Olga's Eulogy

If you couldn't be with us today to celebrate Olga's life, I thought you might enjoy reading this - Lucy

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Lucy Kowalchuk, Terry’s partner, and I am honoured to have been asked to deliver this tribute to Olga.

I met Olga for the first time on her 60th birthday. It was at Branigan’s restaurant and I naturally was nervous. Sitting a ways away from her, I caught her looking at me and we smiled at one another, and I knew we’d be friends.

Olga was born on July 23, 1934 to John and Nellie Holak. They had 3 daughters; Mary who was 5 1/2 years older than Olga and Anne who was 1 1/2 years younger. They lived in Erwood, Saskatchewn in a 2 room log house with chinking between the logs and white-washed walls. Her dad was a mixed farmer and her mom raised their family as most farm wives did.

I asked Anne for some childhood memories, as only she would know what their lives were like. She said they all worked hard on the farm, and as there were no sons, even though they were girls, they all had to chip in and get the work done - whether it was making hay or making perogies on Sunday afternoons.

She said that after Mary left home after finishing grade 8 to take a dress making course in Dauphin, she thought her and Olga, being closer in age, would be best buddies and would spend their free time playing. Well it turned out Olga would have none of that, and Anne had to play storekeeper and shopper by herself. By the age of 5, Olga was like a “full-fledged adult”, always serious and very cautious, Anne said “not silly and adventurous like me”. She said Olga probably saved her life on more than 1 occasion - like when she stopped her from swimming in the dugout “because she didn’t want me to drown”

Olga wasn’t crazy about school, but thought it was OK and didn’t have a favourite subject. The first school they went to was Erwood School that was a half a mile walk away, and when it was time to go to grade 7 & 8, they had to walk the mile to Estenville Public School. Olga had a teacher at Erwood School by the name of Betty Davidson and the two of them remained friends until Betty’s passing a few years ago.

Olga was always a hard worker and a big help to her parents. If there was a job to do, she would do it. She was always serious, careful and cautious, with her actions and with her spending. Even as a child, she would not spend any money she had on frivolous things but rather saved her money. This was her way all her life. Olga stayed and helped her parents until she married Nick on November 11, 1959 in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewn.

With her husband working for the railroad, it meant that they spent their early years together moving around a bit. They lived in Roblin, Manitoba where Wayne was born in 1960, and then in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan where Terry was born in 1964. In December 1970, they moved to Transcona near the rail yards. They first rented an apartment on the corner of Kildare and Widlake and then moved down the street to their house on Widlake.
It was also around this time when Olga got her drivers license.

When I was gathering information to write this, so many mentioned how good a cook Olga was. Debbie said that when her and Wayne started dating in their teens, she was always amazed that no matter what time in the day it was, Olga was always cooking a meal - potatoes boiling away, ready to serve at a moments notice. She said she ate nearly all her meals there. Olga loved her family and making sure they always had a wholesome meal was one way she showed her love. When I asked her nephew David for a memory of his visits with her, he said “you made sure you didn’t eat before you got to her house” because she always fed them so much good food, and after finishing everything on his plate, she would always try and give him more. Her grandson Brendan didn’t like to eat many kinds of food, but if Olga had meatballs and gravy and mashed potatoes, his plate was heaping. She made the best holopchi in the world.

Olga wasn’t much of a traveller, but as a family, and then alone, went occasionally to Salmon Arm, BC to visit Mary and Rudy. Her niece Melanie said they always looked forward to a visit from Aunty Olga. She said she remembered more vividly 2 visits - One was when they first lived in a trailer - with Olga’s family, there were so many people that they even had to sleep in the bathtub, and the next one was when they had a family reunion and hired a photographer to capture the event. She said she cried because the photographer said in order to fit them all in the picture, he might have to “cut their legs off” and she thought he meant for real.
Olga also sometimes took the train to Dauphin, and on one of those trips took her granddaughter Jenna with her. Jenna will always have that memory of having her first-ever train trip with her Baba.

Besides having a garden to grow healthy vegetables for her family, flowers to make her home pretty on the outside and flourishing indoor plants, Olga wasn’t much of an outdoors nature person. Sports was not big on her list, but in the 1980’s she and her family did curl with the church league at the Transcona Country Club and she did enjoy watching curling on TV.

After her husband Nick’s death in 1984, and spending her life making sure everyone else was taken care of, Olga decided to do something for herself and got a job at Canadian Tire. Her job was stocking shelves which she did for just over 10 years and she loved it.

Olga had seen her family grow over the years. Wayne married Debbie Chubaty in 1982 and they blessed her with 2 grandchildren; Jenna in 1985 and Brendan in 1989. Terry introduced me into the family in 1994. In 2013 Jenna married Tom Goodfellow, and in 2011 Brendan’s Kailee made Olga a great-grandmother. Also sharing with Olga’s family are Debbie’s parents Bill and Helen Chubaty and my mother Mary Kowalchuk. We will all miss her.

Olga made the big decision to sell her house on Widlake in 2006 and moved to St. Michael’s Villa. I don’t think she regretted that move for a second - she loved living there. Olga had many good friends there and got along with pretty much everyone.

Olga’s evenings at the Villa can be pretty much summed up with one word - “Puzzles”. I gave her her first jigsaw puzzle about 15 years ago so she would have something to do in the evenings. Well she got hooked and there was no turning back. The people she did puzzles with said that if they took a puzzle piece that would eventually fit at the top and try to fit it on the bottom where it obviously didn’t belong, she gave them heck. If she couldn’t sleep she would often go down to the “puzzle room” long after the other tenants retired to their apartments. I can’t tell you how many times Terry would be frantic because “how come she’s not answering her phone!” in the late evening. Sometimes we would actually drive to see her, or ask Wayne to go, to make sure she was OK. Nearly every day, on his way home from work, Terry would stop in for a quick visit and would often bring her a ticket to scratch. 2 hours later she would call us to let us know if she was lucky or not.

In May of 2016, Olga got some bad news that started the events that led us to the reason we are gathered here today. Sadly she was diagosed with cancer. After receiving radiation treatments it seemed as though her fight was successful, but then on October 30th, Olga had a stroke. We cannot thank Stella enough for being such a good friend to Olga. The 2 of them were about to go shopping when the stroke happened and Stella was there to call Wayne.

After her stay at Concordia Hospital, Olga was lucky enough to get a spot fairly quickly at Middlechurch Personal Care Home. We all visited her daily and Terry and I were happy that we lived only 2 blocks away so some days we could pay her 2 visits. We thank them for their care and compassion towards Olga and we wished her stay could have been longer.

Olga was blessed to have had 2 sons that adored her and did everything they could for their mother. While in the hospital, Wayne went faithfully 3 times a day to feed her and make sure she was OK, and until the end, both Wayne and Terry did everything they could to make sure she was comfortable and had everything she needed and wanted.

I was with Olga in her last moments. As I held her hand and read prayers and then the mass to her from her prayer book, I hoped that I could bring her some peace and that somehow she would know that she wasn’t alone as she took her last breaths. I consider it a priviledge to have been able to do that for her.

She is free now from earthly suffering and pain, we will all miss her and look forward to the time when we can all be together again.