Mary Halyk

Please click HERE to view the livestream of Marys' funeral service.

Mary Halyk (nee Kolodziejski) was born in Zablocie, Poland and came to Canada when she was two years old. She lived on the flats north of Tuffnell until she got married, and then on the Halyk family farm for 2 years until they bought the store in Tuffnell in 1949. She ran the store until it was closed in 1975, and continued to live there until her husband Tom died in 1993. She then moved to Foam Lake in 1996 and stayed there until 2014, when she moved to the Bentley in Yorkton. Then, in 2019, she moved back to Foam Lake, into the nursing homes close to home.

As a child, Mary attended Echo Lake School for grades 1 to 4, sometimes living with people in the area, sometimes walking or taking horses for the eight mile journey to school. Then she missed two years of school because her family was living outside the school district. To ensure the kids had a place to go to school, her father bought a quarter of land near Dunrobin School, so she was then able to attend for grades 5, 6, and 7. She was proud that she only attended 56 days of school in grade 7 but yet received the highest marks in her grade at the end of the year. Following this she had to go to work on the farm full-time, but much later in life she proudly went back to school and successfully completed her GED (Grade 12 Equivalence Diploma).

She volunteered alongside her Tuffnell Homemakers friends, which eventually became the Womens Institute (WI), where she was president for 42 years, from 1972 until she moved to Yorkton in 2014. She said nobody else wanted the job. She was also a member of the Roman Catholic Church and CWL, and acted as a secretary and treasurer. She was also the secretary of the Greek Orthodox Ladies Aid, and while living in Tuffnell and Foam Lake, she volunteered as a worker for the Tuffnell Recreation Centre and for the Tuffnell Hall Committee.

She was predeceased by her father Walter Kolodziejski, her mother Amelia (Aurelia Stegienta), her husband Tom, her brothers John and Henry Kolodziejski, her sister Ann Bisschop, her sisters-in-law Bernice Kolodziejski, and Lucy Kolodziejski, brother-in-law Norbert Bisschop, and her daughter-in-law Joanne Halyk. She leaves to mourn her three sons Tom, Don (Edith), and Mark (Bev) as well as granddaughters Dionne and Gillian Halyk and Laura Halyk (Brett Galloway) and grandsons Thomas (Ceci), Adam (Alison) and daughters Heidi and Holly, Evan (Megan), Matthew, Aaron (Lisa).

The Prayer Service will be held on Wednesday, January 21st at 7 pm at the Christ the King Roman Catholic Church in Foam Lake, SK. The Funeral Service will be held at 11 am on Thursday, January 22nd, at the Christ the King Roman Catholic Church in Foam Lake, SK

Donations in Mary’s memory can be made to:

Heart & Stroke Foundation

2300 Yonge St | Suite 1200 | Box 2414 | Toronto, ON | M4P 1E4

or

Canadian Cancer Society

55 ST Clair Avenue West | Suite 300 | Toronto, ON | M4V 2Y7