GUEDO, SYLVIA MARGARET (NÉE SPRECKER): On the occasion of what would have been her 78th birthday, November 1, 2014, we would like to pay tribute and say that we miss our sister, Sylvia. Sylvia left work June 30th,1994 when she was no longer able to walk up the stairs at the Sask Hospital. She took early retirement after a year of sick leave, but she never really got better. Jim died on October 12th, 2004. On Friday, Jan. 31st at noon, Sylvia went to the Battlefords Union Hospital by ambulance. On Sunday she was diagnosed with cancer, and on Monday morning, February 3rd, 2014 about 10:30am she died. On Monday, February 10th, a Celebration of Life service was held at the Battleford United Church. Her son, Jim, gave the eulogy. Sylvia's ashes were interred in the Battleford Cemetery on Sunday, May 25th. Thank you to Barbara who had moved home in 2000 for being there for her parents. Thank you to Donna for being there for our sister. The Sprecker girls: Charlotte (Muzyka), Lois (Howes), Myrna (Sprecker), Donna (Sternig), Janet (MacGillivray) and Myrna ("Brock" Sprecker)
Eulogy by Jim Guedo
Monday, Feb. 10'14
"I first met Sylvia Guedo fifty-five years ago. She was my mother. Like all selfish children, I thought her life only truly began with the beginning of mine (you can actually look past the fact that you actually have an older sister). "She's my mom." Of course we're wrong to believe this. Because when you look at early pictures of her, you realize no one can claim ownership of Sylvia Guedo. As a young child, then a girl, a teenager, a bride, a nurse graduating from school, you see so many other women. All independent. All strong. All glamorous. And saucy. With a twinkle in her eye. Sliver was an extraordinary extrovert. She had a jovial, infectious laugh. As kids if we ever got lost at Kresgies or Craig's, all we had to do was stop, listen and head for that Sylvia cackle or the trail of cigarette smoke. We'd find her -- usually in the shoe section -- catching up with someone with a jubilant energy. Our mother had an energy that spread like wildfire and radiated to all she drew to her. She loved her friends, her husband & kids and Black Cat cigarettes and Elvis and her family. She made everyone around her feel like the most important person in the world. She was selfless. Sylvia was born November 1, 1936 in Rosthern, Saskatchewan, the second child and first daughter of Margaret and Albert Sprecker. Her Dad worked in the mill that his father-in-law owned; Grandma didn't work outside the home, even though she had a business course from Robertson Secretarial School in Saskatoon. In 1940, the family moved to Battleford, to 30th Street when Uncle Warren had to start school. I never knew my Grandfather; he worked at the Saskatchewan Hospital. Mom and Warren ended up following in his footsteps. Sylvia attended Battleford Central School for grades one to eight, September 1942 to June 1950 and Battleford Collegiate Institute (B.C.I.) and completed grades nine to eleven, September 1950 to June 1953. She was on the Student Council, the Year Book Staff, and Editor of VOX DISCIPULI. She played basketball and softball and participated in Track and Field. When she was in Grade Eleven, this is how she was described in a poem highlighting her class: 'The life of the class. Will run into trouble with all her might. Don't guess, it's Sylvia Sprecker all right'. As our Aunt Myrna notes: "Sylvia was someone who always walked to a different drummer. At 14, she lied about her age (the legal working age was 16) and went to work as a waitress for the summer at the Gold Leaf Cafe in North Battleford for $22.50 a week. She worked split shifts and rode a bike from home on 30th Street to work, twice a day. By the old bridge, this was a round trip total of 20 miles a day! At 15, she lied about her age again and got a summer job as kitchen help in the Saskatoon Sanitorium. She got enough spending money to last till Christmas. Sylvia started grade twelve in September 1953, but when her money ran out, she got a job in January 1954 as a junior clerk at CIBC in North Battleford for $122.00 a month. She stayed till July. At 17, she began working at the Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford, first as a nurse's aid, and then as a student nurse for a three year course leading to a Diploma in Psychiatric Nursing." Sylvia met our Dad in February 1956, and they married May 20, 1957. She had two kids while studying to be a nurse, and graduated from the Saskatchewan Hospital in May of 1961 while pregnant with my sister Colleen -- who was born six months later. She received her R.P.N. and except when she took some time off to have Sarah, or as we now call him Patrick, she worked a total of 26 ½ years at the Sask. Hospital before taking early retirement in 1995. She'd worked over forty-five years by that point outside the home to support first her mother, brother and sisters, and then our family. And during all that time she raised us, cooked for us, baked, took us to movies, the drive in, sporting events, Saskatoon for shopping and concerts, camping at Cochin and the Provincial Park, and still found time to roll her own cigarettes, knit and throw parties, both festive and holiday- related for family and friends. Wherever we lived, Sylvia was the hub. She treasured her siblings, and every time they got together there's a picture to capture that moment. She was our anchor, our glue, our rock. We had the coolest mom. Because we had the Partridge Family mom for a mother... if she smoked and swore like a sailor. To paraphrase Death of a Salesman: To the outside world, people wouldn't say she'd been a 'great' woman. She never made a lot of money. Her name was rarely in the paper. She wasn't the finest character that ever lived. But she was a human being, and a terrible thing happened to her. So attention must be paid. Attention must finally be paid to such a person. My only hope is that, in the final moments in this life, she knew what we've since come to realize so completely after sifting through old photos, Aunt Myrna's family heritage scrapbooks and all the anecdotes and memories we've shared since her passing. That she was more than just our mother and did far more than just create us. We see her as a daughter. A Sister. A Friend. A Wife. A Mother. A Grandmother. An Aunt. A Bowler. Basketball player. Softball player. A Track and field reporter for the B.C.I. Yearbook. A Psychiatric Nurse. An amazing Cook and Baker. A hair stylist. An endless knitter. A tireless Gardener. The Martha Stewart of her day (minus the jail time). A good smoker by her own admission. I'm told she was an excellent dancer. But I can tell you she was the worst driving instructor ever ("BRAKE, BRAKE!!!!!!"). She was a true Renaissance woman. She was a force of nature. She was a stubborn German train that kept chugging, even if her wheels were running out of steam. But my memories of my mother aren't going to be those of her pain and suffering but instead those of a woman willing to make an absolute fool of herself simply to bring joy to those around her. To take out her dentures to pretend to be a tiger or lion to gnaw on us -- one of my first childhood memories of her -- in order to make us squeal with terror and delight. In our collective 77 years with her, we have been supplied with a lifetime of hilarity, by a woman who had the drive and desire to reach out to others, to enjoy life. I see her in both of my sisters and my brother. I see her in myself. Sylvia made a decision to enjoy life because she'd had a tough life. And she knew it. But like a war vet, she rarely talked about it. She wasn't prone to maudlin displays of sentimentality. A week or so before she left us, before we knew the full extent of her pain, we were trying to get her to consider home care. We all tried different tactics: all were doomed for failure. I tried this one: I asked her why she became a nurse. "This makes me so mad…." She muttered. "Why?" I persisted. She begrudgingly said "to help and take care of people." So I told her that she'd spent fifty years taking care of other people, so it was our turn as kids to take care of her. Her response: "That's a crock of shit." So like a lot of strong prairie-stock women, like her mother before her, like her brother and sisters, she'd had a rough life and been dealt a few bad hands (she also played bridge). But from her experiences she taught us that while it was important to expect nothing -- life didn't owe you a thing -- it was important to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path of life, and look for the humour, and soldier on. You'd constantly hear her say -- when she was informed of some terrible, life-altering incident about someone, a break up, a fight, a divorce or something -- "Well…It didn't turn out." Some might say her life didn't turn out. I think it did. Life isn't the last stop. Mom chose to depart, like our Dad, when they were told they could go home. Sylvia chose to go without more pain and with no more illness. She's in a better place. And she's everlasting. So as a tribute to her time here with us, here's Elvis. She loved him, and I think it's because she knew that Elvis was devoted to his mother. So it's fitting."
[Elvis Presley, The Wonder of you]
