Magdalena Cecilia Stroet (nee Jonker)

1930 – 2021 

A tribute to our mother and her 90-year journey.

Magdalena Cecilia Stroet (nee Jonker) beloved wife of the late Adrianus Stroet passed away peacefully at Middlechurch Home with her children at her side. She is survived by her eleven children, Elizabeth (Eugene), Anita (Alan), Mary (Frank), Adrian (Louise), John, Richard (Charlene), Margaret (Doug), Silvia, Lorraine (Mike), Joanne, Jim (Shera); twenty grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren; siblings Toni, Harry (Anne) Sister Johanna, Cecile (Ted), Peter (Mary), and (Leidie) wife of Neil. She was predeceased by her husband of 51 years in 2005, parents Arie in (1973) and Antonia (1995), brother John (1953) Jack (2011) and Neil (2020)

Lena was born in Holland on November 30, 1930. The first of nine children.

Having lived through the war in Holland, the family looked for a new and better life. And so they boarded the Volendam and made their way to Manitoba. Here they settled in St Eustache. But life was still not always good. The family worked hard on a sugar beet farm in the summers and took odd jobs during the winter months. Things like maid service and washing dishes at St Boniface Hospital. It was during that time she met her life mate. Adrianus Stroet. They were married in a small church in St Eustache. Over the years, Lena and Har would take a drive through the area. They would drive by the farm owned by the Lachance family. Peruse the cemetery at the church where her brother John was buried. Sadly, taken too young in a swimming accident. Imagine going out for a swim and having to come home to tell you mother that your brother would not be returning.

Lena and Har married in 1953. They moved to North Kildonan in 1954, and started their family. As the family grew, Har built the house on Knowles Avenue that they moved into in March of 1961, when Lena was 3 weeks from having Margaret. Wow packing and moving with 6 children and one so close to term. Makes my head spin.

Mom was the captain of everything. There were two things that drove mom through life. Her family and her commitment to the church and her belief.

Mom had 11 children, 20 grandkids and 14 great-grandchildren, with 2 more on their way. She knew all the kid’s birthdays, but her secret was a calendar that she kept in the bathroom. I remember it from Knowles Avenue and then in her apartment on Henderson Hwy. Let’s face it, we all need something to read in there. I’m sure everyone looked at that calendar anytime they were in there.

Life at Knowles Avenue was always eventful. The garden that mom and dad grew. Getting up at 9:00 in the morning, having breakfast and cleaning beans for the rest of the day. We would stack the teams and see who could fill their ice cream pail the fastest. At times, the person taking the ends off the beans would fall behind. Mom was always the best production manager. She would be up till all hours of the night with that canner just boiling. We would do the same with peas. How fast can you fill a pail? I can still see the laundry baskets of beans being dumped on the table. Oh yeah, then it was lunch time. You dusted the dirt from in front of your spot, ate your sandwich, drank you milk and continued the bean races.

The most awesome thing I remember, and I am sure others will agree, was bread making day. We could not wait for the bread to come out of the oven and slather margarine on it, sprinkle it with sugar and devour it. The crust at the end was always fought over. Or how about the rhubarb/raisin concoction that she made. Nice and cold out of the fridge. I can almost taste it just mentioning it.

Then of course, being right across the field from Gateway Recreation Centre, the days we played baseball with the entire neighbourhood. There was one summer that she took 3 kids to St Boniface hospital (the closest to home) due to a “hole in the head” caused by the baseball bat. It’s a good thing that family services did not look into those kinds of issues back then. But then again, who would willingly foster all those kids.

Laundry day was always an adventure in the house. It happened twice per week. Mondays and Thursdays. Morning came and everything laundry was tossed to the bottom of the stairs. Make sure you emptied your pockets, cause you never knew what would fly across the basement floor. Like maybe dad’s false teeth, that broke apart and were repaired with crazy glue. Sure it was not the first time, or the last. Mom had a huge claw foot tub in the basement that she filled with hot water and probably Borax. She would then dump all the socks and towels into the tub. She had a special toilet plunger downstairs and you would have to plunge the laundry prior to it going into the wonderful wringer washer. We all hated that machine. If the laundry got caught in the wringer, she would hit the bar and release. If you hand got caught, she would reverse the machine. Then summer or winter, she would hang the laundry on the lines outside. In the winter, her knuckles would bleed. Once the laundry froze, she would bring it inside, hang it on line in the basement and run the huge drum fan that dad had down there. I still remember when we got the first gas clothes dryer, but you could not use it cause it cost money. She would then take anything that required ironing, sprinkle it with water, roll it in a plastic sheet and put in in the fridge. At night, she would do the ironing

Saturdays were house cleaning days at the home. With an army of assistants, she oversaw the weekly cleaning of the house. From emptying the fridge and getting rid of any leftovers that may have been missed, to emptying 2 shelves of the pantry, cause the peanut butter, honey, jam etc. would all get sticky and bring on the ants. Crawling on your hands and knees to put paste wax on the kitchen and living room floors. There was always jobs to be found on a Saturday.

How many remember her crazy Volkswagen beetle. The one with the Rolls Royce front and the Lincoln Continental back? Everyone knew that was our mom’s car. You would go to school in the morning and someone would say, “hey I saw your mom’s car at such and such yesterday”. Imagine, she was the cool mom long before the term was ever invented. We would try to see how many of the kids we could get into that car. I think the record was 10.

Hey, remember the “heat the seat paddle” that mom had, the one she broke over someone’s butt? And the lovely new one he made for her out of 3/4” plywood. What a good son. And you never wanted to be the youngest child, sitting on mom’s left at the table. Heaven forbid that you misbehaved, you got mom’s backhand and your head hit the window sill behind you. Double whammy. But then again, it never paid to misbehave at mom’s table, if you were across the table from her, she had a wicked throw with a spoon. If you had friends over for dinner, mom would assign them to doing dishes. If the unfortunate would say that “hey, I don’t live her!” mom’s response was… are you living? Are you here? Then you are living here, do the dishes.

When Jim attended St Gerard Parish School, the parents could volunteer at the Bingo in order to supplement their payment for the cost of the private school. Jim was in elementary school, and mom continued to volunteer there until the bingo closed down around 5 years ago. For all those years she sold Nevada tickets on Friday nights. Don’t make any plans for Friday, cause she would not come.
There were the trips to Gladstone to visit the Traa family. A lovely 2-hour drive with that many children. I remember us sitting in the back of the station wagon, with each child sitting opposite the other in order to prevent fighting. Those were always fun trips.

Dad retired at 56 years of age I believe due to his arthritis. They had many adventures after dad retired. Their biggest adventure was driving up to Alaska in a simple van. They slept in the back, cooked their meals on a Coleman stove. They loved it. They also took trips to Toronto and Calgary. Very satisfied with the simple things in life.

They made a couple trips back to the homeland. At one time they went together to celebrate Mary and Frank getting married. On another, mom went by herself. That would have been when Mary had Marc back in 1999. On another occasion, mom went with Lorraine and Charlene. That was back in 2009.

That lady was quite a globe trotter. She and her church cronies were very strong minded young ladies. Together, these grey haired ladies on the loose drove to Maryland USA in order to crash visit their favorite pastor. What a scene that would have been. Apparently, she won big time at Bingo there.

As dad’s health failed, mom did her best to care for him at home. Her being only half of his size, she did this to the best of her ability and for as long as she was able. What a daunting task.

After dad’s passing, mom committed herself to the church and her volunteer work. The days she would walk up the street to the nursing home to “feed the old people”. She was the old people. Mom was volunteer of the year on several occasions. She visited parishioners in the hospital weekly. She donated blood for many years, until they got a false positive read for Aids and would not let her donate anymore. She was devastated by that.

Of course, you can’t forget the food bank. She volunteered there every other Friday. She told me once that she called the number of the people who were there cause she had the biggest voice. That coming from such a tiny lady.
Mom will be remembered by so many. Her church groups, her friends at the apartment that she lived in from 2006 until 18 months ago, her friends at River Ridge and the folks at Middlechurch Home.

Her family will sadly miss her, but we have so many wonderful memories of who she was to so many.

We look forward to a memorial for her at some point in the future where we can tell her stories of love, care and commitment with her family and friends.

Funeral Service: https://youtu.be/FcP-m4ABmp0