HUCULAK, Jean (92)

Obituary

HUCULAK, Jean Hawryliuk -Peacefully with ease and grace, Jean Hawryliuk Huculak, on September 6th, 2012 at Extendicare Falconbridge Nursing Home in Sudbury, Ontario, passed away. Jean was a winter solstice baby, born on December 21st, 1920, in Kulish, Manitoba. Jean Huculak was affectionately known as Baba. She was named Yoanna Hawryliuk. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Yoanna Commandat who was born in the Ukraine. Baba was the sixth child of nine surviving children born to her parents, Evdonia Merko Hawryliuk and Trofym Hawryliuk on a farming homestead near Dauphin, Manitoba, called Kulish. Baba grew up in a two-storey wooden farmhouse that had 2 bedrooms for nine children and her two parents. Jean did many things with her siblings on the farm: picking berries, milking cows, driving the wagon and horses together to go Saturday night dances and Sunday church. She played many card games with her brothers including crib and HOLA. Jean went to school at the Kulish schoolhouse in Manitoba. She earned a grade 5 education and then, had to stay home on the farm to help her mother clean and cook for her older brothers who worked the farm fields. At the age of nineteen, in 1940, Jean moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to work in a nursing home. By 1941, she was secretly courting her future husband, John Huculak, who was eleven years older than her and grew up on farm near her family, in the township of Venlaw, Manitoba. They would exchange many love letters, of which the family still has. By the summer of 1942, John saved enough money working at the INCO smelter in Sudbury, Ontario. Jean arrived in Sudbury in 1942, and resided with her future sister-in-law while working at Golden Grain Bakery located on Brady Street. John and Jean were married on, October 11th, 1942, at St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Church. They lived in an apartment on Riverside Drive and then rented a house on Ontario Street. In 1956, they moved their family to Lively, Ontario. John and Jean were married for 54 years. Jean’s skills of Ukrainian cooking, baking, preserving, canning, sewing, crochet, needlepoint and quilting were exemplary. Friends, neighbours and family called her Baba as she was motherly in nature to all and always concerned if you had enough to eat and dressed warmly. Jean is predeceased by her loving husband, John Huculak (1996). Jean is also predeceased by her parents, Trofym (1967) and Evdonia (1982). She is predeceased by her Hawryliuk brothers Bill, Nick, Mattie, Mike, John, and sister Ann (Belinsky). She is predeceased by her sister-in-laws Maxine, Kay, Mary, and Ann, and brother-in-law Nick (Belinsky). Her daughter Mary-Jean and husband Clayton Peterson of Sudbury, son David of Lively and daughter Margret Courtney of Kincardine, Ontario, survive Jean. Jean is also survived by her devoted granddaughter Laurie Peterson and husband Keith Clement of Lively and beloved grandchildren Jennifer Huculak and Christopher Huculak, and Eliza Courtney. Jean also adored her two great-grandchildren Marlee Jean Clement and Kurtis John Clement of Lively. Her sister Mary and husband Nick Kukurudza of Winnipeg, Manitoba, brother Steve Hawryliuk of Elliot Lake, Ontario, and sister-in-law Tynne Hawryliuk of Levack, Ontario, also survive Jean. A Celebration of Life will be held  in the R. J. Barnard Chapel, Jackson & Barnard Funeral Home, 233 Larch Street, Sudbury on Sunday, September 9th, 2012 at 2pm. with a reception to follow. Funeral Mass at St. Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Church, Tuesday, September 11th. 2012 at 10:30am. Interment in the Maplecrest Cemetery, Dowling. Donations to the Canadian Diabetes Association or the Heart and Stroke Foundation would be appreciated. (Friends may call after 1:30pm Sunday in the chapel). 

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