Ivan Balko

Ivan “John” Balko passed away at age 97 on July 5,2021. He was the eldest of 3 boys born to Philip and Pauline Romanow Balko on July 3, 1924, in Velyki Mosti (Big Bridges), Ukraine, occupied under Polish rule at the time.

After completing Polish elementary school, he was a tailor’s apprentice to his uncle from age 12.

At age 17, the German forces rounded up all able-bodied male teens in his town to work in German labor camps. Ivan ended up in Weisenfels where he worked in a fire house. Once his tailor skills were made known, he did double duty as a tailor sewing uniforms as well as a fireman.

It was at this labor camp in Weisenfels where he met his future wife, Efrosina Malko, and they were married once the war ended at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Goettingen, Germany on September 2, 1945. By November 1945 they escaped the Soviet Zone into the British Zone to prevent being sent back to the USSR which by then occupied Ukraine. The British offered them passage to England in exchange for a one-year work contract to do whatever was needed to rebuild England.

After one year of being separated in England, they settled in Chesham and then Edmonton. Eventually, with the sponsorship of his aunt in America and, after waiting for 5 years due to immigration quotas, they arrived in New York on the steamship Ile de France in December 1951. A cold-water flat on the lower East Side of Manhattan served as their apartment for about a year. Ivan worked for Crawford Clothing Manufacturing Company for several years but, since the job was seasonal, he eventually landed a job at Bankers Trust Company on Wall Street in Lower Manhattan where he worked for 34 years starting as a janitor, elevator operator and then in the newly established printing department, which he retired from in 1987.

Ivan lived in Brooklyn, Staten Island, and then New Jersey before moving out West to Las Vegas in 1993. Ivan could speak 6 languages, maintained his sewing skills by making clothing for the family, loved tinkering with tools and fixing/creating things, totally enjoyed watching his granddaughters grow up and become the successful women they are today and said there was no better place to live than in Las Vegas. He was preceded in death by his wife in 2007.

He is survived by his daughter Linda (Mark) Gallo; granddaughters, Larissa (Vic); Alanna (Alex); and was extremely fortunate to have seen his great grandson.

In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting donations to be made to the Outreach Ministry at St. Joseph, Husband of Mary Catholic Church, 7260 West Sahara Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89117. Funeral services will be private.