Victor Sirwinski

Victor Sirwinski, a first-generation American born to Lithuanian immigrant parents Jonas and ElA�bieta Shervinskis in New Lisbon, Wisconsin, on July 28, 1919, died of natural causes in the La Vida Llena Health Care Unit in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on February 26, 2017. He was 97 years old.

He was born into humble beginnings from which sprang a character of perseverance and determination. His non-English speaking parents, who crossed the Atlantic Ocean to escape totalitarian oppression, met and married in the United States. They began life together in America as Wisconsin farmers and started a family. Victor was their first child.

Their efforts to eke out a living from the land did not meet with success, so Jonas moved his family to Chicago, Illinois. There he obtained work with the Chicago Tunnel Railroad, a narrow-gauge freight-railway operated entirely underground beneath central Chicago. Not being able to speak or write in English, Jonas' job application was filled out by a company man, who gave the Shervinskis family its "American" name: Sirwinski. The Sirwinski family grew in number in Chicago. Vic was joined by sister, Julia, then by brother, Bruno, who died at the age of two, and then by sister Josephine, who completed the family portrait.

The family spoke only Lithuanian in their home. Vic was unable to speak English when he started schoola�*a decided learning disadvantage. He had to repeat the first grade, wherein he learned English. He would not be held back again. Vic went on to graduate from Lindblom High School (currently, Lindblom Math & Science Academy) in 1939, having scored high marks academically. He had also demonstrated his prowess as an athlete on the school's wrestling and baseball teams.

Vic's first job out of school was on an assembly line at L A Young Spring & Wire Corporation, assembling we know not what. It didn't take Vic long to know that this was not what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Because his parents could not afford to send him to college, he enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1940. He served as a Radioman along the East Coast of the United States. It was during this time in his life that he met and married his first wife, Doris Rose Croy. Some months after they married Vic shipped to Attu, a 20 by 35-mile island at the westernmost end of Alaska's Aleutian Islands chain. He and his shipmates assembled a Quonset hut in which they would live for the next two years and erected a radio communications tower to intercept and relay transmissions in the Pacific War Zone. He received an Honorable Discharge in 1945 and returned to his wife and his as yet unseen daughter, Dee, born in 1944.

While Vic was serving on Attu, the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill, was enacted to provide benefits to World War II veterans. Because of this law, Vic was able to get the college education that he had wanted. He earned a degree in Electrical Engineering from Chicago's Illinois Institute of Technology, graduating in 1950. There was more celebration in that year: his son Victor Ray was born.

With his degree in hand, Vic got a job with Exide Battery Corporation, selling batteries in a multi-state region. This was not his dream job, but it paid the bills. With perseverance, however, dreams can come true. In 1955, Victor moved his family to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where a job as an Electrical Engineer awaited him at Sandia National Laboratories. His family never knew much about the kind of work that he did at Sandia Labs-he couldn't tell them . . . secret work. One thing his family did learn from his association with Sandia was that he was not only smart but also a skilled athlete. The family spent many an evening at Lab's baseball-league fields watching Vic play.

Vic and Doris divorced in July 1957. Happier times followed, however. Later that year, Vic met Josephine Marie Peck (affectionately known as "Jo") through mutual friends. Jo and her friend worked as teachers at Sombra del Monte Elementary School, and her friend's husband worked with Vic at Sandia Laboratories. Friends don't like friends to be alone.

Jo was a gentle, pretty, petite Midwestern woman with a pleasant smile and a ready laugh. Vic had a quick wit; Jo's ready laugh only encouraged him. They married on December 21, 1958. Expanding the Sirwinski family was not an optiona�*Jo's doctor had told her she could not have children. But, as God would have it, a year later their son Neal Paul was born.

Vic retired from Sandia Laboratories on January 1, 1983. It was time to get serious about golf, and he did, accumulating many trophies. As the years rolled on, his daughter would challenge him to shoot his age when he headed to the links. He did. Twice. At ages 74 and 76. His golf history also saw three holes-in-one on his score cards. Vic played golf until the age of 89.

Vic and Jo loved to travel. Elder Hostel trips took them across Europe, Asia, and the U.S. Traveling to them meant combining pleasure with learning. In between trips, Vic joined a Great Books club, particularly enjoying the discussion groups. On his own he studied philosophy, psychology, and religion through library books and Great Courses' tapes, CDs, and DVDsa�*a disk or tape was always in his truck radio.

Vic's life taught his children that they could rise above whatever hurdle they may encounter through perseverance, determination, and education . . . never stop learning.

Vic and Jo had 58 years together. She was with Vic daily during the last four years of his life as his body and mind continued to fail him, trying to keep him comfortable and involve him in life: rubbing his dry lips with salve, helping him to eat and drink, reading to him, pushing him in his wheelchair to vespers and to exercise classes. She was with him when he drew his last breaths. She said Vic was lying quietly in his bed, breathing shallowly. She knew the end of his life was near. Vic opened his eyes, lifted his head, and gazed at something above him and to his left. He inhaled a deep breath, which she said had an element of joy in it, like he had just encountered a pleasant surprise. A second deep breath followed, and at 3:45 PM, Sunday, February 26th, 2017, Vic crossed over his final hurdle and entered peacefully into his new life.

Vic is survived by his wife, Josephine Marie, his daughter Dee Sirwinski Butler and her husband William, his son Neal Paul Sirwinski, his sister Josephine Wavak and her husband William, his granddaughter Paula Rose Mason, his nieces Virginia Blaney and Loretta Srch and nephew Edward Wavak, children of his sister Josephine, and his nephew John Urban, the son of his sister Julia. Victor was predeceased by his son Victor Ray Sirwinski (May 17, 1992), his sister Julia Urban (April 22, 2001) and her husband Stanley (October 15, 1988), and his brother Bruno Sirwinski (date unknown).

No memorial service will be held. In lieu of flowers, his family would be honored if you would make a contribution in Vic's name to your favorite charity.