FACES AND PLACES: Remembering and celebrating Joe Lesawyer (02/19/06)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Remembering and celebrating Joe Lesawyer

When a man like Joe Lesawyer dies at age 94, you mourn. Briefly. Then you move on to celebrate an extraordinary life of perseverance and great achievement.

If you're under the age of 35, you've probably never heard of Joe Lesawyer. Your loss. In his prime, the man was a walking, talking tribute to what Tom Brokaw called "The Greatest Generation," those Americans who suffered through the Great Depression, served honorably in the second world war and went on to carve out successful careers.

Born the son of Ukrainian immigrants, Joe earned his B.S. degree at New York University, where he played varsity baseball for three years.

During World War II, Joe served in Gen. George Patton's 3rd Army, attaining the rank of captain. He eventually earned the Bronze Star for meritorious service during the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne, Belgium.

His military service behind him, Joe went to work for the Adam Hat Co., scouting out potential locations for retail stores, then purchasing the sites for his company. He left Adam Hat to become a successful real estate agent. It was Joe who found the Foord Estate that the UNA purchased and eventually transformed into what is now Soyuzivka. At the time Joe was serving his first term as UNA supreme vice-president.

Joe Lesawyer became active in Ukrainian affairs as a young man. He was in Chicago in 1933 when the Ukrainian Youth League of North America (UYLNA) was founded. Later, he served on the UYLNA executive.

Elected supreme vice-president of Ukrainian National Association in 1950, Joe was ousted from his post by Michael Piznak in 1954. Joe returned the favor in 1958, recapturing the post of supreme vice-president by a hair. It was one of the most raucous campaigns in UNA history. Joe ascended to the UNA presidency following the untimely death of Supreme President Dmytro Halychyn in 1961.

Joe Lesawyer was the last of the hands-on, community-oriented UNA presidents, a man willing to get out from behind his desk and hobnob with the folks. There was hardly a major event that did not include Joe. During his tenure, UNA membership rose to 89,117, an impressive figure considering the fact that by 1958 Ukrainian immigration was down to a trickle.

As a young supreme advisor stumbling up the UNA hierarchy, I recall Joe making membership his No. 1 priority. "How many members did you sign up?" he would ask everytime we met. I wasn't the only one he would cajole. Every Supreme Assembly member was expected to bring new applications to the annual sessions as well as to the quadrennial conventions. Joe wasn't embarrassed to ask every Ukrainian he met if he was a UNA member and he expected us to do the same.

Concerned always with the UNA image, Joe worked with the City of Jersey City to build one of the first "skyscrapers" along the city's revitalized riverfront. The 15-story UNA headquarters building on Montgomery Street was a monument to Joe's vision. Sadly, the building, now located in a prime real estate area, is no longer ours. At the time, the UNA also had its own print shop and a bookstore, both long gone.

While the UNA was his first love, Joe was also active in other organizations, holding significant leadership positions in the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, the Ukrainian American Veterans, the Ukrainian American Democrats and the Shevchenko Memorial Committee, where he served as executive director. What mattered to Joe was UNA visibility.

Joe was a political animal. "If we want a voice in American national affairs," he often said, "we must be active in American political life." A lifelong Democrat, he met every American president from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Bill Clinton. Every four years he would crank up the Ukrainian American Democrats and do battle with Ukrainian American Republicans. Always civil, Joe understood that once the campaign was over, we were all Ukrainian Americans who needed to work cooperatively to achieve common goals. That mindset also appears to be a thing of the past.

I have fond memories of Joe Lesawyer, especially when I worked in the White House as a special assistant to President Gerald R. Ford. I could always count on Joe to come to Washington to represent the Ukrainian American community. How ironic. Here was Joe, vice-president of the UCCA, a staunch Democrat in a Republican White House, while the president of the UCCA, a long-time Republican, refused to set foot in the White House because he felt slighted by the Ford administration. For Joe, the Ukrainian cause was more important than petty partisan politics.

I also have pleasant memories of Mary, Joe's wife, who was the charming starostynia at my Soyuzivka wedding to Lesia Waskiw in 1964. Born to a Ukrainian family in Shamokin, Pa., Mary was a lyric soprano with the New York City Opera for nearly two decades. She also appeared in numerous Ukrainian musical productions in the United States, Canada, Europe and South America. Mary preceded Joe in death in 2004.

Joe Lesawyer never quite recovered from his loss of the presidency to John Flis at the 1978 UNA convention in Pittsburgh. He refused to accept an honorary position on the UNA General Assembly because it would prevent his running for office again. His repeated efforts to regain the presidency never materialized, however.

On June 8, 1997, Joe Lesawyer, age 86, received the recognition he so richly deserved at a testimonial banquet sponsored by the UNA, the UCCA and Ukrainian Institute of America. Among the many VIPs present were Bishop Basil Losten, Ambassador Roman Popadiuk, and Michael Starr, former Canadian minister of labor.

As scratchy as Joe could often be, he was a man who cared deeply about the UNA, the hromada and Ukraine. He believed in rewarding his friends and punished those he perceived to be his enemies. You always knew where you stood with Joe. What you saw was what you got. Vichna Yomu Pamiat!

Myron Kuropas's e-mail address is: kuropas@comcast.net.

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