Tribute to My Mom - Grace Cassel nee Kulchisky

Описание: Today is the 37th Anniversary of the death of my mother Grace Cassel nee Kulchisky. She was born in 1941 in the Canadian/Ukrainian village of Smoky Lake, Alberta Canada to Russell and Anne Kulichisky. Her family only ever spoke Ukrainian. The entire village was built by her father, my grandfather. He was a contractor, politician and band leader. Anne, his partner, was a farmer who managed a massive food producton property. She milked cows, by hand, every day at 4 am and could chop off a chickens head with an axe with frightening ease.

My Mother died of tragic circumstances at the young age of 45.

I didn't really get to know my mother. My parents broke up when I was 5 and it was a very messy break up. My father did what he could to make sure I saw her as little as possible.

I first saw these films in 2020 after my father passed away. His lawyer sent them to me after his body was disposed of. These films opened up a side of my mother I never knew. I was mesmerized by her.

It turns out that my mother was quite a character. I think she had aspirations to be a movie star or music icon. Her father played saxophone and her mother played drums in a polka band called "The Dyna Tones", so I always understood where her musical aspirations came from.

She was bright, cheerful and full of love. She was really good at silent movies. She was always so animated. I have come to understand that I am my mother's son.

I don’t know why my father didn’t show these to me. Maybe it hurt too much. She really was very special.

During the five years I had a family, my Dad was never home. My mom had to take care of my younger sister Lori and I ,sometimes for weeks on end, while my father did whatever men did back in the 60’s.

He wanted to fit in and be successful. Having been a 7 year old refugee of Nazi Germany I think he felt it necessary to rebuild the family. My mother was the unfortunate recruit of his efforts. He was very conservative.

She was not.

In 1966, at the beginning of what would become "The Summer of Love" my mother, then 25 and saddled with 2 kids, decided she wanted to be in a Rock and Roll band on the weekends when he was home. She wanted to live her life.

She said to me Dad “Hey, you can take care of the kids once and awhile”

That didn’t go down well with my father. He was a hawk and she was a dove and, when I was 5, he issued her with an ultimatum; "Stay home with the kids or we get a divorce".

She refused and my family disintegrated immediately. I went with my father and my sister went with my mother. Over the next 9 years I ended up living with 4 foster families, seeing my Dad only on weekends.

My mother did everything she could to arrange to see me, but my father did everything he could to avoid her. At one point he moved 3000 km away, but she followed. Her only reason for living was to be near me.

The circumstances for independent women at that period in history led to her decline. She eventually turned to alcohol and drugs to numb the pain of losing her family and became completely unhinged when she was told that she couldn't see me even though the court had granted her visitation rights. She came from a huge family and seeing her own family fall apart must have destroyed her inside.

For some reason my father, who loved shooting 8 mm film, decided to capture the day she left home in 1966 forever to go on tour. This film starts with that clip.

My mother was one of the first generation of women trying to emancipate themselves at a point in history when that simply wasn't allowed. She defied convention and set out to be her own person and as much of a success that she could be given the attitude towards women being independent at the time.

She became a pin up girl, joined a music group called “The 2 Plus 2” and sang Motown covers as a back up singer up and down the east coast of New York State. In 1967, She became the lead singer in a band called “The Collage” and started doing psychedelic hippy music.

Her performance career came to an end when, while riding a motorcycle in the early 70's, she impacted at high speed with a lamp standard. She had to have her face reconstructed.

Shortly after my parents split up, I got to visit her a couple of times at the Leisureland Hotel in Hamburg New York, where she played regularly. One night she brought my sister and I up on stage when I was 6 and sang us the song "One Tin Soldier". It was my first time on stage.

I only ever got to see her a handful of times and each of those times was fought with anxiety. She was desperate to keep me and sometimes would hug me so har I almost choked.

I can't tell you any more, YouTube limits description to 5000 characters

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