Olena Havrylko was born on 8 February 1890 in Shulhanivka, now the Nahirianka rural hromada of the Chortkiv Raion, Ternopil Oblast, to a Ukrainian family of priest Porfyrii Hordiievskyi, whose family descended from the Cossack colonel Hordiienko, who settled in Galicia after the destruction of the Sich.

[1][2] In 1911, an artist stayed for some time in Shmankivtsi, near Chortkiv, and painted three images of Vira, Nadiia, and Liubov.

The artist was extremely surprised and said that the girl needed to learn painting, but Mykhailyna's mother was categorically against it.

Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskyi helped her to prepare documents for departure to the United States, but she returned to Lviv.

[1][4][7] She took an active part in the Sodality of Our Lady, the Besida society, and the education of young girls at various courses organized by the Ridna Shkola events, as well as in public cultural life.

In the postwar period, she embroidered pillows, towels, curtains, shirts, blouses, napkins, and clothes for priests.