CATO - For 82-year-old Nella Kalinowski, fate has certainly worked in mysterious ways.

Events in Kalinowski's life have seen her have both parents taken from her during the Russian Revolution, forced into slavery in a German work camp, reunited with her father, then met the man who would become her husband before moving to the United States - all before the age of 25.

Last Saturday evening at Cato Union Church on East Main Street, Kalinowski, whose son and daughter-in-law are church members, told her amazing story at a meeting of the church's Women to Women fellowship group.

The 7 p.m. gathering, which was held in the basement of fellowship hall and attended by more than 30 guests, included a buffet of finger foods and punch, followed by Kalinowski's discussion of her early life, from her birth in Vlodivostok in 1925 to her move to the states.

“My mother had previously given an abbreviated version of (the talk) to several classes at (Cato-Meridian) school,” her son Richard said after the meeting. “So we thought it would be a good program to have here, and she would be able to tell a more detailed account.”

Women to Women is normally composed of ladies, but men were invited to attend Saturday's meeting as well. The group socialized while enjoying refreshments provided by the club, then Kalinowski settled in alone at a table at the front of the room.

“You know, I think of my own life like the Bible story of the Jews being led into the Promised Land,” she began in her slight Russian accent. More than sheer coincidence, she explained, she believes it is the power of God that has brought her this far by sparing her life as a girl and allowing her the chance meeting with her current husband, Frank.

Born in 1925 to a Russian father and German mother, she recalled, Kalinowski was an only child, and her first memories were of the political upheaval going on in Russia.

At age 6, her father was arrested for political reasons and sent to Siberia. Then, in 1938, during Hitler's rise to power, the KGB appeared at her door.

“They just took my mother away,” she said. Her mother was of German descent, was a psychiatrist and was the sort of bourgeois citizen the Russian government feared most. “So they took her ... and I never saw her again.”

Shortly after Kalinowski went to live in an orphanage in Kiev. Germany invaded Russia, and with it came the horror of World War II. With people fleeing Kiev into the Russian countryside, Kalinowski had nowhere to go.

“Something told me I should go to the village where my father was born,” she explained, so she went to the tiny unnamed hamlet about 70 kilometers north of Kiev.

“Can you believe it? My father was there!” she exclaimed, noting that he had recently returned to the village from Siberia. When she first saw him, he didn't recognize her, she said, but when he found out who she was, he fell to his knees in front of her and cried.

“That was one of the happiest days in my life.”

That happiness didn't last long, though. Kalinowski was soon sold into slavery in Germany, and was taken to a farm there where she worked as much as 17 hours a day.

“I was put to work in the fields, usually from 4 in the morning till 9 at night, and it was the most horrible time in my life,” she said. “But I think God protected me during slavery.”

Kalinowski eventually escaped, and was taken in by a family on a Ukrainian farm. There, she said, is where she met Frank.

“The first time I saw him, we looked at each other, and I thought, ‘This is the man I'm going to marry,'” she recalled.

The couple wed shortly afterward, and moved to the United States in 1949, where they settled in Weedsport and had three children.

During her talk, Kalinowski exhibited a liveliness that belied her 82 years. “My grandkids still love to arm-wrestle me,” she said brightly.

“My granddaughter tried not too long ago, and I took her down,” she said, demonstrating her agile takedown method with her arm.

“Then somebody else wanted to try, and - wham! - I took them too.”

“My mother's story is a true American Dream,” her son said. “She's an amazing lady, just for everything she's endured.”