Nellie Lysyshyn

Divine Liturgy

for the late

Nellie Lysyshyn

will be held on

Tuesday, August 29th

10:30 a.m.

Decention of the Holy Spirit Ukrainian Catholic Church

Wadena, SK

Nellie Lysyshyn passed away at 1:35 p.m. on August 25, 2017, at the Wadena Hospital, Wadena, Saskatchewan. She was 96 years old and passed away with family at her side.

Nellie was born January 24, 1921, in Poland. At age 7 she immigrated to Canada with her parents, John and Annie Senyk. They settled and farmed east of Fosston along Kelvington Hwy. 49. She was the eldest of her sibling sisters, Kate and Joyce, and brother Mike.

She began primary schooling at Orpington, a one-room country school about a mile from their farm. She was pulled from school by Grade 4 by her parents to help on the farm. She taught herself, improving her reading and writing skills.

On May 23, 1937, Nellie married Jacob Lysyshyn. They settled on his farm in the Ponass Lake area approximately 16 km west of Rose Valley. It was a mixed farm with cattle, horses and grain. The farm had only one small field, which meant much manual labour with horses to clear more land for additional fields.

In 1938 they had their first child, Rose, followed by Eugene, William, Gordon and George.

Their farm operation was doing generally well for those times and all looked promising until the early 1950s when Jacob became inflicted with Parkinson’s disease. At that point his physical abilities began to erode and over a short period he became unable to continue. This put much of the responsibilities for raising the family and running the farm on Nellie. Her perseverance and determination brought the family through those hard times, which allowed things to improve as the children matured.

Nellie was very talented with the sewing machine and, out of necessity, made the most of the children’s clothes and, of course, endless repairing. She spent many hours knitting mittens and socks for all the kids as well as crocheting and painting many paint-by-number pictures. In later years she took up the hobbies of making floor rugs out of baler twine and latch hooking.

She always had a large vegetable garden with raspberries, strawberries and some fruit trees. She loved flowers and always had a flower garden near the house.

Nellie was an active member of the St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Church in Rose Valley and was very grieved when the church burned down.

She was predeceased by her husband Jacob in 1973; parents; sister Kate; brother Mike; and granddaughter Jennifer Lysyshyn.

She is survived by daughter Rose (Joe), and sons, Eugene, William (Marylou), Gordon (Melanie) and George (Paulette); grandchildren, Greg, Jeff, Chris (Tammy), Lexie (Keven), Jacob (Ellie), Ebony, Silas, Soleil, Tabitha and Rudy; great-grandchildren, Matthew Zegalski and Stone, Jesse, Tex, and Katie Spahich.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Rose Valley Community Spirit Manor  or the Wadena Hospital.