Iakov Hryhorovych Basans'kyi, builder and craftsman

According to Baba Polia, her father was exceptionally gifted as a builder and craftsman. He could sight down a line and lay the straightest fence in the village. He laid out and built the house used for the model with no tools other than a folding ruler. When we began taking measurements for the 3-D model of the house, we found the house to be remarkably even and symmetrical. Differences in height between windows were mere millimeters, for example.

Iakov Basans'kyi was also an exceptional gardener. Again according to Baba Polia, he was very good at grafting fruit trees and could produce the tastiest apples around. Trees planted by him are still to be found throughout the entire village.

Unfortunately, Iakov Basans'kyi had a great love of alcohol and the payment that he would receive for most of this work was 100 grams of horilka (vodka or homebrew). According to his daughter, when he started drinking, he could disappear for as long as two weeks. When he came home, he was contrite and a good husband and father, but his tendency to drink was something he just could not shake.

Alcohol killed him in 1953, at the relatively young age of 59. Because there were no sons and the work of a man was disparately needed, the family married Polia to an orphan, Vasyl' Latysh. Vasyl' is seven years younger than Polina. But he is big and strong and the sort of person needed by a family with no male members. Vasyl' lost his father in 1943 and his mother in 1944. As an orphan, his prospects were not good. Thus the marriage between Polina and Vasyl' was mutually advantageous. Normally, when a couple marries, they move in with the parents of the groom. When a man moves in with the woman's family, he is considered an adopted son of sorts, a pryimak.