Earlier this month, we learned the very sad news that Helen Smindak, a longtime columnist and feature writer for The Ukrainian Weekly, had passed away at the age of 91. Tragically, she was one of this country’s 100,000 fatalities due to the novel coronavirus. This exemplary journalist was well-known and greatly loved by Ukrainian community members throughout North America. Her wonderful writing graced the pages of this newspaper for decades. And that’s no exaggeration.
Arts and culture were her beat, and Ms. Smindak must have worn out countless pairs of shoes covering all sorts of events in New York City and then, in the early days, delivering her typed up copy in person to the offices of our newspaper, then located in Jersey City, N.J. Her fans were many, and we have some of the fan mail sent in reaction to her columns as evidence.