Obituary of Ursula Maria Babiak

July 18, 2024

Ursula Maria Rütimann Babiak

December 17, 1927 - July 18, 2024

Ursula Babiak was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1927 to Gottlieb and Ursula Rütimann. She was the youngest child and only daughter in a family of five brothers. Her father was a municipal gardener and her mother was a home-maker. She lived in Zurich until the mid-1950’s, when she met and married Vladimir Babiak, a Ukrainian musician and war refugee. Following their marriage, they emigrated to New York City in 1955, where they settled on the lower East Side of Manhattan, AKA “Little Ukraine.” Ursula soon gave birth to their first child, George, and 8 years later, to their second son Roy. She worked variously as a seamstress, milliner, library assistant, and for many years as a nurse’s aide at the NY Eye and Ear Infirmary. In the mid-1970s, she separated from her husband and moved with Roy to Staten Island, where she purchased a home in the South Beach neighborhood. This home was an oasis for her after the noise and bustle of Manhattan. It was during this time that Ursula and Roy informally adopted Peter Torino as a member of their family.

In her leisure time, Ursula was a great lover of animals, adopting many cats, a few dogs and even a rooster who lived in her kitchen at one point. She also enjoyed trips to the beach, bicycling, swimming, and riding her mobility scooter along the waterfronts of the NY islands (as Woody Guthrie might say). Ursula loved cooking and hosting social gatherings at her home and in the great outdoors. She was an accomplished artist, working in many media, including knitting, embroidery, watercolors and acrylics. Ursula also had a green thumb, tending many house plants and a vegetable garden at her home on Staten Island. Many of these talents and traits were passed on to her sons.

In the Fall 2012, Ursula was uprooted from her home on Staten Island by superstorm Sandy, which destroyed the small bungalow on Olympia Blvd she had purchased many years before. Following the storm, she returned to Manhattan where she lived in an apartment in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. It was during this time in her life when her artistic endeavors really blossomed, and she exhibited her artwork in galleries and was interviewed for a documentary reflecting on her varied life and experiences.

Ursula is survived by her son George and his wife Vanessa Valdes, her son Roy and his life-partner Alyson Reed, and Peter Torino, his wife Joao, and their child Sergio.