Tillie Giesbrecht Obituary

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our dear Mother, Grandmother and Great-Grandmother, who left us peacefully on September 22, 2015. She was predeceased by her beloved husband Jake in 1975. She will lovingly be remembered by her children Gayle Wildfong (Don) and Lawrence Giesbrecht (Florence), her grandchildren Jim Flichel and Brent Flichel (Tracy) and great-grandchildren Fiona, Mariah, Kieran and Nicole, and siblings Julius Sekora, Anne Bronsch, Louie Sekora and Kay Trebb. The family would like to express their heartfelt thanks to the staff at Villa Carital for their exceptional care, kindness and comfort provided. A "Celebration of Life" will be held at Ocean View Burial Park, 4000 Imperial Street, Burnaby, BC on Monday, September 28, 2015 at 1:00 p.m. Family and friends are welcome to attend. In lieu of flowers please donate to the Vancouver Children's Hospital.

Mom lived a rich and full life. A life that was filled with many challenges and hardships but one that was filled with a profound love for her family, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Family and friends were everything to her.

Tillie was born Tekla Sikora April 27, 1917 in Radisson, Saskatchewan to Ukrainian immigrant parents Louis and Irene. She was the sixth child in a family of 15 and times were hard on the prairie farm. Fifteen children in a one bedroom house with usually at least 3 cousins there also. Mom had great ambitions to become a nurse and had skipped a grade at school but was not allowed to continue her schooling as her brothers did. She left school to work as farm help and for the next ten years sent every penny she made home to her parents. Life was not easy and nor were the people she worked for.

When mom was 25 she was working in a hotel in Vernon when her sister Madeline asked her to come to the coast to help her out. Madeline owned the Samba Grill on Robson Street and lived above a store at Arbutus & 6th with husband Fred and sons Dennis and Bill. She also had a boarder staying with them, Jake Giesbrecht. Within the month of moving in with Madeline and Fred, Mom and Jake Giesbrecht were married. Although they really didn't know each other, they both had the same goals in life…….family and a home and together they could do it and they did. They were married January 8, 1942. I was born April 2, 1943 and my brother Lorrie two years later on January 12, 1945.

Memories of growing up are of hardworking parents and a large family. Mom one of 15 and Dad one of 11 so there was always a houseful of people. Dad was a carpenter and he was also very handy guy especially with repairing vehicles. He had a repertoire of jokes that was unbelievable. No one could tell a joke like my father did. I don't think I ever heard him tell the same joke twice and with all the company we had dad was always surrounded by a crowd being entertained by his endless stories.

My first memories are of living in Lulu Island with Mom, Dad and 600 chickens. Then the Kitsilano district until 1955 when Dad built our house on Glendale Street. We were just off 22nd and Boundary Road and the area was so undeveloped that we had a farm at the end of Glendale. Lorrie and I attended Renfrew School and then Dad built our next house on 26th just off Rupert and this is where we spent our high school years.

Mom worked as a cook in restaurants and then later on in life as a hostess at the downtown Holiday Inn. I remember her working the early shift at the Dundee Restaurant on Kingsway. She would get the daily baking done, the homemade soup of the day and the daily dinner special. She'd be home by 2:00 and invariably both ringer washing machines were going, one with bleach and one without, two rinses in the cement laundry tubs and then her laundry was hung out to dry. She loved to bake buns and pies and we always had a huge garden that needed tending. She was a baker. I still drool over the thought of eating one of her pies. Her crusts were unbelievably flakey. Of course, with our Ukrainian heritage pots of cabbage rolls and pyrogies were a must. She loved to make soups. We grew up on Borscht and Kapusta which was her sauerkraut soup she made from pork ribs.

Everyone was welcome in our home and Sundays Mom always cooked a big dinner and the house was full. Ukrainians like to party and they like to play cards and the game they play is Kaiser. We had a lot of parties in our house, lots of card games and dancing. Everyone got up to dance. As soon as you were walking you were doing the polka.

Anne & Elmer lived in our basement suite on Glendale and Pauline and Walter lived a few houses up the street. When we moved to 26th Julius and Minnie lived in our basement suite. I can't remember a time when we did not have someone from the family staying with us. You needed a place to stay…..you stayed with us. You couldn't handle your kids…..you sent them over to Tillie & Jake. Sisters, Brothers, Cousins or their kids, Grandma & Grandpa…..they all lived with us at one time or another. I used to dream of sleeping alone.

Mom did not drive and there came a time when Dad got tired of having to take her everywhere. Finally when she was in her 50's she got her license. She was not a great driver but she was fearless. I remember her taking out a tree in our road allowance and then she leveled Grandma's back fence. Nothing stopped her. She was on the road now. None of us would travel with her. That is except Nana but then Nana had never driven in her life. Ignorantly she travelled enthusiastically with Mom. About this time I married and moved to the Bridge River Valley north of Lillooet. Mom and Nana would brave the Fraser Canyon and gravel roads past Lillooet to come to visit their grandchildren Jim and Brent. And we'd wait praying they'd make it safely.

Like I said……nobody enjoyed family like Mom did. Her grandchildren and Great-grandchildren were the joys of her life. Family was her priority. She wanted to be part of everyone's lives and made sure she did that. We always knew we could depend on her to be there for us and she was. She always stayed involved called us weekly and visited often.

Dad had built Lorrie & Flo's first house in Burnaby. I had married at age 19 and lived in a one bedroom unfinished A Frame shack on Gun Creek Trail in the Bridge River Valley without running water and power. Mom was not happy with my primitive living conditions so she decided Dad would raise the cabin we were living in and build a whole new basement addition. Dad had been working for Ziebiak Construction as a finishing carpenter on the houses they raised. He borrowed the jacks and cribbing needed from them and in nothing flat had our cabin in the air. That was the easy part. We lived on a side hill and the basement had to be dug out. This was no easy feat but between my husband, father and our horses they proceeded to dig out the basement. Somewhere they had found a large double handled bucket from a loader with handles. They harnessed a horse to the bucket. One of them would lead the horse and the other one was hanging onto the handles of the bucket. It took a good week to dig out the basement. What an accomplishment! We had no power but Dad built a new lower floor with 3 bedrooms, a bathroom and laundry room and then redid the upstairs complete with a new modern kitchen. He even had the house wired for power and then installed a propane lighting system into the walls. Our stove and fridge were propane. Eventually we bought a propane lighting plant which we fired up once a week to do laundry and vacuum. Up till that time I had a washing machine with a Briggs & Stratton engine on it set up on my front porch. Mom was "over the moon". No more chapped cheeks from the trips to the outhouse, the laundry was inside, her grandkids had bedrooms and so did she & Dad when they came to visit. She was happy and that was all that mattered to Dad.

Mom could be controlling. She liked to call the shots and get her own way but her intentions were in the right place. And that's what counts. It was hard on us at times but what the hell. We lived with it. I remember her deciding Don and I needed a new sofa. Off to Sears she went, picked out a mauvey/taupe coloured sofa and had it shipped to us. Surprise! It didn't match anything we had and to keep her happy I had to have my whole frontroom redone. That was one ugly sofa! Then, of course, the kitchen had to be updated to match the frontroom. But when you really needed her she was there. When my nine year old son Brent was hit by a drunk driver she took a leave of absence from her job. She didn't think twice, he needed months of care and she was going to do it. She was there for us. Family looks after family. That was Mom.

Dad had died young at age 64. His beginnings were simple and with a rheumatic heart he did not serve in WWII but he did work in the shipyard in Vancouver. After he was gone Mom decided to do some travelling. She did a trip to Bermuda, cruised the Hawaiian islands, loved Arizona
and Palm Springs and even looked after a girlfriend's motel in Long Beach for a couple of years. She loved joining us when we travelled with our fifth wheel trailer. We had many good trips together and have lots of wonderful memories. We even left the fifth wheel in Casa Grande one year and Mom and Anne spent the winter there.

Mom lived for about 20 years at Casa Serena. These were her retirement years. She had many girlfriends in the Casa Serena complex and quite the social life. They made their own fun celebrating anything and everything. She especially loved getting dressed up at Halloween and going trick or treating in the complex or walking up to Lorrie & Flo's to surprise them while in costume. She loved to walk and with Lorrie and Flo living a mile away would walk over and visit with them in the evenings. Aside from her marvelous genes I am sure her active lifestyle and positive attitude had a lot to do with her longevity. She was one of the most positive and compassionate people I have ever met.

Mom went into care November 2010 when she was 94. She has received exceptional care from the staff at Villa Carital. She lived into her 99th year. What an amazing lady she was. We are truly thankful that she was part of all our lives.