Gloria Chomiak Atamanenko
American social worker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gloria Katherine Chomiak Atamanenko (April 28, 1932 – October 12, 2017) was a Canadian social worker, writer, editor, and translator. As a teenager in the United States, she made headlines as the winner of a national essay contest on the theme "I Speak for Democracy".
April 28, 1932
Gloria Chomiak Atamanenko | |
|---|---|
Chomiak from a 1950 publication of the U.S. Department of the Interior | |
| Born | Gloria Katherine Chomiak April 28, 1932 Fort Vermilion, Alberta, Canada |
| Died | October 12, 2017 (aged 85) Williams Lake, British Columbia, Canada |
| Occupations | Social worker, writer, translator, editor |
Early life and education
Gloria Chomiak was born in Fort Vermilion, Alberta, the daughter of Peter Chomiak and Nellie Pikulik Chomiak. Her parents were farmers, both Ukrainian-born immigrants to Canada, and her first language was Ukrainian.[1][2] She was educated at home and through correspondence courses until age 15, when she attended a high school in Wilmington, Delaware, and lived with her uncle there.[3][4]
In 1950, Chomiak won a $500 scholarship as one of four national finalists in an "I Speak for Democracy" essay contest, selected from over a million entries.[1][5][6] Her essay, which began "I speak for democracy, because two generations back my ancestors could not", was read into the Congressional Record by Senator John J. Williams,[7] who commented that "This essay should be read not only by every student but more important, it should be read by every adult in this country."[8] Her essay was reprinted in newspapers across the United States,[9] and she met Harry S. Truman, Alben W. Barkley and Senator J. Allen Frear Jr.[10][11] The Voice of America invited her to read a translation of her essay in Ukrainian, for a special broadcast.[12] An episode of the radio program Cavalcade of America dramatized her story, with Peggy Ann Garner originally cast as Chomiak.[13][14][15] Susan Douglas played the role instead,[16] and Chomiak read her essay aloud during the national live broadcast.[17] She also read the essay at a Daughters of the American Revolution conference, and at church events.[18][19]
Chomiak graduated from Swarthmore College in 1955.[20][21] She earned a master's degree in counseling and psychology from the University of Victoria in 1980,[22] with a thesis titled "Family Relationships and Creativity-related Personality Factors: Perspectives from Three Literatures" (1980).[23]
Career
Atamanenko was a psychiatric social worker in Williams Lake, British Columbia, Edmonton, and Vancouver.[24] In 1998 she was honored by the Learning Disabilities Association of British Columbia, for her work for disabled children and adults.[22] She was also a writer and translator; she wrote essays for Lived Experience, a Canadian literary annual, and translated Mykhailo Mikolajovich Ivanychuk's Fourteen Months on Franz Joseph Land (1934) from Russian and Ukrainian into English.[2][25][26] She co-edited a collection of biographical essays, Gumption Grit: Women of the Cariboo Chilcotin (2009, with Karen Thompson, Pam Mahon, and Sage Birchwater).[27] She also helped compile a collection of local elders' writings, as Looking Back, Looking Forward: Cariboo Seniors' Stories and Poems (2002).[28] She was active in adult education[29] and in NDP politics in the Cariboo-Chilcotin constituency.[30]