Obituary of Theresa Berezuk
Theresa Berezuk's funeral mass will be livestreamed. To access Theresa Berezuk's funeral mass via livestreaming, please sign into the Sts. Cyril and Methodius website at: https://cyrilandmethodius.ca/ Simply log in five to ten minutes before the funeral mass and the streaming will appear.
Panachyda on Tuesday at 7p.m. will also be live streamed from the Funeral Home. Please log onto the following link just before 7p.m. on Tuesday, July 20th https://youtu.be/jwobXCcIiJc
It is with full hearts that we announce that our mother, Theresa Berezuk, departed peacefully from this world on July 15th, 2021. Theresa was born in Oberwart, Austria, in 1924, to Theresa and Adalbert Hadadi. As children, Mama painted mental pictures of Burgenland’s rolling hills, the Pinka River and in later years smiled when describing the adventures shared with her younger siblings, Johann and Maria.
As a child, Terush, the name our Hungarian Opa called her, could not have foreseen the challenges that lay ahead. WW11 brought scarcity to which Theresa responded by trading goods from the farms of Oberwart, with the Sacher and Vienna Hotels in Vienna. Beyond scarcity, the war brought an oppressive fear that she might lose her father, a roadworker sent to Yugoslavia to dig ditches, and her brother, Johann, who had been conscripted to fight in Odessa. The hearts of the Hadadi family swelled with gratitude upon the near- miraculous return of both Theresa’s father and brother.
WW11 ended officially, but another sort began during the harsh days of the Soviet Occupation of post-war Austria. An expert baker, a skill learned from our Oma, Theresa was taken in as a cook for a Soviet General and his family. Despite her youth, our mother faced and overcame challenges with the strength of character that defined her until the end of her life on earth. Perhaps the greatest of these was the untimely death of her mother, Theresa, of typhoid fever, which ran rampant in post-war Europe. Mama was twenty-one when her beautiful mother passed away.
Theresa left Oberwart to seek work in England which she found in a Lancashire bobbin factory. Recalling her experiences, Mama said that she, “loved [her] machine”; here was something she could, at long last, control. It was there, in Lancashire, at a dance full of WW11 ex-patriates, that Theresa met Mykola Berezuk, her future husband who, with the help of UNRAA, left Germany where he had been a forced labourer-an Osterbeiter. Mykola, our Tato, said of his future wife, “She was the most beautiful woman in the room. I’ll always remember her blue shoes.” Their romance bloomed in the freedom offered by England. In those days of peace, love and hope, they laughed in the company of Maria Hadadi, Theresa’s sister, her future husband, Teodor Lewickyj, our Aunt Francis and her future husband, our Uncle Tony Margelis. A black and white photograph remains of all six smiling broadly for a photograph of Mykola and Theresa, their bridemaids and ushers on their wedding day, February 22nd, 1952. All six remained loyal to one another and the couples nurtured their relationships across the Atlantic after they had immigrated to begin new lives in Canada and the United States.
Theresa and Mykola made St. Catharines, Ontario their home.
Theresa, now fluent in German, Hungarian and English, embraced Tato’s love of Ukraine and desire for its self-determination and the end of the Soviet Union. To that end, Mama learned to speak Ukrainian, joined the Ukrainian Canadian Women’s League, became active in The Ukrainian Black Sea Hall and began to pray at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Ukrainian Catholic Church. Luba, Vera and Tanya, hair neatly braided, dresses ironed, and shoes polished, sat between Mama and Tato, who responded in his rich, resonant bass voice, to each prayer.
For thirty years, the Ukrainian Black Sea Hall, a non-profit organization whose goal was, among others, to promote an understanding of Ukrainian culture and to strive for the freedom of Ukraine, flourished under Mama’s leadership as the head cook. Mama ran her kitchen, as her ‘sister’ cooks-our other mothers, many of whom have now left us- and her waitresses can attest, like a well-oiled machine. Mama was a marvel; clever, intuitive, skilled and determined to make the experience of all who rented the hall for a banquet or wedding, a memorable one.
Beyond her work at the Ukrainian Black Sea Hall, Theresa dedicated herself to her marriage and to raising compassionate daughters.
Theresa, predeceased by Mykola and their eldest daughter Maria, is survived by her daughters Luba Berezuk-Klama (Dennis Klama), Vera Berezuk, Tanya Berezuk (Richard Greene), her grandchildren, Clarissa Nelson (Bradley Nelson), Marta Kopun (Michael Oudyk), Alexander Kopun (Marina Pantalone), Christopher Culp (Rebecca Racine), their daughter, Sophia, and Kalina Kopun (Gary Ryckman).
Also mourning Theresa’s loss are her Michigan family, Mama’s sister and brother-in-law, Maria and Teodor Lewyckyj, her niece Natalka (Michael Rudnycky), their children, Tanya (Michael Kryzaniwskyj) and their sons Zander and Xavier, Andrij Rudnycky (Jamie), their son, Theo and daughter, Louisa, her nephew Peter Lewyckyj (Natalia) and their son, Zenon Lewyckyj. Family in Austria are also saddened by news of her parting.
Admired by all who knew her, Theresa lived according to her convictions in her quiet, steadfast way. Here was a person who walked the world with the courage of a soldier and the loving heart of a mother.
A special and heartfelt thank you to the staff of Lakefield Extendicare and to Father Raymond Rick of St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Parish for administering The Anointing of the Sick and for returning, upon Mama’s request, the day before her passing.
Family will receive friends at George Darte Funeral Home, 585 Carlton Street, on Tuesday, July 20th, at 6-8 p.m. Panachyda at 7:00. Funeral Liturgy will be held at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church on Wednesday, July 21st at 10:00 a.m. As per Covid-19 Regulations, all guests wishing to attend the Funeral Mass at the Church must call the funeral home to notify of your attendance, (905)-937-4444. All guets must wear a mask. Internment to follow at Victoria Lawn Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church.
Theresa Berezuk's funeral mass will be livestreamed. To access Theresa Berezuk's funeral mass via livestreaming, please sign into the Sts. Cyril and Methodius website at: https://cyrilandmethodius.ca/ Simply log in five to ten minutes before the funeral mass and the streaming will appear.
Panachyda on Tuesday at 7p.m. will also be live streamed from the Funeral Home. Please log onto the following link just before 7p.m. on Tuesday, July 20th https://youtu.be/jwobXCcIiJc
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
Vichnaya Pam’yat.