Obituary of STEFANIA MACIJUK

STEFANIA (STEFI) MACIJUK

nee CZORNA

January 13, 1928 – September 20, 2022

 

Stefi, our Dearest Mother, the Flower of our Hearts

It is with heartfelt sadness that we announce the peaceful passing of Stefania (Stefi) Macijuk at the age of 94 years.  Stefi was a Wife, Mother, Mama, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother and affectionally remembered as Baba.

Stefi was predeceased by her beloved husband Paul on March 22, 2019 after 71 years of marriage.

Left to cherish her memory and remember her with love are her children Bill (Jackie), Peter (Teresa) and Lucy (Steve); grandchildren Greg (Tracy), Jaclyn (Sheldon), Tania (Mark), Peter Jr. (Alicia), Tessa (Eric) and Brooks, and great grandchildren Keely, Lucas, Erica, and Emily.

Mama was born on January 13, 1928 in the village of Bobrivka, located in Western Ukraine. Her family lived a very poor life on a farm. There was little food or clothing. They had to wrap rags on their feet for shoes even in winter and almost only had potatoes to eat. Once a year, they were able to have a chicken. When mom was young, she fell ill with Diptheria.  Many children perished but the family took her to a village far away to see a doctor and she survived. Mom was always a very shy person, starting from her childhood. She would often hide beside her mother as others approached. Her younger years consisted of scarcely any education, the tending of cows in the field and hard work helping on the farm.  Early in the Second World War, in her early teens, she was taken from her family to Germany to perform labour. She was sent to a family home to tend to children and then later to work in a sewing factory.

After the war, Stefi met her future husband Paul when he was working in an American camp in Germany. Paul fell in love with mom and was greatly impressed with her kindness and her love of children. He could see by her compassion for children that she would be a wonderful mother. Together they eventually made their way to England where they began to plan to get married. They ran into some difficulties in pursuing their marriage because mom was too young to be married without written approval from her parents. You had to be twenty-one years of age to be married in England. Since her father had died when she was young and it was impossible to contact her mother, they had to find a way.  They found out that they could request for written permission from Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, to get married in England. Happily, they received the written permission and they were wed.

An interesting story is that when it was Mom and Dad’s 70^th Wedding Anniversary, we requested a message of congratulations from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We were thrilled that they responded to Mom and Dad’s unique story by sending them a Congratulatory Certificate and picture signed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The Registrars office was intrigued by Mom and Dad’s story. Out of the many requests of which they received from around the world, they notified us that our special request along with Paul and Stefi’s love story of so many years ago, was being passed on to Buckingham Palace for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to personally read.

The family presented the special Congratulatory Certificate and signed picture to Mom and Dad on their 70^th  Wedding Anniversary. They were surprised and very warmly touched as it brought back such precious memories of their wedding in England when they were so young.

Soon after their marriage, their first son Bill came along while they were living in Rochdale England. Life was difficult there as food was on rations after the war. For instance, one egg a week for each person. Dad was working in a coal mine and with trying to save, they actually managed to purchase a small house.  In 1952, with hopes of a better life, they sold their house and all their belongings and took the Steamship The Atlantic, to Halifax Canada. From there, they took a long train ride and they eventually settled in Winnipeg.  It was so brave of them to start a new life in a new country, not even knowing the language. They were on their own with only a suitcase. But they had a willingness to work hard and they had a yearning to build a safe and secure life for their family in a totally foreign land.

They lived in the north end and after a few years of hard work and wise decisions, they were able to quickly own their own house and buy their first car, a 1957 Ford Monarch. It was here that their second son Peter was born. During these years, Dad began working for Aetna Roofing and remained there for 32 years, eventually becoming a Field Superintendent.  Mom worked for a short time in a sewing factory before eventually concentrating on raising her children and looking after her husband and home. She worked hard to learn English so she could help her children with their schoolwork. Her learning English also helped when she needed to speak with the teachers, to do the grocery shopping, speaking to the doctors, chatting with the neighbors, taking a bus, asking for directions and to drive a car.

In 1961, they moved to a nice new house on Jefferson Avenue in the new development of the Garden City area. They were excited to live in their new home which had a nice big yard. There they could have many flowers and a large vegetable garden with an apple tree and a swing set for the children. During this time, Mom and Dad were able to purchase a new vehicle, a 1969 Oldsmobile 98. While living at this house, their daughter Lucy was born and the family was complete.

Our family had a life that was filled with delicious food made by Mom.  She would work endlessly making home cooked meals every day and always fulfilled our special requests with never a complaint.  She made wonderful perogies, with the most tender dough and never a lump in her potatoes. They were large and overfilled, so you felt satisfied with each one. She also made the best holopchi (cabbage rolls), piroshki (sauerkraut buns), borscht, paska and babka (Ukrainain Easter bread), and homemade chicken soup, just to name a few. She made many of these Ukrainian dishes into her eighties!  Her table was always filled with so many different foods to accompany her turkey dinners that there was barely any room on the table. And just as you thought you could not eat anymore, Mom would also put several different desserts on the table and always a bowl of fruit as well. She would always have a big smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye as she brought out the desserts too, saying “Eat, eat, I’m sure you have room!”

Many of these dishes were made from the food that Mom and Dad grew in their garden. They worked very hard growing all sorts of vegetables. There was plenty of apples from their tree that mom made into wonderful pies. Mom also did canning and made jars of beets and pickles of all sorts.  She would always share her bounty from her garden and her apple trees with family, friends and neighbours.  She was a very generous person.

Despite having little education, Stefi was a bright lady and besides Ukrainian, she spoke a number of languages. She also knew Polish, some Russian, a bit of German and could read, write, and converse in English. Even into her nineties, she still spoke these languages and could converse in Ukrainian and English.

Mom also educated herself here in Canada by watching TV, reading the newspaper, reading and cutting out recipes from magazines, and then translating them into Ukrainian for her own notes, listening to the radio for cooking and gardening tips, looking at the Eaton’s catalogues for ideas for the latest styles in clothing and home decor or simply just asking friends for help, even though she was still a shy person.

Many times in her life she had to try to learn how to do things by herself.  She had a desire to make beautiful decorative items for her family and home.  She taught herself to crochet, knit, cross stitch pictures and clothing, needlepoint and sewing.  She made many slippers, scarves and blankets. If she didn’t know how to do a particular pattern, she would sit and try over and over again until she figured it out. Over time, she did the much admired needlepoint Basket of Poppies picture. It was a very meticulous, long and tedious job. But she created such a beautiful, joyful work of art that Dad had it framed and it was hung proudly in their home for everyone to see.

Mom and Dad tried to instill the Ukrainian culture and heritage to the family.  Ukrainian was spoken in the home and when we were young, we went to Ukrainian school on Saturdays and Ukrainian dance lessons.  The house was filled with Ukrainian pillows, tablecloths, dishes, dolls in the traditional clothing, Ukrainian eggs and pictures with Ukrainian wood carving on the frame, just to name a few. This was very important to instill in their children and to have it in their home.

Mom had an incredible love for babies and children.  She absolutely loved having Bill, Peter and Lucy as babies. As well, she found incredible joy in babysitting her grandchildren whenever she could. With boundless energy and love, once again, she would play, nurture, and cuddle them as much as she could. She showed such incredible, tender, loving care towards every baby she held and cared for. Mom even loved to watch the little children that came daily from the daycare playing in the park behind their house, always saying how cute they were! Baba also loved and cherished all her grandchildren and great-grandchildren even as they grew older, showing them as much love as she could.

Mom and Dad always loved music and dancing, especially Mom. After a long week at work, Mom and Dad loved to go dancing.  They would get dressed, Dad in his suit and Mom in her gown and they would meet friends and they would dance, dance, dance!  They loved to dance the Butterfly and especially, a good fast polka!  Even when Mom’s back was sore, she always managed to get up on the dance floor.

Mom always loved listening to music.  She loved the sound of a choir. Especially if they were singing in Ukrainian. When Mom and Dad got married in the church in England, they described how incredibly beautiful the choir sang for them.  It would bring tears to their eyes whenever they reminisced about that day. In her younger married life, Mom loved to hear Mario Lanza sing and she often spoke about how she wished her young son Bill would have a singing voice like Mario Lanza.

We fondly remember watching mom playing records and dancing around the house, playing some of her favorites over and over again. She loved the song by Bobby Vinton Una Paloma Blanca and she bought copies of the 45 record and gave it to all the children, family and friends so that they could enjoy it too! She also liked My Melody of Love by Bobby Vinton and she loved dancing to the chorus of Macho Macho Man! She loved Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, and listening to Don Ho playing Hawaiian music, as well as listening to the Ukrainian Polka hour on the radio every weekend and her special Polka records.

Mom and Dad loved to watch musicals on the television, the good old fashioned ones like, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Showboat, and Mom’s absolute favorite was The Sound of Music with Maria.  She loved to watch the television music specials. These included Andrea Bocelli, Luciano Pavarotti, Il Divo and Dolly Parton, just to name a few.  And on Sundays, Mom and Dad loved to watch The Lawrence Welk Show. This was a show that Mom watched and listened to every week!

Dad always had the mind and desire to build his own home in Canada. He started drawing up and putting the plans together for their new home. He supervised the building of the house and made sure that everything was done correctly. It was their dream home. Stefi supported the move and together they moved to their last home where they would live their final years together. Mom and Dad enjoyed that home very much. Mom was always a wonderful homemaker and she worked very hard her whole life to keep all her homes neat and tidy. Even if Mom was in pain and into her nineties, she would still pull out the vacuum and dust and always did the dishes, keeping the counters clean, making the beds etc. as she still had the desire and routine instilled in her. Mom was amazing!

Another incredible passion that Stefi had was her indoor flowers and plants and her outdoor flower gardens. Perhaps one could say obsession is a better word as Mom would rather be outside all day and evening tending to her hundreds of flowers and her gardens. She could make any plant grow. Mom couldn’t wait for spring to come to be able to go outside. She would start seeds in the spring in her house so she could get a head start on her flowers and tomato plants.

When she lived on Jefferson, she had the biggest Rubber tree plant that stood in the middle of the living room and practically encircled the whole room! Every house that they lived in, even at the family cottage, Mom worked endlessly on her flower beds.  You could really say she had a green thumb.  All the many vibrant colors, the immaculate gardens, the lilac bushes, the large blooming rose bushes, the lilies, the first to bloom in the spring tulips and the most beautiful huge peonies spread throughout the yard, just to name a few. People would stop and admire her flowers and mom even though she was shy, she would talk with the neighbors and share her flowers with anyone. Even at age 94, she was slowly watering her flowers at home and sometimes taking a plant slip and putting it into a different pot so she could have more variety.

Mom and Dad were able to travel to several destinations. They went west to Banff and saw the mountains, they visited friends in Chicago, drove to Houston to visit their son Bill and family, many other cities in the United States visiting friends, trips to Gimli visiting Camp Veselka and going to Grand Beach.  But their favorite trips, especially for Mom was going to Hawaii three times! Mom loved the beautiful flowers native to Hawaii. She loved getting dressed in a beautiful flowered muumuu dress with Dad in a matching Hawaiian shirt, with a flower pinned in her hair and flowered leis around their necks. It was so special listening to Don Ho singing Tiny Bubbles and seeing the Kodak Hawaiian Hula Show. Mom loved the atmosphere of Hawaii, the singing and dancing and the beautiful warm weather.

In the last part of Dad’s life, Mom was an incredible caregiver to Dad. She worked endlessly trying to make his favorite foods, helping him with his medications and trying to make his life more comfortable in any way that she could.  As tired as she was and also suffering from age and pain, she never stopped trying to be the wonderful, loving and devoted wife to Dad. She always put the needs and cares of others in the family ahead of her own.

Sadly, Paul passed away on March 22, 2019, at the age of 96, two days after their 71^st Wedding Anniversary. This was an incredibly difficult time for Mom, to be without Dad after so many years.  But even though Mom was still a shy, scared and nervous person, she insisted on still living in the home that she and Paul lived in.  She had several falls, some scares, but she never wanted to leave that house. She said Dad built this house for us to live here and this is where I want to be.

So with the help of family and some wonderful homecare workers, Mom was able to stay in her own home as per her wishes. She was so grateful, kind, patient and considerate to all the homecare workers. She never complained even though she had a lot of pain. All of the homecare workers loved going to see Mom and her sweet smile and often she was referred to as their favorite.

The family would like to thank all the homecare workers and staff for their dedication, their patience and loving care, some even coming in deep snow during blizzards. Many did all that they lovingly could so that Mom could get the care that she needed.

The family would also like to thank Dr. Tatiana Panaskevich for all the many years of looking after Stefi and Paul Macijuk, our parents. Mom and Dad felt that they had great care from her as she treated them with respect, kindness and compassion.  She always gave them the time they needed along with reassuring professional medical advice while speaking to them in Ukrainian, which made them feel taken care of and secure.

Stefi, Mama, Baba was always known to be generous. She loved to share and give little gifts of chocolates. She loved to make others happy and she always had a sweet smile for all even though she was shy. She was a survivor and although she never really realized it, she was so strong. To have lived without Paul, her husband, showed such bravery. She truly was an inspirational woman to all who knew her knowing the trials she lived through.

She showed tender, gentle love to all and always showed her gratitude to any that helped her along the way. Her heart was filled with precious love for her family. She was a beautiful Wife, a beautiful Mother and a beautiful Baba who was filled with kindness, love and unselfishness, always putting others first.

A special thought is that our dear Mother, was the first to know us, the beginning of each of our stories, of Bill, Peter and Lucy. We were honoured and privileged to have had her as our special Mother, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother and Baba.

We thank her for her unending love, her beautiful smiles and her warm embracing hugs. The way she cared and listened to our worries. For supporting our dreams and for being the best Mother who was always there for us. We will cherish her memories forever in our hearts. There will never be another Mother like her and she will be dearly missed.

As per Mom’s wishes, a private family funeral was held on September 29, 2022.

As the song, Time to Say Goodbye by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman played, the Pallbearers Bill Macijuk, Greg Macijuk, Lucas Macijuk, Peter Macijuk, Steve Peterson, Brooks Peterson and Eric Holodryga carried the flower adorned casket of our beautiful Mother Stefi.

Mom will always be remembered by her love of flowers….

 

You Were the Flower of Our Hearts

 

Like a rose, soft and gentle,

Like a lilac, so very sweet…

Like a daisy, you were sunshine

To everyone you would meet

Peaceful as a lily, so kind and pure

For all these things, in our hearts,

Your memory will endure

 

We could see your love within you

When we looked upon your face,

As your warm and gentle arms

Held out for a soft embrace

 

You did so many things for us,

Your heart was warm and true…

And when we needed someone the most,

We could always count on you

 

You were so strong and worked so hard

To take the best care of us,

Your loving time, many hours spent

Proved your faithful devotion and your trust

 

A sweet bouquet of beauty…

A loving work of art…

We’ll deeply miss our Special Mother,

Stefi, our Dearest Mother, the Flower of our Hearts

 

We will always love you...