MARGARETA ROMSA (SCHELLENBERG) (BORISENKO) -

Adjust Text Size: A+ A-

MARGARETA ROMSA (nee SCHELLENBERG) (BORISENKO) 1919 - 2011 Margareta Romsa (nee Schellenberg), mom to her children, passed away peacefully at Bethania on November 30, 2011. She survived all of her siblings and now, her wish to be reunited with family members who predeceased her, including her grandson Shaun, was fulfilled. She is survived by her husband Nicholas Romsa, children Harry (Mary), Rita (David), Sina, Richard (Linda), grandchildren Jonathan (Nancy), Tetjana (Jeff), Konrad (Ashley) and great-grandchildren June, Madeline and Alexander. Shortly after her birth on September 5, 1919 in Grigorievka, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, her family moved via a railway freight car to the village of Alexandertal in the Molotschna area of Southern Ukraine, as Grigorievka was an isolated Mennonite village and thus unsafe in troubled times. Here the Mennonite Schellenbergs prospered and mom spent a happy childhood. This was not to last. Stalin's purge of landowners and his confiscation of food supplies lead to the first of her many unfathomable horrors arising from his dictates. The deportation of her father, and later her brothers, to Siberia, the loss of all family possessions due to collectivization, and the Ukrainian famine of the early 1930s were but harbingers of more difficulties to follow. Mother's intelligence combined with her love of learning offered an escape from this surrealistic environment. She walked 15 kilometers one way every week to take the train to attend Halbstadt's girls' high school and then completed her training as a midwife. Her love of medicine led her to continue medical studies at Mogilev University in Belarus. Here she met and married her first husband Paul Borisenko, a surgeon. They took up a medical practice in Tschausay, Belarus in the southern region of Mogilev Oblast. The outbreak of the Second World War saw both of them conscripted into the medical core. In 1942, she gave birth to twins: only Gerhard Harry Borisenko survived. A few years later, she was left a widow after her husband's assassination by partisans. Gerhard became her reason to carry on and she took the small window of opportunity to escape Stalinism, Nazism and to search for a better life somewhere in the West. She carried/dragged her son all the way from Belarus to Germany. After the armistice, she had to evade Russian search parties who, with the agreement of their Western Allies, were forcibly deporting refugees from Eastern Europe, including her mother and two sisters. She achieved this by seeking refuge in a different village every night by assuming different names and through her ability with many languages. When events began to normalize, she met and married Nick Romsa in a Displaced Persons camp. The marriage was blessed by the arrival of daughter Rita. Her Aunt Greta Braun rescued Margareta and her family from the violent refugee camps through sponsorship to Canada in 1948. The journey to Canada entailed surviving a major sea storm, with passengers assigned to life boats, as it seemed they would have to abandon the ship, Aquitania. Having been sea sick for a week, she and her family finally arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax. In Montreal, due to severe winter weather and illness, Margareta had to wait a few days before she continued to Winnipeg and a farm near Elm River southeast of Portage La Prairie. Here she took on the life of a labourer, to repay the cost of passage to Canada. She stoically set aside her professional career and adapted to a new life in a new country. This involved learning how to bake, cook, garden, sew, preserve food and farm. Her Mennonite faith and the arrival of Sina sustained her in these transition years. In 1954, when the family moved to the village of Oakville, her life became somewhat physically easier. New and dear old friends, including the Elm River Hutterites, filled a social void. The culmination of her Oakville life was the arrival of Richard, who provided her with joy, comfort and company when the other children left to pursue their studies. Later, her prayers, that she live to see Richard attain adulthood and happily married, were answered. In September 1975, Margareta moved to Winnipeg and later she purchased a house on Inkster Boulevard. Kinship was important to her as she looked after her Aunt Greta Braun, enjoyed visiting with her Uncle Isaac's family and reminisced with her cousin Mary over old times in Ukraine. Additional free time now enabled her to look up and spend time with old friends from Mennonite Villages in Ukraine. Grandchildren Tetjana and Konrad received her warmth, when she tended to them before they started school. Her other grandchildren, Shaun and Jonathan, who lived further away, basked in her love when they arrived for a visit. She joined the First Mennonite Church in the 1950s and her faith kept sustaining her even after she had to leave for Bethania. Mother, you are sorely missed and shall always be remembered with much love. The family would like to thank the nurses and aides at Bethania Mennonite Personnel Care Home for their kindness and care of mother over these more than 10 years and especially in her last weeks. Memorial service will be held at 1:00 p.m. in the chapel at Bethania Mennonite Personal Care Home, 1045 Concordia Ave. with a private family interment to follow. Flowers gratefully declined. If one chooses, donations can be made in her name to Bethania, the Dream Factory, any children's charity or a charity close to your heart.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Dec 03, 2011