Obituaries

MINHINNICK (NEE SIZER), Irene Muriel

December 31,1915 - September 12, 2018

In loving memory of our Mom, grandmother and great grandmother and most importantly friend, who lived each day with grace, humour, respect for others and herself.

Born in Brandon, Manitoba and raised in Unity, Saskatchewan until graduation and relocating to Regina for nurse training at Grey Nuns Hospital. There on the occasion of visiting her cousin, she met his nephew by marriage and the rest is history. Dad was in the Navy and when he was posted to Halifax first in earlier 1940, he became a hardhat diver there and later to Newfoundland for the same purpose of retrieval of military war pieces and underwater surveillance for enemy weaponry. Mom traveled east to Halifax by train and they were married in Halifax on December 22, 1941.

A few months later, pregnant with their son Percy (Vic) she crossed to Newfoundland to join Dad. She often said she had never been so sick as on that crossing. She prayed at one point that the boat would just sink and ironically the next trip across the next day that ship did sink. She spent much of the the war years alone in St. John's raising Percy while dad was overseas in the North Atlantic on several ships. Then she traveled alone across Canada to the absolute opposite coast and North Vancouver, B.C. There in July of 1946 she gave birth to a daughter Gloria.

When dad was discharged they hand built their first home there and over the years built their future and in 1957 a daughter Debra was born to complete the family. Their long time dream was to locate to the Okanagan, but "way back then" it would have meant boarding us kids in order to get schooling and so they waited.

In January 1976, they made their final move to Peachland. They enjoyed the area and spent days camping all over the province and south to Yellowstone, and Alberta.

Dad passed suddenly in September of 1994 and Mom continued their longtime hobby of bowling in Peachland and then Westbank until both alleys closed.

She enjoyed the road trips with her daughter, babysitting grandchildren and great grandchildren and even into her nineties baked a hand kneaded batch of great bread.

One of the last great road trips was to Barkerville and Wells, BC in September 2015 just before her 100th birthday. They were impressed and stated they had not had a visitor that old before. She felt very special with the various souvenirs they presented to her in honour of the visit. (She was upset when I bought a walker for doing the streets in Barkerville and used it then, but not again until after the broken hip.) Right up until September of this year she enjoyed the road trips to Omak for lunch or the circle trips over the Coquihalla to Hope and back up the Hope Princeton. 400-500 km a day were the norm.

On December 28th, 2017 at 4 AM she arose to use the bathroom and slipped on floor breaking her hip. The next day she had a hip replacement and went to Cottonwoods for rehab. There she fought off Influenza B and G.I. outbreak to survive and transfer to Smith Creek Residential Housing in Westbank. A fighter until the end! She was happy there and we still did the road trips. The last one was just one week before she passed. Her passing was sudden and exactly what she wanted. At 102 years, 9 months and 12 days, it was time...

Survived by her daughter Gloria Taylor, grandchildren Cordell Taylor and Lindsay (Jason) Dyck, great grandchildren Josh, Nathan and Elijah. Daughter Deb (Jack) Schramm, grandchildren Kyle (Amy) Schramm, great grandchildren Keira and Marshall and granddaughter Heather Schramm.

Predeceased by her loving husband Albert Minhinnick 1994, granddaughter Kelly Minhinnick 1981, great grandson David Patrick Taylor 1993, son Percy Minhinnick 1998, daugher-in-law Judy Minhinnick 2016.

Together forever with Dad in Peachland Cemetery.