Vera, the girlpower grandma in our latest book, Bash and Lucy Fetch Team Vera and the Dream Beasts, is profiled in “The Immigrant Story” this week by Lisa Cohn.
In real life, Vera is Michael’s surrogate grandma. He likes to say about her, “She has awesomeness wow-power.”
Here’s the story, which provides details about Vera’s life growing up in Soviet-occupied Ukraine:
When Michael, age 9, was asked to identify the girl-power women in his life, his first choice was his surrogate grandmother. Vera Moroz, 76, was an immigrant from Ukraine. For the boy who was “adopted” by Vera as one of her own, Vera embodies strength, goodness, intelligence, and kindness.
Vera grew up in Soviet-occupied Ukraine, in the village of Cherkasy, where she was born in 1942. She never met her father and grew up not even knowing his name. To this day, she still doesn’t know; he died in the Second World War. As a member of the Ukrainian army, he had also fought against the Soviets. His political views could have meant that her entire family would be sent to a Gulag camp, she said.
“People who were in the Ukrainian army were getting sent to Sibera or prison,” she said.
Because Vera’s mom wasn’t a member of the Communist Party, she received no pension and had to work low-level jobs to make ends meet. Every morning she rose at dawn to walk into town and fuel the hospital’s wood boiler before the doctors arrived. Before leaving the house each morning, she made bread for her three children and braided Vera’s hair while she slept.
Read the entire story here:
Watch Michael dedicate our latest book to Vera:
It was Michael’s idea to dedicate “Bash and Lucy Fetch Team Vera and the Dream Beasts” to Vera. He also thought up the idea of creating a character, based on Vera, who is the coach of the most successful girls’ team in the state and also the girlpower assistant mayor.
Learn more about our new book on Amazon:Bash and Lucy Fetch Team Vera and the Dream Beasts . Girlpower Grandma Vera teaches important life lessons in our new book.