Nick Cherniavsky
Nick Cherniavsky, 83, died on Saturday, Dec. 29, 2007, at Alden Lincoln Park nursing home in Chicago.
Born April 15, 1924 in Harbin, Manchuria, China, Mr. Cherniavsky came to USA in November 1950. He first lived in Rockford, Illinois, for about 10 years, moving then to Santa Barbara, California.
During the first phase of his life in the USA he worked in a number of manufacturing plants, both in Illinois and California. Later on, he worked for the State of Illinois, first as the occupational safety inspector, and later as the labor conciliator/arbitrator.
He was also co-founder of the Springfield, Illinois, based Historical Researchers, Inc., which had compiled a sizable collection of tape-recorded interviews with former Illinois coalminers, mostly related to the 1920s-1930s “Coalminers’ War.”
His formal education was sporadic and spotty and he called himself a perpetual student. In 1977 he earned an M.A. in political studies from the Sangamon State University in Springfield, Illinois.
Mr. Cherniavsky was very much interested in the political process and was actively involved in a dozen or more political campaigns. In 1967-68 he organized the Citizens for Kennedy (RFK) in Northern Illinois; after the assassination of Robert Kennedy he was on the 26-member slate of the Illinois presidential electors pledged to Sen. Eugene McCarthy. Ruled off the Ballot on a technicality, the slate took their case to court, and 3 years later the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor (Moore v. Ogilvie), thus changing the Illinois Election Code. In 1972 he worked as a labor coordinator for Sen. George McGovern in Southern Illinois.
Starting from 1979 he worked as a Russian language instructor for the Defense Language Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and Monterey, California. He retired in 1993 and relocated to Chicago the following year.
He is survived by his daughter Nina. [composed by Nick Oct. 1989, Montery, Calif.]