Nilla was born in Ukraine, near the city of Kharkiv in November of 1924. She grew up there after the Russian revolution and watched her parents lose ownership of their farm-land and crops to the communist government. Resenting the Bolsheviks as a young women, she ended up working with the Germans when they occupied Ukraine during World War Two. After the war, she met her future husband, Alex, in Austria where they were married. They spent several years applying to move West and eventually immigrated to the
United States, going through Ellis Island in December 1949 together with their young son, Rudi, and Nilla’s parents.
After a year in Iowa working on a farm, they moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota where they had two more sons, George and Michael. Nilla worked in several nursing positions at Saint John’s Hospital, lastly as a surgical technician. In addition to a career in nursing, Nilla was quite an artist and taught painting classes. She is survived by hundreds of her paintings distributed among family and friends. Alex passed away in 2009. Nilla was a woman of deep Christian faith in the Ukrainian Orthodox tradition. She also loved Ukrainian songs, music and poetry. She had a great life and passed away peacefully. She is survived by her three sons, six grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren.
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