Plainky Plains Manitoba First Hand Account of Its Founding

A good friend and helper to my Great Grandmother Wasylyna Gorman of Stuartburn, Manitoba were Mrs. Anne Sherman and her husband, Alec.

In April of 1974, Mrs. Sherman honored my Grandmother by written down her story and then publishing it in the Carillon News over two issues.  The following selection is from Mrs. Sherman’s work.

Mrs. W. Gorman of Stuartburn is one of these.  She experienced the trek from the Ukraine to the Canadian wilderness in 1899 as a 14-yeard old girl and participated in the settling of a new country.  Today, still in good health despite her 89 years, she lives in her neat cottage in Stuartburn where she still carries her own firewood and water.  Her life story is simply told here by a close friend of Mrs. Gorman’s.  The Carillon’s Stuartburn correspondent, Mrs. A. Sherman.

About 1903, men of the surrounding neighborhood held meetings in the homes in regards to choosing a spot for a cemetery.  Men attending included Nick Didychuk, Harry Goy (grandfather of Mrs. Mike Tkachuk), Steve Horbul, S. Koshman, Jack Pawloski, father of Pete Pawloski, Winnipeg, N. Polischuk (Mrs. Cherwaty’s father), Mike Nawolski, Oliksa Tkachuk (Jack’s dad), Dan Horbul, J. Gorman and Sam Gorman (husband of Wasylyna).

Jack Pawloski agreed to donate an acre of land and so did Stephan Koshman, but they soon were to find out that there was a road allowance between the two farms.  The first membership fees were 25 cents and another acre of land was bought from Jack Pawloski where the land was quite a bit higher.