Zaychuk Family

Stephen Zaychuk was born in Bruzuchowicze, Poland on February 2, 1908 of Ukrainian parents. The family interrupted Stephen's engineering education in 1927 and emigrated to Canada. Stephen finally settled in the Town of Beverly, Alberta in 1934 and married Mary Kobewka on January 26, 1935. Together they had two sons, David and Allan. Stephen and Mary owned and ran the market farm known locally as Zaychuk Berry Farm, and in 1954 built and ran a multi-cabin Auto-Court motel. In 1955 Stephen was first elected to the Beverly Town Council serving there until 1961 when Beverly officially amalgamated with Edmonton. During his terms as a Beverly Councillor he sat on the Police Commission, attended the Union of Alberta Municipalities Convention, attended the first meeting of the Provisional Committee for the Homes for the Aged, and on June 16, 1960 attended the Official Opening of the Edmonton International Airport . In 1961 Stephen and his son David, who had studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Alberta, became partners in the Zaychuk Nursery, Berry and Vegetable Farms Ltd. Mary was involved with the Beverly Home and School Association, was a prize winner at the food exhibits of the Edmonton Exhibition, took specialized food preparation classes at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and travelled in her later years. The Zaychuks were innovators being the first to commercially grow strawberries and raspberries and later introduced the carrot combine which improved the harvest of root vegetables, and David kept cattle to provide fertilizer and use up excess vegetable feed. Stephen was a member of the Alberta Fresh Vegetable Growers Association, the Canadian and Western Canadian Societies of Horticulture, the Alberta Nursery Trades Association, the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, and the St. John's Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Stephen died tragically on April 4, 1973 at age 65 in a car accident in B.C. The younger son Allan died March 10, 1985 and Mary died August 10, 1994. David continues to run the Zaychuk family enterprise on 400 acres north of Edmonton.