Sylvia Audrey Harrison

Family Eulogy

Sylvia Harrison of Regina, Saskatchewan, formerly of Dauphin, passed away on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 at the age of 88 years.

Mom was born in Dauphin, Manitoba on February 24, 1934 to Wasyl and Maria Kuzyk.  She was the second youngest of eight children and was raised on a farm in the RM of Sifton, Manitoba.  She attended Melton School and later attended Dauphin Collegiate.  After finishing school, she worked for Manitoba Telephones in Dauphin and it was during this time that she met her future husband John.  They were married on November 13, 1954 and celebrated 61 years of marriage together.  Following their marriage, Sylvia and John moved to Regina, Saskatchewan where they had three sons, Dennis, Terry and Greg.  They resided there until 1978 then, moving to Cochrane, Alberta, John started his own plumbing business.  When Sylvia and John retired in 1988, they moved back to Manitoba and settled in Fork River and then in 2010, moved into Dauphin.  After John’s passing in 2016, Sylvia relocated back to Regina to be closer to her sons, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

My earliest recollection of Mom was on my 4th birthday.  She came into the bedroom, picked me up out of bed, gave me a kiss and said Happy Birthday.  I remember she was wearing a purple dress with black polka dots on it when she carried me into the kitchen and showed me my birthday cake sitting on top of the stove.  Thinking of it now, it was a fitting memory as, growing up, I always remember her being in the kitchen baking treats or making meals.

When Mom & Dad first moved to Regina, Mom worked in a small grocery store on Dewdney Ave.  The following year she had Dennis and eleven months later, me, thus embarking on her new career as mother and homemaker.  Having two little ones so close together was a handful but she managed well.  It was a little trickier once Dennis and I were more 'mobile'.  Five years later, she attempted that 'last ditch effort' and, trying for a girl, had Greg instead.  Harrison male gene... 3 & 0, Mom's baby girl attempts... 0 for 3.  

Girls or not, Mom loved her boys and looked after us well.  She was also well versed in the art of ‘tough love’.  Example: When I was 5 or 6, after supper one day I was out front of our house sitting on the old wooden city sidewalk.  The road was still dirt then, so, lots of stones.  A car was coming up the street and when it drove by, I picked up a stone, threw it at the car and hit it.  The guy put on the brakes and started backing up.  Dad’s old ‘53 Pontiac was parked along the sidewalk and I crawled under the car.  The guy knocked on the door, talked to Mom then drove away.  Mom went back into the house.  I crawled out from under the car and took my position back on the sidewalk.  A few minutes later, Mom opened the front door and set a little suitcase on the front step.  She called me up on the step and I asked what was in the suitcase.  She said my clothes were in there and that I was to sit with the suitcase and wait as the police were coming to pick me up.  I was scared and cried, but she went back into the house and closed the door.  She left me out there for a good 30 or 40 minutes.  She finally came back outside and told me the police had phoned back and said they were too busy to come and get me.  She made me bring the suitcase in and put everything back in my drawers.  Ahh, tough love!

She was also adept at wielding a wooden spoon, and not just for cooking.  One Monday morning during summer holidays when Dennis and I were a little older (Mom always did laundry Monday’s), Dennis and I were fighting in the basement when Mom was doing laundry down there.  She had this big wooden spoon hanging on a post that she used for stirring blue dye into clothes.  She told us to knock it off and when we didn’t, grabbed the wooden spoon.  It’s true that fright is faster than fury because I was up the stairs in seconds but, Dennis was a little slower and took the spoon in the back of the head.  The head of the spoon broke in half (I’m talking the real hardwood spoons not the balsa wood ones they use today), anyway, breaking her spoon made her madder yet.  We stayed out of the house the rest of the day.  Tough love yet again.  On a secondary note, she never did replace that  broken spoon, it hung back on the post and she kept using it… for the clothes and us!

In 1965, the first enclosed shopping mall in Regina opened a block away from our house and Mom re-entered the working world getting a job at Robinson Stores.  Five years later in 1970, a new Dominion grocery store opened half a block away from our house and Mom returned to the grocery biz by landing a job as a cashier there.

In 1978, she added a few more skills to her resume when Dad started his plumbing business in Alberta and she became a plumber’s apprentice, office administrator and bookkeeper.  Later, when retiring to Fork River, she and Dad ran a food concession at auctions sales which they both enjoyed doing very much.

Along with baking and cooking, Mom also liked cross-stitching, reading, gardening and bingo.  She also enjoyed getting together for coffee everyday with her special neighbour Lucy.  When the ‘Bunco’ craze was on, she and the neighbourhood ladies took turns hosting the game.  We enjoyed it as well as it meant leftover desserts the next day.

She loved visiting with and hosting friends and family.  Getting together in the evening for coffee was never just ‘coffee’ at Mom’s.  It usually always included a light meal, sausage, cheese, bread, pickles and dainties, the table was always full.

Shortly after Dad’s passing Mom moved back to Regina to be closer to her children and grandchildren.  She moved into a seniors’ apartment at Selo Gardens, a Ukrainian community that was started by the Ukrainian Greek Orthodox church that Mom & Dad had attended for 25 years before moving to Alberta.  A lot of the residents, like Mom, are people from the church and ladies that Mom worked with in the church’s Ladies Auxiliary.  I called Selo ‘Little Dauphin’ as she was able to communicate with her friends in the ‘mother-tongue’ just like ‘back home’.

Dennis notes that after moving back to Regina, Baba was kept busy going to different functions with the grandchildren and especially with the great grandchildren such as baseball, hockey games and Ukrainian dance performances.  She also liked being there with the grandkids showing them how to make jams or perohy.  She enjoyed coming over for Sunday suppers and watching the great grandkids running, playing, jumping up and down and making a lot of noise and not once did she take out her hearing aids.  Always before agreeing to come for supper, she’d ask, “When I want to come home, someone will take me, right?”, but still, she was always the last one to leave.

Our Mom and Baba will be missed by us all.

Love you Mom.

Prayers were offered on Thursday, February 9, 2023 at 7:00 pm from the Sneath-Strilchuk Family Care Centre in Dauphin.

A Funeral Service was held for Sylvia on Friday, February 10, 2023 at 10:00 am from the St. George's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Dauphin with Rev. Father Brent Kuzyk officiating.  

The service was livestreamed for those unable to attend. Click on the link below.

Interment followed in the Riverside Cemetery - Dauphin.

Should friends so desire, donations in memory of Sylvia may be made to St. George's Ukrainian Orthodox Church or a charity of one's choice.

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