Obit: Sliwinski, Joyce Marie (1925 - 2014)

Contact: Robert Lipprandt
bob@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Korinek, Sliwinski, Sliwinski-Rockenbaurer, Van Tuinen

----Source: The Star News (Medford, WI) 2/20/2014

Sliwinski, Joyce Marie (Korinek) (30 SEP 1925 - 12 JAN 2014)

Joyce Marie Sliwinski (Korinek), 88, was born in a taxi in Chicago, Ill., on September 30, 1925, because her tenacious mother, a furrier, insisted on finishing a fur coat for a client before going to the hospital. The taxi driver, trained for such circumstances, assisted the delivery.

The intense environment of her birth followed her throughout most of her life. Joyce, who became a resident of Robertsdale, Ala., since retiring there with her husband, Walter, in 1997, passed away peacefully at home, with family by her side, on January 12, 2014 from congestive heart failure.

During her younger years, Joyce lived in Chicago, the Town of Gad near Medford, Bloomington, Ill., and then back in Gad.The connection in Wisconsin was her Aunt Frances, her mother Anna's sister, and Uncle Joe Hraby, and later her stepfather, Peter Janda, to whom Joyce was very close.
Her musical pursuits began when she earned a school prize of $5 and bought a button accordion that she learned fairly well on her own. Later, she also played the saxophone and harmonica. A memorable event of her childhood was attending the Chicago World's Fair in 1933, a highlight of which was riding the Sky Ride, an elevated transportation structure with gondolas hanging from a cable.

Joyce's various travels took her to Robertsdale to be near her sister and father, and where she worked in an airplane factory running a milling machine during World War II. Rosie the riveter! After the war ended, she left that job to work for Western Union because the factory jobs were going back to the returning men. She was transferred to Los Angeles, Calif., then moved to New York City to study marketing at New York University. Deciding to travel more, she used her knowledge gained at Western Union to work as a telecommunicator for the civil service, which was aiding the military on the island of Guam.

She met Walter Sliwinski, who was stationed there in the Navy. They married in 1950 and settled into farm life in Ohio. In 1973, shortly after Joyce's mother died, the family moved to Wisconsin to take over Pete and Anna's dairy farm and to care for Pete during his last 12 years. After her sister Emily's death, Joyce and Walter moved to Robertsdale to live in the house Emily had willed to Joyce.

Joyce was preceded in death by Walter in 2011. She is survived by all her children, six daughters and a son, Julianne Sliwinski of Cleveland, Ohio, Steve (Grace) Sliwinski of Plano, Texas, Samantha (Helmut) Sliwinski-Rockenbaurer of Robertsdale, Carol (Ray) Van Tuinen of Billings, Mont., Tanya Sliwinski of Merrill, Stasia Sliwinski of Edgar and Amelia Sliwinski of Robertsdale. She had eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. A special thank you goes to Amelia for taking such good, loving, diligent care of Mom before Dad died and then 24/7 for the last two and a half years with significant and kind assistance by Samantha and Helmut.

We remember her wonderful cooking, including traditional Polish and Czech dishes, her gentleness, occasional harmonica tunes, affection, seemingly unending capacity for forgiveness, amazingly good spirits in spite of her failing health, and sense of humor. Her short term memory was about two minutes long near the end, but she did remember that when we put a man on the moon back in the '60s, he found a pile of large bones. That's right. The cow did not make it! To conclude, her final joke is "It's time to Czech out!"

Mack Funeral Home, P.O. Box 656, Robertsdale, AL 36567 hosted the wake and funeral with interment alongside Walter at Silverhill Cemetery.