Luka Talpash

(- a representative of the Lemko branch of the Talpash Family)

Father: Matthew Talpash (Mattviy Talpasz). Mother: Maria Wyslotska (Wyslocka)
Information from National Archives of Ukraine Folio 201, 4a, 6744:  Lived in #11, Village of Labowa. Died age 55; cause - "pneumonia."
(Death notations of several Talpasz families had been entered into the parish records which were maintained in Latin by the parish priest and preserved in the diocesan office. When the Ukrainian Catholic Church was liquidated by the USSR, these records were transferred to the Lviv Branch of the National Archives of Ukraine, from whence they were photocopied.)

Biography:

Luka Talpash lived near the village of Labowa, some 25 kilometers south-east of the city of Nowy Sasz, in the south of present-day Poland, on the north slopes of the Beskid range of the Carpathian Mountains. The hills in the area are covered with forests of spruce and deciduous trees. The lower slopes are grassy, and fields of hay and oats line the river valleys. Luka had a home on the sheep ranges, and made a living buying up flocks of sheep, fattening them over a summer, then herding them to markets in major centres. It is said that he would have up to 10,000 head of sheep at a time. His property may well have been substantial. (Years later, when his son John was farming in Alberta, an elderly visitor allowed that  " ... back in Labowa, John's father Luka's barnyard alone was not much smaller than John's entire farm was now!"

Luka was a well-respected man. He was physically very strong. His sons related that when he was building his house he single-handedly placed a flat rock at his doorstep.  Years later, none of his sons could even budge that rock. A tumor grew on his neck and was thought to have been a factor leading to his demise in 1887.

With wife Kateryna Poliansky, he had 11 children - Theodosiy, Varvara, Benedyk, Simeon, Michael, John, Anna, Julia, Maria, Stephania, and Anton. Of these, 3 died young. Maria married a Veslotsky and stayed in Labowa. The other 7 emigrated, first to Pennsylvania, then all, except for Theodosiy and Anna (Horoschak), moved on to Canada.

External Links:

Lemko  Galicia  National Archives of Ukraine

parish records  The Encyclopedia of Ukraine

Simeon Talpash

 - the tragic demise of Luka's third son

Biography:

In the 1880s Galicia was the largest and most northeasterly province in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although the province's governor was usually a member of the Austrian Royal Family, most administrators and members of the local police were ethnic Poles.

The Talpash boys were unusually big and strong. (Nowadays, people are admired for their brain-power; in the past, a man's physical attributes were most important!) Tales of their prodigious strength are many, and came down from various sources. Even in 1990, a new informant, Michael Talpash of Monastyrsk, Ukraine, talked to Walter Talpash of his uncles' strength. He said Simeon once put a stave through a millstone, picked it up and carried it across the millstream. On one occasion Benedyk and Simeon were walking in the forest. They came upon a man flogging his team of oxen dragging a heavy log out of the forest onto a road. They stopped and said, "Why are you torturing those poor calves? Unhitch them!"  They then picked up the log and carried it out to the road. Stephen Talpash wrote in memoirs that in 1925 he met an older man in Donwell, Saskatchewan who had come from Labowa originally. He had known the Talpash boys very well, and reported these incidents in detail.

One fateful evening Benedyk and Simeon, and likely other teenagers in the village of Labowa, were carousing. Simeon is known to have liked to drink. They came upon the gendarme on duty. Benedyk recognized him because the two had done their basic National Service training in the same squad. He cheerfully greeted his former comrade-in-arms and extended his hand. The Polish gendarme stepped back and ordered his former friend to back off. (Strict imperial law had it that no one could come within one sword-length of a gendarme on duty.) Benedyk did not think that, under the circumstances, the rule would apply. Simeon took offence that anyone would refuse to shake his brother's hand and shoved the frightened gendarme. The latter fell over and tried to draw his sabre. Simeon took it away. (Now, another imperial law held that if an officer on duty were disarmed, he would be court-martialed and dishonourably discharged. The man who disarmed him was awarded 1000 rinsky. These laws served as powerful incentives for police to take their jobs very seriously.) The gendarme now began pleading for the return of his arms, saying that he had a family to feed and needed the job. His situation was getting grim. The brothers teased him long, but eventually Benedyk relented. "Daiy do chorta", so Simeon handed back the sword. The officer immediately fell on his tormenters in pent-up rage. Simeon was slashed across the neck and head, and when Ben stooped to help his brother up, he too was slashed across the back of the neck. He tried to stop the bleeding by slapping some axle grease on the wound. Simeon finally bled enough that he died a few days later, on 30 Nov 1887.

It was reported by several informants that the young officer "disappeared from the face of the earth" shortly after. Most of Simeon's siblings emigrated to USA to join their oldest brother Theodosiy in Pennsylvania.

(From National Archives of Ukraine Folio 201, 4a, 6744:   "Morbus et qualitas mortis: in rixa cum gendarmo vulneratus" - Cause of death: a wound in a fight with a gendarme.)