Mr. Ivan (John) Riopka

Obituary

Following a brief decline in health, our father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, Ivan (John) RIOPKA passed peacefully on Friday August 14^th 2026 at the Ukrainian Canadian Care Centre in Toronto at the ripe age of 101.

Ivan Riopka was born on February 5^th 1925 in Vyslok Velykyi, Sanok County, Lviv Voievodstvo to Anton Riopka and Paraskevia Solomon, into a family which eventually raised 8 children.

Ivan attended one of three schools in the Lemko town of Vyslok Velykyi which prided itself with a population of 2800 souls.  Ivan recalled how his father got into trouble with the authorities after little Ivan was caught drawing a Tryzub in his notebook. But school was not a liberating event and everyone in the Riopka household was obliged to contribute all their energies to taking care of the cows, sheep, horses, bee hives and the fields.  When world war 2 broke out, Ivan joined the call to liberate Ukraine by joining the 1^st Galician Division. Ivan was one of the few survivors of the battle of Brody and continued to fight in Yugoslavia until being interned by the Americans near Munich.  His family was one of hundreds of thousands who then suffered the post-war retributions from the Soviets in the infamous action known as Operation Vysla. Ivan briefly recounts those events in his memoir published in 2023 entitled: Kudy Kydala Mene Dolia.

In 1948 Ivan Riopka moved to Canada and married Stephania Szuch and together they raised five children: Yaroslav, Anhelyna, Lubomyr, Taras, and Vasyl. At the same time, Ivan worked as a cook for 30 years for the Queen Street Mental Health Centre, and carried on a catering business known as Cheremosh Catering Company where they weekly prepared dinners for up to a thousand people at a time at church basement halls and community centres throughout the Greater Toronto Area.

For the last few years, Ivan spent his time with wood-working projects, building beautiful birdhouses, writing poems, and spending time with his grandchildren Zoryana Szuch, Konstantyn Szuch, Vasyl Szuch, Francesca Riopka, Victoria Riopka and great-grand-children Steffie and Sofika.

Ivan maintained close ties with his relatives in Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia and the USA. He leaves behind many cherished friends and family, including the Detsyk, Sopinka, Sushko, Myshak, Dzhydzhora, Chekanskyi, and Shulyk families.

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