mansfield news journal thursday april 18 1963

The “comfort kit” promised by Hospice for her pain relief didn't arrive that Tuesday afternoon or even early evening. Sadly, the very opposite proved to be what actually ensued when she was denied pain medication for more than 10 unbearable hours, writhing in absolutely senseless agony! When Sylvia was discharged from a hospital and returned by ambulance to the assisted living center where she had lived for about two years, Hospice officials assured us and other family members that her comfort and pain management would be their top priorities. My wife and I learned in January 2019 that she broke her other hip in a fall. She was determined to walk again and not be confined to a wheel chair. When she broke a hip several years ago, she was at an age when anyone else would have been crippled or bed-ridden for life, but she rebounded. She was determined to do what the doctors required to recuperate after each surgery. She was tough and had two knees and a hip replaced. Sylvia retained a sense of humor even when enduring pain. She was so in love with Hugh that she never remarried. After Hugh's death, Sylvia returned to work 23 years as a seamstress, managing to pay her bills and put food on the table for the family. It must have been an overwhelming nightmare for her to be suddenly thrust into this crisis at the relatively young age of 37. After only 13 years of marriage, she was plunged into a frightening, personal crisis she could not have imagined when her beloved Hugh, 40, abruptly died from a third heart attack, leaving her to rear their three young daughters on her own. Awe, the love of her life whom she met after the war. It was very hard, arduous and even back-breaking work when women had to replace men sent off to wage war. She made the very long trip on a crowded train packed with war-time travelers as a very shy, sheltered, innocent young lady.ĭuring World War II, she did manual labor at canneries, a meat packing plant and the Alcoa aluminum mill in the Vancouver area. city after living all her life in rural South Dakota. Sylvia courageously moved to Vancouver, Wash., after graduating from high school in 1943 during the Second World War, traveling more than 1,500 miles to a major U.S. Her strength of character was forged by living through the Great Depression and World War II. She was a fighter, an overcomer and a survivor, living life to the fullest with a positive attitude. She was among the last of a dwindling number of those seniors whom NBC Newscaster Tom Brokaw dubbed “the Greatest Generation.”ĭuring her long life, Sylvia encountered many hardships, setbacks and disappointments, but she never became embittered nor resentful about what life dealt her. A year ago this month, my mother-in-law Sylvia Awe died at the age of 94 after falling and breaking her hip at an assisted living center in southwestern Washington state.

Mansfield news journal thursday april 18 1963