I just re-read Curtis's letter to “Timothy” (?) and it seemed to me, he was wondering about our family name. This got me thinking about the past, and so I thought I would share some of my memories with you.  I have been considering writing to all of you, on a periodic basis, with some of these memories, God willing.  I hope to send these to those who are interested, but if you are not, please let me know, and I will take you off my mailing list.  On the other hand, if you know of anyone I missed, who might be interested, please let me know and I'll add them.

So... here it goes.... the first installment:

Our grandparents came from Romania in the early 1900s. At that time Boian, Bukovina was in Romania. After World War II (1949, I think) the Soviet Union took a slice out of northern Romania and added it to Ukraine. That is where younger generations on my father's side now reside. I have been corresponding with them (in Romanian) since 1972 when I visited with them in Cernaut. Our first language at the farm was Romanian. But because we were in a predominantly Ukrainian community, my parents picked up some of that language. As well, several of my siblings married Ukrainian partners and made the effort to learn their language. I admired Philip Semenuik (Helen's husband), who tried to speak Romanian with me during his visits to the farm.

As you are likely aware, the Romanian alphabet is quite similar to the English alphabet, while Ukrainian is a Slavic language with a very a different alphabet. Romanian is Latin-based with similarities to Spanish, French and Italian - while Ukranian is closer to Russian.

If you speak with my remaining siblings, they can give you accounts of difficulties they had with Vital Statistics as to the spelling of their names – both first and last! Since we were all born at the farm, our arrivals were registered at the local post office. Mr. Shalka, our postmaster, was an immigrant too - with limited English. He made errors, though his intentions were good. So we had multiple spellings of our last name: Bidulac, Biduleak, Bidulak, Biduliak, etc

Regarding the time the name was anglicized to ‘Bidulock':

The ‘Bidulock' name surfaced in the late 1930s; before World War II; many years after our grandparents arrived. Even though I was not yet in my teens, I remember discussions that took place and details of the change. At present I am comparing my memories with those of other siblings and hope to report our results when I am satisfied that we are on the same ‘wave length'.

I hope this will be of some interest.