Nadia Seweryn

Viewing will take place on Wednesday, October 14th from 4-8pm with religious service beginning at 6pm.

Funeral Mass on Thursday October 15th at 10am will be held at Holy Trinity Church

Burial at St. Andrews Cemetery to follow.

‍

Nadia Seweryn

July 20, 1924 – October 8, 2026

Nadia Seweryn, who survived famine and war in Ukraine before making a home in New York, died on October 8, 2026. She was 102.

Nadia — Mamo, Baba, and Pra-Baba to her family — was born to Danilo and Motrya Boyevsky on July 20, 1924, in Semenivka, Ukraine, where her family had lived for generations. As a child, she survived the Holodomor, the 1932–1933 genocide of Ukrainians through deliberate starvation under Stalin’s Soviet regime. She remembered the unimaginable suffering, the fear, and the disappearance of entire communities. Those experiences stayed with her throughout her life.

Nadia had known her husband, Alexander Seweryn — Tato, Didu, and Pra-Didu to his family — since childhood. They married in 1943, during World War II. After surviving bombing raids and dangerous journeys across Europe, they reached a displaced persons camp in Germany, where their first daughter, Helen, was born. Nadia, Alexander, and Helen arrived in New York City in December 1949. Their second daughter, Katherina, was born later in the Bronx, completing the family they had worked so hard to build.

By the time their first grandchild was born in 1968, Nadia and Alexander had purchased a house in the Bronx with a large garden, an existing grape arbor, and fruit trees. The house became the family’s gathering place for years to come.

Nadia grew whatever she could coax from the soil, canning, pickling, and drying much of her harvest. She always made kompot, a traditional Ukrainian fruit drink, from the grapes and other fruit she harvested. Having known hunger, she had little tolerance for waste. Her three grandchildren remember filling buckets with fruit and helping her plant and harvest crops in the garden.

For several years, Nadia worked as a school cafeteria cook, using only towels to handle hot pans. In the garden, she could pull stubborn plants and weeds from the ground with her bare hands. At home, she made kapusniak, varenyky, Paskas, and apple cakes. She kept Ukrainian Christmas and Easter traditions alive, sewed costumes for Ukrainian performances, cared for her grandchildren, and passed down family recipes and customs.

Protective, strong-willed, and funny, Nadia had opinions she saw little reason to keep to herself. Her family remembers her smile, hugs, kisses, and familiar words, “God bless you!”

Nadia and Alexander were among the founders of Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral on Broome Street, and longtime participants in Holodomor commemorations. As surviving eyewitnesses, they drew people who wanted to hear their stories, shake their hands, or simply be near them. At the 2015 dedication of the National Holodomor Memorial in Washington, D.C., Alexander addressed the gathering while Nadia was present onstage.

Nadia continued attending commemorations through 2025, at the age of 101, as the number of surviving eyewitnesses dwindled. Her photograph frequently appeared in Ukrainian newspapers. Those who came to greet her included Ukrainian soldiers, Ukrainian-American veterans, ambassadors, elected officials, and Ukrainian Orthodox clergy, including Metropolitan Antony of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA.

Nadia was preceded in death by Alexander, her husband of 78 years, who died in December 2021, and by Helen’s husband, William “Bill.” She is survived by her daughters, Helen and Katherina; her three grandchildren, William and his wife Neva, Irina and her husband Christopher, and Jennifer; and her two great-grandsons, Riley and Colin.

Nadia means “hope” in Ukrainian. Her family remembers the life she built: the garden she tended, the meals she prepared, the traditions she preserved, and the home that brought everyone together.

Vichnaya Pamyat — Eternal Memory.

‍