“Stasha” is the nickname (or term of endearment) my Busia/Busha (Grandma) and other elder Polish family members (from the east coast) would call my mother when they were together and often would speak in Polish when staying/visiting with us in California. The literal meaning of Stasha is “resurrection”.

This portrait is painted from a small black and white photograph taken of my mother (Estelle Joan Lach “Lewis”), in or around 1939, when she married my father (Francis H. Lewis). She would have been in her early 20’s.

My mother was full-blooded Polish and the second child (of three) born in the United States. In 1910, Her parents legally immigrated from Poland (which at the time was the Country of Austria) to the United States, through Ellis Island. The first child born, “Joseph”, died after 5 months of age in 1917). Then my Mother was born in 1918. Her younger brother Alexander Lach Jr. born a year later became a U.S. Army anti-aircraft gunner in Europe during WWII.

My mother and father had four boys and a girl, and her brother “Al” and his wife, had four girls and a boy. My Mother had an interesting life, dedicating most of it to our LORD “YESHUA” (JESUS), the Church, and her family.

The black and white photograph was taken of my mother standing in a rose garden near an unknown structure at an unknown location.

With this painting, I put her in the same rose garden, placing it in Heaven, where she now lives in peace with God. She passed away at the age of 80 years, 25 years ago in 1998.

I often said, I would never paint another human being (for personal reasons), when I returned to painting in 2011, after a 35-year layoff from my artwork. But I would tell Juli (my wife) if I ever painted another human again, the first painting would be of my Mother, because she was the only person that I could truly, without question, trust knowing she had my best interest at heart, out of sincere love for her son, but would not interfere in my decisions – A Mother’s love for her children.

This painting is a memorial to “Stasha” for her 105th Heavenly birthday coming up on March 28th, 2023.