Oral History >Local People

Bala Family

Nicholas Bala immigrated to Canada, as a very young man, from Kociubynci, Ukraine, arriving in Edmonton, Alberta in April, 1927, and then moving to Windsor, Ontario in November, 1927. He became a member of Sts. Vladimir and Olga Ukrainian Catholic Church, at Langlois and Shepherd, and it was here that he met Anna Lapka, who came to Canada as a very young girl from Kaminka Buska, Western Ukraine, and arrived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in July 1928. She then moved to Windsor in April 1929, to be with her brother, Michael Lapka, who had arrived some time earlier. Nicholas and Anna were married in our church in 1930.

Both became very active in spiritual and cultural parish activities. Nicholas was a member of "Sitch", later renamed the United Hetman Organization, which was the driving force in the formation and building of our church (parish hall in the 1920 ’s and subsequently the church, in 1937). Anna also became a member of "Sitch", and was the first to found and organize a branch of the Red Cross. She is a past president of the Ukrainian Catholic Women's League, a past president of the Windsor Chapter of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, and was a member of the Veselka and Zolota Zhoda Organizations.

They had three children, Raymond, Nadia and Iris. Nadia graduated from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, where she was a scholarship student. She then attended the Ontario College of Education, in Toronto, Ontario, and became a high school teacher. She married Joseph Martin, of Windsor. He recently retired as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Co-operators Insurance Company of Canada. They have two sons, a daughter, and six grandchildren. They are currently living in Guelph, Ontario. Iris became an opera singer. She began her musical studies in voice and piano, with the Ukrainian Sister Servants of Mary Immaculate, and the Ursuline School of Music, in Windsor, and then graduated from the Juilliard School of Music, in New York City.

Raymond Bala

Raymond Bala was born in 1931, in Windsor, Ontario, and in 1952, married Marjorie Budolowski, who had come to Windsor from Manitoba, seeking secretarial employment. She initially lived with her brother, Walter Budolowski, and sister-in-law, Anne; her brother had moved to Windsor in 1945, after returning from the war, where he had served in the Canadian Army. Ray and Marge have three children, Ronald, Jo-Ann, and Raymond Jr., and three grandchildren. Ray is a life time member of Sts. Vladimir & Olga Ukrainian Catholic Church; was an altar boy from age six to eighteen; was a former member, executive member and past president of the Ukrainian Catholic Youth Organization (UCYO); a former member and vice-president of the parish Brotherhood of Ukrainian Catholics and founder of the Ushers' Club. Marge has also been an active member of the parish since her arrival in Windsor a former secretary of the UCYO, a member and former president of the Ukrainian Catholic Women's League, and a founding committee member of the Windsor branch of the Echoes of Ukraine Dance Ensemble, a combined group of Windsor and Detroit area senior dancers.

Police Service
In 1950, Ray became a member of the Windsor Police Department, advancing through the ranks to Staff Inspector, in charge of the Administration and Staff Services Division. Responsibilities included Central Records, the Computer Section, the Crime Scene Fingerprint and Photo Lab Unit, the Communications Branch (telephone, 911 emergency telephone service, and police radio dispatch), the By-law and Licensing Section, and the Firearms Registration Unit. He was a member of the Provincial and Federal Gun Control Committees; the Canadian Police Information Centre, which provides computerized information on persons and vehicles to field police personnel and investigators and was a member of the Ontario Police Commission provincial committees on records, vehicle registrations and drivers' licenses. He retired in 1984, after serving thirty-four years.

Bowling
Ray was one of Windsor's top bowlers for three decades-the 1950's, 60's and 70's. He is the first area bowler, and only one of two, to win the Ontario and Canadian Ten Pin Singles Bowling Championships-in 1955, in Toronto, Ontario, and again in 1958, in Vancouver, British Columbia. By reason of being Canadian Champion, he was ceded to the United States Masters Tournaments, held in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Syracuse, New York, respectively, (bowling against the first generation of professional bowlers). He also bowled in the 1958 World's Invitational Tournament, in Chicago, Illinois, in which the top 128 men and 64 women bowlers in the world participated. In 1984, he was inducted into the Windsor/Essex County Ten Pin Bowling Hall of Fame, and subsequently, the Windsor/Essex County Sports Hall of Fame in 2000.

Iris Bala

Iris Bala was born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, and is the daughter of Nicholas and Anna Bala. She began her early musical studies with our Sister Servants of Mary Immaculate and the Ursuline School of Music in Windsor. She received her Associate Performer's Degree, in both voice and piano, from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and also from the Western Conservatory of Music in London, Ontario. She went on for further studies in New York City and graduated from the renowned Juilliard School of Music.

After graduation, she continued to reside in New York City and had a very successful operatic career. Some of her major accomplishments were performing with the New York City Opera Company; performing with the Santa Fe Opera Company; and singing with them at the West Berlin Music Festival and in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in a tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department. She was a featured soloist at Radio City Music Hall in New York; soloist with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, in Washington, D.C., and the CBC Talent Festival, in Toronto.

She was awarded a Canada Council grant for studies in Europe, and spent a year and a half studying and performing in Salzburg, Austria, and Munich, Germany. She was the winner of the Grinnell Opera Scholarship competition, held in Detroit, Michigan; she also won a singing competition, sponsored by the New York Singing Teachers' Association and sang in Carnegie Recital Hall in New York. She has toured throughout the United States and Canada, performing in concerts, and has appeared on radio and television.