Stechishin was born in Tudorkovychi,
Austrian Galicia (today in
Lviv Oblast,
Ukraine), and her family emigrated to Canada when she was nine in 1913, settling in
Krydor,
Saskatchewan. The
Ukrainian diaspora is a large one, and her family formed part of a wave that became one of Canada's largest ethnic communities. At age 17 she married Julian Stechyshyn, rector of the
St. Petro Mohyla Institute student residence in Saskatoon and brother of
Myroslaw Stechishin, and later bore three children, Anatole, Myron, and Zenia. She completed high school and
teachers' college, and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree specializing in
home economics from the
University of Saskatchewan in 1930, the first Ukrainian woman to receive a degree there. While studying, she was also the Dean of Women at the St Petro Mohyla Institute, where she organized evening courses in cooking and
homemaking, and
the culture and
cuisine of her homeland, and
public speaking for young women. Later, she taught in public schools and lectured in
Ukrainian language and in the Department of Women's Services at the University of Saskatchewan, as well as running outreach programs for Ukrainian immigrants. She also lectured around North America and in Western Ukraine (Polish Galicia) before it was
annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939. She helped establish the
Ukrainian Women's Association of Canada in 1926, and the
Ukrainian Museum of Canada in 1936. For over 25 years, she was editor of the
women's page and columnist for the Winnipeg-based
Ukrainian Voice weekly (
Ukrayins’kyy Holos). She also contributed to other Ukrainian women's publications in North America and Western Ukraine, and wrote for the Canadian Consumer Information Service during the Second World War. Shechishin's most prominent book is the English-language
Traditional Ukrainian Cookery (1957), which saw its eighteenth reprinting in 1995 and has sold 80,000 copies. Her other books are in Ukrainian:
Art Treasures of Ukrainian Embroidery (1950), and a 50th anniversary book for the Saskatoon branch of the Ukrainian Women's Association (1975). She assisted her husband, Julian Stechishin, with a
Ukrainian Grammar (1951), and completed his
History of Ukrainian Settlement in Canada (1971) after his death—an English translation was published in 1992. ==Awards==