Sunday June 7, 2015

By Lethbridge Herald Obituaries on June 8, 2015.

Hulda Mueller
1913 – 2015
Mrs. Hulda Mueller of Lethbridge, passed away on Saturday, June 6, 2015 at the age of 102 years.
Funeral arrangements to be announced when completed.
Visit http://www.mbfunerals.com to send a private condolence.

VESELY, John Anthony
April 26, 1925 – June 1, 2015
Surrounded by his family and lulled by the strains of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, John Vesely died peacefully on June 1, 2015. He was 90.
Left to cherish his memory are his wife of 56 years, Irene (nee Kana), son Tom (Susan), daughter Carolin (Darren) and grandsons Jason and Curtis. He will also be missed by numerous nieces and nephews, relatives and friends. John was predeceased by his sister, Liba (Mirek) and parents Antonin and Anna (nee Havranek).
Premysl Anthony Jaroslav was born in Prague in 1925, seven years after the birth of the nation of Czechoslovakia. He fondly recalled a childhood where well-known opera tunes were hummed or whistled around the house, and where his dad would spontaneously dance his mother across the kitchen floor. Dad nurtured his love of music and culture throughout his life, expanding his repertoire to include country and western music when he married a southern Alberta farm girl in 1959.
Dad was completing his studies at the University of Prague when the Communist Party staged its coup d’etat in 1948. Deemed an enemy of the state after participating in a pro-democracy march, he was expelled and made the decision then to defect to the West. He never saw his parents again, but was able to reunite with his sister in Lethbridge in 1970.
Dad arrived at Halifax’s historic Pier 21 with $50 in his pocket and little English beyond the phrase, “Have you got a job for me?” He would go on to earn a B.Sc. and a Master’s in agriculture from the University of British Columbia and a PhD at North Carolina State University. At the age of 63, he retired from a 31-year career as a research scientist for the Canadian government. At this stage he resumed his childhood violin lessons and enjoyed countless gigs with both a local symphony and a fiddle group.
Dad loved nature and treasured his backyard garden, which he nurtured from seeds and adorned with boulders he hauled off the Prairie. He was also an accomplished carpenter and woodcarver, starting with a single duck and ending with a basement full of elaborate horse-drawn wagons. But his heart blossomed and his eyes twinkled in the presence of his family, especially his grandsons.
In 1990, he made his first of several trips back to the Old Country. Dad and Tom entered the Czech Republic through the same gate he had skirted during his escape more than 40 years before. A highlight of dad’s life was to take his adult children to the opera in the stately concert halls of Prague.
As per his wishes, there will be no funeral service. Rather, his immediate family will take a walk in the Lost River Coulee, where he fell in love with his adopted homeland — and with his beloved wife, Irene.In lieu of flowers, those who desire may make a donation in memory of John to the Canadian Diabetes Association.

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