My mom, Maria Tonjuk, passed in 2023. I spent 2025 creating a fabric art picture book and "libretto" to honor and remember her using skills and curiosity I learned from her.
Goodnight Mom
Prologue
It was Sunday January 15, 2023 and I had a cold. I felt
crabby, tired, blah. I usually called my mom on Sundays just to check in. I
said to myself I’ll call her Monday.
Early Monday morning, I checked my email and my sister Tina,
my mom’s primary caregiver, had sent a group text to family:
“Mom’s assisted living aide thought Mom looked bad last
night so sent her to the hospital. I was just there and she’s mad as a hornet!
She wants to get back to her apartment. I’m going home for a shower then back
to get her.”
This happened a LOT! Tina sending out emails about Mom
needing to go to the hospital for covid or MERSA or when her quarter century
old hip replacement broke. My Mom was 94, had survived fleeing from WWII in
Europe, spent time in displaced persons camps before coming to the US with the
help of an agency like Catholic Charities. She had lived with a difficult
husband, half a dozen kids and aging parents and she had survived. I went about
my day.
Around noon my husband and I were sitting down to lunch. My
phone rang and it was Tina. When she returned to get Mom, a resident doctor
told her mom was actively dying. Tina called me--“How can that be? Let me talk
to Joey.”
My husband Joey is an internist and helps advocate or
understand medical things for our family. He talked to Tina, then the resident,
and then Tina. In the matter of a few hours Mom was suddenly dying.
I was not quite 8 weeks post op for my second hip
replacement and could not fly. Joey said it didn’t matter much—I wouldn’t
likely get there “in time”.
There were three sisters near the suburban Chicago hospital
where my mom lay dying. One sister farther away. One brother in between.
My brother flew in as did some of his kids. The family nearby
supported one another and Mom until I got a call from my brother on January 18
saying “Mom passed.” And I said “She’s in a better place.” Which was true but…
I called my sons and told them. I stayed in touch with
siblings. There would be a memorial in a few months when everyone could come.
The next morning and for many weeks the eastern sky in front
of my home lit up a glorious pink—bright, lively, hopeful. It felt like a sign
from my mom. I started calling pink sky “Mom”.
The memorial was set and all attended. Once home from the
memorial I found the phrase “Goodnight Mom” going through my head again and
again. It was my song of grief and a calling of encouragement for me to follow
its lead. But I didn’t know where.
Mom was born in Estonia and English was not her first
language. She worked hard to speak and read it. I remember her reading to me
and my siblings all the time. I also remembered that when I had kids of my own
and she saw them pick Dr Seuss and other tricky rhyming picture books she laughed
saying to me how much she hated those books because they tied her tongue in
knots. So, I thought remembering, she struggled to read to us but did it. God
love her-- she did it. That was so Mom—stepping up to hard things. Showing up
always. “Goodnight Mom” brought back the memory of kids’ books like Goodnight
Moon.
Mom was also an incredible handwork artist. From making our
clothes to knitting items, to teaching me and our Girl Scout troops to do the
same. In her older years, until her hands lost feeling due to Warfarin levels
checks, she did extraordinary cross stitch. She embraced quilting when I did
and made dozens of quilts for her growing family.
“Goodnight Mom” floated in my head pulling up memories of
her reading to us, her creating with us and her and my grandmother teaching me
all they knew and at its foundation was handwork. I realized the grief I held
for my mom had to do with honoring her in a way that came from me and from her
through me—meaning all the parts of her I carry. I wasn’t sure how to do that.
In the year after Mom died, I found Claudia Coenen (https://www.thekarunaproject.com/)
on a radio program out of Albany NY. Claudia is a grief counselor who uses
creativity to transform grief. I signed on to work with her. We talked and I
got clearer about what Goodnight Mom meant and looked like and I began to put
thoughts down on paper that included a children’s book and handwork.
In 2024 I joined a local SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates https://www.saqa.com/)
pod—a group of creative women, in this case, supporting each other in their
creative work. Ann Scott, one of my pod members, mentioned a SAQA perk—a free
year’s worth of mentorship. On a whim I applied and was accepted. I knew
Goodnight Mom was meant to take shape now.
Lisa Dodson (“Lisa Loves to Quilt” on Facebook) is the
thoughtful, patient mentor from Indiana I was partnered with. I told her about
my Goodnight Mom project—a fabric book inspired by Goodnight Moon (like the
ones my mom struggled with, but read to us anyway) to honor my mom through her
story and handwork which she taught me. Lisa has been a North Star in the clearest
and gentlest ways.
For 2025 I worked on Goodnight Mom and a page at a time it
came together. I experimented and became frustrated. I pushed forward and
succeeded. I spent time with my mom in ways that were satisfying and created
both closure and an opening. I used the skills and craft she taught me and the
curiosity she instilled in me to find my way back to her one more time.
Cover
I was born into a house next to the
Evanston, IL Police department in 1958. It was about 4 blocks from Lake
Michigan. When I was around two years old the city took the parcel by eminent
domain to enlarge the safety complex. We moved about four blocks west to 1410
Welsey Ave a large grey Victoria built near the turn of the 20th century.
My parents bought it from two spinster sisters. My mom recalled it being
painted in dark colors, had knob and tube wiring and a dirt basement. It was
about eight blocks from Lake Michigan and the lake figured large in my life.
Many black and white photos from the early 1960s show me and my siblings at the
beach in fall. We’re dressed in woolen clothes—I’m wearing tights and leather
shoes playing in the sand with a happy smile. As we grew older, we went to the
beach on our own or with neighbors. Though Lake Michigan is a Great Lake and
you’re unable to see the other side from beaches in Evanston it felt less
intimidating than the ocean. I went to the beach to play in the sand, walked,
ran, and rode bikes by the beach as I grew up, spent time there with friends
and boyfriends as a young adult, visited it when I visited Mom as she grew
older, when I was in town to help her. I loved to watch how the light caught in
the lake’s crests and troughs and feel how the wind off the water calmed me.
In my late 30s I joined a creative writing group. One prompt
was to write your life backward from the present to your beginnings. It was no
surprise to me that as that writing unfolded my beginnings were Greenwood Beach
in Evanston—I feel as though I was born out of the water there. In creating
this book, it was right for me to look for my mom there and find her now in
spirit still watching over me.
Original cross stitch on the back of each page by Maria Tonjuk
There was a turn at the start of a very long life, and a
girl… became a daughter… became a woman… became a wife…
My mom and her mom, my grandma Oma, were my primary
caregivers growing up. I knew they came from another country and as time went on,
I got more of the story about their life in Estonia and how the war drove them
from home.
When I was 14 my mom told me that Oma was not her
mother—that Oma and her husband Peter had adopted her. My mom said she had been
abandoned at the government office where Oma worked as a translator. Mom said
she was about 3 (that would have been 1931). Oma, who was childless and around
40, took her home and eventually formally adopted her. So, there’s a branch of
my family tree that despite genetic testing and some research (many records
were lost during WWII) I have no solid knowledge of, but believe is part of my
mom’s and my creativity and curiosity. Oma brought us all that and a lot of
love.
My mom loved her life in Estonia and depended on Oma and her
husband Peter who were well connected in the community and thought fast on
their feet. Her stories and the few photos they brought over showed my mom as a
happy girl.
Peter died before the war drove my mom and Oma away. As the
war and all its ugliness crept in around them there was a time when Oma was put
on an “enemies” list because of her government work. My mom remembered Oma
having to hide in the woods for about a month so as to keep from getting “sent
away”.
At some point troops were advancing on the town they lived
in. They packed what they could and Mom said “As we were leaving Oma left the
key in the door. I asked her why and she said she hoped troops would just use
they house and they could return to it at some point.” They never saw that home
again.
Oma and Mom came to the US after spending time in displaced persons
camps around Munich Germany. They came to the US with help from an agency that placed
them as nannies on Chicago’s North Side. Oma fell into the open arms of a
loving family. Mom was in and out of nanny jobs and seemed to do better with
factory work.
Mom met my dad, a Ukrainian immigrant who also was driven
from his home, spent time in DP camps and made it to the US with sponsorship
help. They were married in 1954.
Footnote: As my sisters grew up, I heard that Mom had
told them variations on how she came to be Oma’s daughter. I love the story,
she told me so hang onto that one. The bottom line is Oma and Mom (and her
father Peter) loved, honored and respected each other deeply. That was clear--I
felt it, saw it and learned it as I grew up in their shadow.
Then came an old grey house in a kid-filled block…with a
mahogany door and a heavy chain lock.
We moved to 1410 Wesley when I was 2 so I mostly remember 1410
as my home. All the following siblings only remember 1410 as their home. Mom
was pregnant with Lydia when we moved in and yet she painted and dusted and
cleaned until it was ready for us to call home. I remember many trips from the
old house to new (about 5 city blocks) by foot, pregnant Mom pulling a Radio
Flyer wagon full of items.
The house had 5 bedrooms upstairs and one side room off the
dining room that Oma took as her room. There was only 1 full bathroom and a
toilet in the basement. At capacity it held my parents, Oma, my father’s father
we called Dida, my oldest brother and five girls. The girls always double and
tripled up in bedrooms.
The block we lived on had similarly shaped families in
almost every house. There were nearly 40 kids on that one block! There were
some older people who were tolerant. Mr. Wakefield, a retired fireman, invited
kids to talk with him as he sat on his front steps and did Grandpa O’Dwyer. We
played in the yards, in the streets, in the alleys, on the sidewalks. In
summers we played hide and seek late into the night. There was tag, baseball,
bike races. A small mulberry tree between our house and Grandpa O’Dwyer’s was small
enough for us to climb and so we did.
Most of the moms were stay-at-home. I remember my mom
talking with others outside on the sidewalk. I also remember moms gathering to
fold laundry. Stories and gossip were shared and as families grew the laundry
and cleaning and cooking encroached on gathering time for the moms. The older
girls in all the homes were called in to babysit their younger siblings or do
wash or ironing or errands. My Mom and Oma did most of the heavy lifting I was
often called in to run to the store for milk or bread.
The schools we attended were within walking distance and in
the mornings and afternoons during the school year there would be a great flood
of kids headed towards the elementary or middle school and finally the high
school.
The neighborhood mafia was strong too, reporting back to
moms. In middle school I wanted shorter skirts and my mom said no. One block away
from home I would stop, put my books on the ground and roll up my skirt. Someone
told my mom and so my plans changed and I had to wait until almost school to
roll my skirt up (Lol!)
There were six little kids silting in chairs, five were
girls with very long hair.
The kids in our family are pretty evenly spaced—2 years
apart until Tina and Monica—the last two-- who are 3 years apart. I’m not sure
what the deal was about long hair on girls but my father was adamant about it--
at least for a while. He would trim the ends of our hair or cut it slightly
shorter if we asked but basically his girls’ hair was meant to be long.
My hair grew so long that when I started middle school, I
could sit on it. I usually wore it in a braid that was as thick and hard as a mooring
line. My first day in middle school I wore it loose and looked like Cousin ITT
from the Addams Family. My new language arts teacher Mr. Patterson came up to
me and said “Girl, is that a fall?” meaning a hairpiece. I said no and he was
just amazed.
Long hair was really hard to keep tangle free and when I got
knots, I cut them out with a scissors. I didn’t tell mom that. And it barely
showed as my hair was so thick and wavy. My sister Lydia had so many knots that
once my mom kept her home from school and picked and brushed all day to get
them out. I can’t imagine how sore her scalp must have been.
When I was in high school my friends started cutting their hair
into pixies. I pleaded with my dad to cut my hair into at least a bob. He
agreed and did a horrible job. About a month later I got a pixie. Dad didn’t
talk to me for quite a while. I loved that short hair and, in my life, have
kept my hair short, often extremely short, as my signature look.
The TV had a prominent place in our lives, but reading did
too. I remember us all bundled into the small living room with books on our
laps and the TV on with sitcoms or Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom or Ed
Sullivan or Lawrence Welk. We had black and white TVs for the longest time. I
may have been in college before my parents got a color TV. One summer the TV
broke and we were without it. All we did was bother my dad and long for TV
shows until it reappeared.
My dad was very religious and we had crucifixes and holy
pictures in our home. The Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary were in several
locations but in the dining room for the longest time. They were a little scary
looking—the dripping hearts in open chests, the crown of thorns. Overtime I
think we all got used to them. They hovered over our Sunday dinners and board
games challenges. They are in many family photos we’ve taken over time.
I shared a bedroom with my brother John until I was about 6.
The Jesus picture was in our room for much of that time. We had twin beds in
that room and an old iron radiator about the size of a coffee table. One
morning I woke up and found John asleep on the radiator. I woke him up and
asked him what he was doing there. He said Jesus had come out of the frame last
night and told him to sleep on the radiator. We were all pretty good sleepers
and had memorable dreams.
There were dozens of kittens and hand knit mittens, and
Sunday dinners and Yahtzee winners.
Cats
I’m not sure why we had cats. When we moved to 1410 I remember
a cat, Cindy, who got pregnant and my mom let me keep one of her kittens,
Charlie. Charlie, a yellow and white cat lived a very long time. Then came
Felix who was a first of many black cats.
We didn’t have money to spay or neuter cats and after the time
of Felix a TON more cats showed up—black cats and black and white cats and grey
cats and tabby cats and one calico named Matilda. We didn’t have money for flea
collars at one point and one summer the house filled with fleas. Part of that
was the cats but part was that our vacuum broke and we couldn’t afford a new
one. My brother was outraged—his legs were so bit up by fleas. You could see
them jumping up on the living room carpet. I’m not sure how we got rid of them
but the fleas receded and the number of cats shrunk down. When I was at college
and then out of the house Phoebe and Syd Vicious were memorable cats. There was
also a gray cat from around the block my dad fed and made 1410 his home away
from home.
Mittens
My mom was the knitter—Oma liked to mend and do embroidery.
I remember my mom knitting us mittens with crocheted strings that went through
our coat sleeves so we wouldn’t lose a mitten. The mittens grew thick with wear
and were warm and kind of water proof.
Better than the mittens were Barbie outfits my mom knit. She
got patterns from McCall’s Needlework & Crafts magazine. One beautiful Barbie
outfit was a skater’s costume complete with mohair trim. Just stunning.
I am a great knitter now and wish I remembered how I learned
to knit. I knit Continental which is how people knit in Europe. I’ve taught
knitting and can’t teach Continental—I tell people to watch me, but I don’t
know how to teach it.
Sunday Dinners
Sunday was a day of rest and peace. We went to church,
picked up the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times at a newsstand outside the church
and came home to have a large midday meal. Ham was a favorite. Turkey on the holidays.
Lots of sides. Sometimes friends of my parents would come over. They were also
immigrants. Some were concentration camp survivors. They might bring cake so
the adults to could have tea and cake midafternoon.
We never learned to speak Ukrainian or Estonian. We did
learn a few phrases though, one of which is “Please come to the table” (sounds
like proh-shoe-coo-shitz). My other favorite phrase sounded like
Ya-knees-nigh-oo which means I don’t know which was mostly true if anyone said
anything to me in a language other than English. “I don’t know what you’re
saying.” “I don’t know words to respond.”
Games came after dinner and before Lawrence Welk or Ed
Sullivan on TV or the Wonderful World of Disney or Mutual of Omaha’s Wild
Kingdom. Yahtzee, parchesi, card games…
My mom loved Yahtzee! She loved shaking the cup and making
the groupings to fill her scorecard. It was a nice way for us to be together,
to laugh, compete. We played at the dining room table which also doubled as a
sewing studio, baby changing table and clothes folding station.
Then came aging, exodus, loss a new start, always with a
smile and wide open heart.
How many crazy stories come out of a house a family has
lived in for more than 50 years?
How my Oma, who was disabled by bad hips, would struggle
upstairs to our bedrooms and sing when my mom went to the hospital to have
another baby.
How my dad would yell when the girls grew to be teens and
taped photos of celebrity crushes on the walls.
My mom’s neighborhood friend Mrs. Fink from across the alley
who would bring dry laundry and a beer over and fold her clothes in our kitchen
it so they could talk together (my dad put a kybosh on that quickly).
How the house seemed like a horror movie when all of us got
the vomiting flu at once. Once when there were just 5 kids, we all got sick
with aseptic meningitis and mom kept us all in one queen bed feverish and
immobilized by headache until the Empirin brought us out of it.
How my mom lugged the black and white tv upstairs to our
bedroom for us to watch when we were sick.
Growing into teens and having only 1 full bath for 10 people—Yikes!
I learned to shower at the Y or at school after sports practice.
Baking at the holidays.
Watching all the popular TV shows together in one small room
all of us also reading a book at the same time.
The single heavy back rotary phone (the house phone) in the
dining room on a bookshelf. We were not to use it for long—only emergencies. I
remember trying to talk to girlfriends and my brother yelling at me to hang up
saying I had talked too long.
Oma on the porch and neighborhood kids gathering with us
there and how that made her smile.
Even though my mom was an only child, all her life she’d
never been alone. She had my Oma and Oma’s husband until he died prior to their
flight from Estonia. She met my father and got married so he was by her side
along with his dad, my Dida, and all of us children.
Her children grew and left the house for college, careers
and lives of their own. Oma died, then Dida, then my dad. The neighborhood
changed and the house was too big. With my sisters’ help she cleared and sold
the house and found elder housing with an assisted living option near my sister
Tina who was her primary caregiver. It was a tall apartment building in a town center.
It was near bus stops which were a lifeline to my mom since we never had a car.
There was a public library within walking distance even when she started to use
a walker—this was a lifeline too. Finally, there was a Panera coffee shop
around the corner.
She started walking over and getting coffee from the Panera
and met a man there who was a local politician. He would spend time at the Panera
talking to constituents or quite honestly whomever would converse with him—he
had “office hours” there. My mom became part of his round table. I think they
had fun talking and laughing. He called her Shotzi—I never found out why. I
don’t think it was a romantic thing but I bet it was flirtatious. He had his
own wife who became sick and he stopped going to Panera to take care of her.
Over time Mom had trouble physically getting to the Panera, but for quite a
while it was an important part of her days.
It was an amazing time of my mom’s life though—establishing
a life of her own. What did that look and feel like to her? Who else did that
include? The people of the Panera roundtable for sure and some people at her
elder housing complex. The elder housing neighbors were kind and inclusive but
died too soon—Mom would just be enjoying their company and they were gone. Mom
was always shocked—what’s going on she’d say to me? I think she didn’t remember
she was as old as she was. 80+ when she moved in.
When she moved in, she had just had her aortic valve
replaced. She was in her early eighties with a host of medical problems. I
wished she would be granted 5 good years on her own. She got 15—most of which
were very good-- she could be independent, explore, travel a bit to family and
on day trips with her elder housing groups. She was safe, near family and calling her own
shots.
Goodnight house and heavy chain lock. Goodnight time
passing fast on the clock.
Mom was independent until she wasn’t. She enjoyed walking to
Panera or other small diners and shops in the downtown just across the railroad
tracks from her apartment. She enjoyed walking to the library just around the
back of the apartment complex. She enjoyed trips offered by her senior housing
like bus trips to a casino or Lake Geneva. She enjoyed food shopping and going
to Joann’s with my sister Tina who did the heavy lifting of caring for Mom. She
did these things until she couldn’t. A cane became a walker became a
wheelchair. The steps she used to do became an elevator in her facility or just
not going out when steps were part of the day.
She made friends whose company she enjoyed and seemingly
just as quickly as they came into her life they left. She was always
astounded—“I can’t believe they died!” she’d say forgetting she was in senior
housing. Once she said to me “All my life I’ve felt sixteen”—her perpetual
youth got in the way of realizing her age and the hazards built into it.
So when she had friends she would go to a common room in the
facility and do puzzles or plan to have a meal with them. On her own time, in
her apartment she sewed quilt squares together from packets sold at Joann
Fabrics. She mailed the quilt squares to me and I assembled them into quilts
which I sent back to her or to grandchildren and great grandchildren directly.
She created extraordinary cross-stitch pillows and pieces that were finished
and framed and decorated her apartment. She knit blankets for new babies that
came into the family until she couldn’t. Then she found a patterns and yarn and
asked me to knit them on her behalf which I did gladly.
She used to visit family away from the Chicago area until
she couldn’t. Planes, trains, autos didn’t mesh with her medical issues or
needs as she grew older. At Thanksgiving many of her kids and grandkids
returned to Chicago and she caught up with them at or after the holiday meal
then or in phone calls at other times. I called her on Sundays and she always
answered the phone with a lilting “Hel-lo!” She rarely complained to me.
She made friends with one aide at the facility—Helen—who was
sweet and kind. She would check in on Mom as she made her way around the
facility during her work day.
Mom had had both hips replaced in her 60s. In 2022 she
started complaining of pain in one thigh. A few trips to her GP couldn’t come
up with an answer. The pain worsened until one day she could not stand it and
went to the ER to find out her metal hip prosthesis had broken. The part
inserted into her femur had broken and an orthopedic expert in revisions needed
to be called in. What do you do with a 90+ year old woman with multiple medical
problems and this kind of complex break? The surgery would be complicated and
long. The rehab would be even more complicated and longer. If no surgery was
done she would not walk again and be on painkillers every day. Mom chose the
surgery.
The surgery was complicated and long, but the young surgeon
felt the fix was sturdy. Mom had complications in the first few days—she had a
lot of total body swelling and confusion and was in ICU. My brother called her
room and didn’t understand her because of her swollen face and alerted the
other siblings that Mom might be having a stroke. One aide who transferred her
at some point pulled her should very badly so she had one very painful arm.
She made it to rehab where they had to modify a walker to
use with one good arm and one elbow in a tall attachment to the other side. She
was not to put any weight on that leg for at least a month and was in a long
leg immobilizer. The rehab center she went to wouldn’t shower people in
wheelchairs—they had to be able to walk. Mom loved hot showers. The room they
put her in initially had a leak from the ceiling and she got “rained” on in
bed. Still, Mom showed up and worked hard.
All her kids worked to keep her spirits up, keep her in
rehab as long as her insurance would cover it, prepare her apartment for her
return. Part of that return was to a level of assisted living at her current
facility. It was her only way home. She showed up, worked hard and got there.
Goodnight rainbow floss & Sunday dinners. Goodnight
aida cloth and boardgame winners. Goodnight kids & very long hair.
Goodnight memories everywhere.
When she got home, she had trouble holding a pen to write or
needle to sew. My sister Monica came into town and Mom directed her and other
sisters to start clearing out some things from her apartment. Small furniture
pieces were moved to make using a wheelchair easier. Photos were weeded out as
were craft magazines and supplies. Little by little Mom was moving out.
And on an ordinary day in January, about 8 months after her
surgery, she crossed the threshold of her assisted living apartment and two
days later she was gone.
When I got the call from Tina that Mom was actively dying, I
think I heard it but didn’t believe it. That night I had a dream Mom and I were
dressed up in Easter swing coats and had on cute white shoes with matching
pocketbooks. I was running and Mom was running behind me. We were running
through a dark, but not scary, forest of maroon trees that were bent
cartoonishly low over us. It was a beautiful scene and I wasn’t afraid. I was
running and running and suddenly saw a boat ahead in the river Styx and realized
I was making sure she wasn’t late to cross over. I woke from the dream suddenly,
sat up like a shot and said out loud “It can’t possibly be that time already!”
And yet it was.
We grow up and leave home and make new memories elsewhere
and yet when we draw them up, those early memories are as bright and precious
as gems. I touched them most when I was home—always making sure I took a walk
or drive to Greenwood Beach, ran or biked along the lakefront from Chicago to
Wilmette, stopped by Bennison’s, a favorite bakery that supplied so many
birthday cakes.
In looking at photos to include on these two pages I can
smell the wool of the winter coats, feel the lakefront cold at the skating
pond, smell my Dida’s Old Spice aftershave.
Life is busy and full and without making time to remember
these times they hover in the ether. Sometimes stories come out at holidays but
mostly time moves on. Like so many people I wish I had asked my parents and
grandparents more about their lives when they were here. Even without more
specific stories I feel like I am the example they showed me—strong, resilient,
present, hardworking, creative, loving.
Goodnight girl, daughter, mother and wife. Goodnight Mom
and your incredible life.
When my second son was born, I became interested in the Tree
of Life and variations of the proverb about it. I have images and words about
the Tree of Life everywhere in my home. During the Covid pandemic I crafted a
Tree of Life quilt using the words of the proverb along with an improv image
using only scrap fabrics I had at home. It kept my head above water and helped
me realize how deeply rooted in creativity my life is. Creativity and a deeply
rooted history in it IS my Tree of Life, it was what I hold fast to and grow
from. I was grateful when Sacred Threads (https://www.sacredthreadsquilts.com/)
included my improv tree in their 2022 exhibit.
The Tree of Life on this last page is what grows from my mom
and my dad. I’m overwhelmed by the number of branches, the diversity of
people—pharmacists, designers, trainers, teachers, healers, chefs, engineers,
accountants, librarians, performers, policemen, community service
professionals…and of course knitters, crocheters, sewers, watercolorists,
scrapbookers, woodworkers…
We are all born from a woman who showed up and made a
difference in small, ordinary, but significant ways. In her honor and memory,
we show up and create change too. In in that way our family tree grows strong
and full.
It is a Tree of Life to those who hold fast to it.
All its ways are pleasantness.
All its paths are peace.
Proverb 3:17-18
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for:
My mom Maria M Tonjuk (1928-2023).
Claudia Coenen for showing me a creative way to and through
my grief. https://www.thekarunaproject.com/
Ann Scott who sold me on the SAQA Mentorship Program.
Lisa Dodson for being a kind and supportive mentor in my
crafting of this memorial. “Lisa Loves to Quilt” on Facebook
My sister Monica Tonjuk Moore who was a second set of eyes
on this project and who saved so many family photos and my mom’s beautiful
handwork, some of which appear on the back of each page of this project.
Sue Stone, an embroidery artist who tells family stories
through her handwork. I found Sue through Textile Artist (https://www.textileartist.org/) and
her art has been an inspiration.
Susan Hudson, a Navajo quilter who tells her stories in
cloth and inspired me (https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/susan-hudson-navajodine)
Genie Zeiger (1943-2009) who mentored me in the art of storytelling
and gave me the courage to find my voice and share it.
Stephen Petegorsky at Stephen Petegorsky Photography for
amazing images of this work https://spphoto.com/
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