It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of our dear sister, Laureen Korchinski, on October 12, 2024.
People's Warden Hal Anderson was close friends with Laureen, and he shared the following words of remembrance about her:
Laureen Korchinski: August 5, 1950 to October 12, 2024
I first met Laureen on November 27, 1971, when she married an old school buddy, Barry Korchinski. The reason I remember the date so clearly is that it was two days before my daughter Tamara was born. Laureen was a dental technician and that was how they met: Barry had gone to get his teeth fixed. They met. They married. Barry had been transferred to Houston, so they jumped in Laureen’s little Nissan after the wedding and drove the three thousand kilometers south.
I lost track of the Korchinskis for many years until about 2012. The 100th Anniversary of the College of Engineering was held in Saskatoon. My four classmates, I, and our spouses including Barry and Laureen, got together and we vowed to continue. The eight or ten of us have had dinner about every year since.
During my wife Margaret’s chemotherapy, we would run into Barry up at the Tom Baker where he was being treated. I guess his cancer was terminal and, though I didn’t realize it, so was Margaret’s. Barry passed away in the fall of 2017. Our dinner group was one less. During our next dinner I remember Laureen had taken on reroofing her house and a bunch of other tasks without flinching. A year after Barry's passing, Margaret succumbed to her cancer and died in December 2018.
In the spring of 2020, a friend suggested to Laureen that she cook me dinner. Laureen pulled off a great dinner using Costco pot roast, carrots potatoes. Shortly after, we were all locked down with COVID. I would drop occasional dinners off. We talked a lot over the years, both having lost spouses. It was healing to talk to someone in the same boat.
Laureen was for many years a serious golfer, representing her home course at matches around the city. Barry and Laureen had gone to the Master’s many times. She could keep envious golfers who had dreamed of going spellbound with stories of $1 hot dogs and beer, and all champions she got to visit with.
But she had never gone to a Stampeders game, to the ski hill or been boating (except on the many cruises she and Barry went on). I think she was a nervous traveler and probably would have taken three trunks and two suitcases and worried for weeks. But Barry would come home one day and say, "We're cruising to Thailand on Saturday." And off they would go.
Laureen and I went to football games, went boating, went to the ski hill. She would watch out the window of the lodge and visit with all the kids. Walking was always a favorite pastime. Laureen and I covered many of the paths in Fish Creek and Glenmore. Sometimes after a Glenmore walk (never a stroll) we would stop by The Point for ginger ale or hot water and a glass of wine and run into some old oilpatch pals. They all thought she was the sweetest person. For these hard working, hard playing, hard drinking guys to say that was amazing: it must be true. A couple of weeks ago, we walked around Kingsland. Laureen never missed a step.
Laureen had friends all over the city. She belonged to a group called the Knitting Needles, golfed several times a day for years and loved music. Such a smile. Always to be remembered.
Thank you for this lovely tribute, Hal. The parish of St. Peter's grieves with you.