Women’s Voices – Leeza Wiskin

Born in Russia in 1886 to George Albert and Anna Kovalenko, Leeza Wiskin was a citizen of Hughesovka born and raised. Her father had been brought to Russia with his father in 1859 from Britian and, following an encounter with John Hughes, the two families became irrevocably intertwined. Leeza described her childhood with a sense of deep nostalgia and conveyed a clear sadness about the abrupt way she was forced to leave. She wrote with affection about the country and its climate of extremes. Of winters that “were bitterly cold” to the point that “there was snow on the ground, deep and crisp for months on end” and water would freeze instantly when thrown in the air.

Their summers mirrored this intensity, lasting 3 months and bringing long hot days filled with “bright sunshine when the yellow corn grew tall and the sunflowers grew wild, and the melons grew ripe”. She recalled her family preparing for this kind of weather by dragging massive ice blocks into their house’s basement ‘like an old-fashioned refrigerator’.

Her schooling in Hughesovka also left a considerable impression on her. As while she ‘could speak Russian from babyhood’ she did have to learn English and in turn went to both the Russian and English schools within the town. While the curriculum was relatively similar the punishments differed greatly between the two, as in the Russian school: “the teacher would pull our ears or make us kneel on the hard uneven floor of the classroom.”