SWITZER: Mary Helene

To her doctors and care-givers, Mary Helene Switzer was “a miracle”.
But to the many people whose lives she touched she was simply the most caring individual many of them had ever met.
From her July 11, 1938 birth on Hemlock St. in Sudbury, Ont., to her Jan.
12, 2009 death at 22 Howard Ave. in North Bay, Mary’s cheer and charm proved capable of penetrating even the gruffest of exteriors.
No-one understood this more than her husband Maurice, who met Mary in 1975 in Belleville when she was a widow raising two daughters. Mary proved to be a patient gardener and Maurice a late bloomer during their 33 years of marriage. She tried to teach him patience and compassion, while he tried to convince her that sometimes a straight line is the shortest distance between two points of view.
She bought him his first set of oil paints, he took her for her first canoe ride.
While unwavering support for his career in the newspaper industry inevitably took Mary further from other family members, it also provided the couple with opportunities to make new friends in every part of Canada -- they kissed the cod in St. John’s and snacked on sugared-coated salmon atop Grouse Mountain in Vancouver.
They vowed not to leave the best until last. They sunbathed in Cancun and snorkled in Honolulu; they shopped for Murano glass in Venice and Matryoshka dolls in Yalta; they watched Sammy Davis Jr. in Las Vegas, Peter Ustinov at Stratford, met Johnny Cash backstage in Sudbury , and saw Evelyn Hart pirouette in Winnipeg.
Mary instilled in Maurice an appreciation for his heritage by showing him how much she loved her Slovak roots. Her beloved parents Stefan Pavlik and Maria Kurej left Jakusoce -- a village of 16 households -- to make a life in Canada, and Mary made three pilgrimages back to visit her many cousins.
Together with Maurice and granddaughter Bianca, she made the trip three years after doctors had predicted that her inoperable lung cancer would kill her. Bianca’s mother -- Andrea (Frank) Zimperi and aunt Lisa Doracka -- both of Timmins -- speak and understand Slovak because their mother thought that was an essential part of their upbringing.
Mary refused to let go of this life until she was good and ready. In addition to members of her immediate family, her indomitable spirit will comfort nieces Georgia Volker, Valerie (children Allan and Katrina) and nephew Mark Lesnick, all of Toronto, and mother-in-law Ruby (Marsden) Hicks of Lakefield, Ontario. She was predeceased by her beloved sister Anne Lesnick and first husband Milan Doracka.
Mary’s family are inviting friends to join them in a celebration of her love-filled life at Omond United Church , 319 McKenzie Avenue, North Bay, Ontario, from 2-5 pm on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009.
She would be pleased if anyone wants to honour her memory by making donations to charities promoting research to find cures for lung cancer and lupus , or to the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary near Huntsville, Ont.