Solomiya Krushelnytska was born in 1872, in the village of Biliavyntsi (located on the southern end of Ternopil Oblast in modern Ukraine) five years after the Ausgleich of 1867 granted autonomy to the surrounding province of Galicia in the newly reformed Austro-Hungarian Empire.
As a teenager, Solomiya went on to secondary education courses in the booming town of Ternopil, which had recently been connected by rail line with the provincial seat of Lviv to the West.