeding ticket.

Micki worked hard to learn English, which she did in part from daytime television, and later, from her children and their school books.  She had two children and stayed home with them full-time, until they were in school full-time.  While they were in school, she earned a BA with honors from Rutgers University in 1975 and an MA in History from Montclair State College in 1985.  As a teacher, she earned certification in Bilingual / Bicultural Education, Social Studies and Russian language. She taught in the Passaic School District, at both Passaic High School and the Passaic Adult Learning Center. Her children still marvel at the sheer energy and determination that enabled her to hold a full-time job, care for her family after school, and then attend college courses in the evening.  It simply had to be done.  Micki retired in 2002, after which she had even more time to focus on her obsession with growing and eating tomatoes, of which she could never seem to get enough.

Micki was a very nurturing person who always made sure that her children were well cared-for.  She especially enjoyed dressing up her children in nice clothes, favoring cowboy outfits for her son and frilly dresses, braids and ribbons for her daughter. Micki and John sacrificed financially in the early years of their marriage to see to it that their children had exposure to new experiences.  Mark received guitar and saxophone lessons, while Susyn enjoyed ballet, gymnastics and piano lessons.  Ceramics workshops, scouting, school band, cross-country, track & field and many other activities were made possible by Micki’s constant chauffeuring and purchasing of endless uniforms, sports equipment and supplies.  It simply had to be done.

The greatest gift that Micki bequeathed to her children was her Bible-based faith.  Through her daily example, they learned about generosity, kindness, and sacrificing for others, not to mention how to cook good food!  They learned about God, Jesus and the hope of eternal salvation and were given a sense of purpose for their lives on this earth.  Her loving family is heartbroken at this temporary parting from their beloved Micki, but look forward to being reunited with her in the coming promised Millennial Kingdom.

Micki is survived by her loving family:  son, Mark, his wife, Francine, and her three grandsons, Michael, Matthew and David; as well as daughter, Susyn.  Her loving husband, John, predeceased her in 2006.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions to Fisher House Foundation (www.fisherhouse.org), 12300 Twinbrook Parkwaty #410, Rockville, MD 20852 would be appreciated.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Michalina Mihalasky, please visit our floral store.