Baba was positive cheerful, kind friendly, helpful, bright, independent and healthy. She was very active in the lovely Copernicus grocery store and in the Lodge itself, where she lived. She loved exercise, dancing, music, life and family and we loved her: Stan, her late husband, our Dad, four kids, Sandy, Mary Anne, Stan (Anna), Connie (Don), four grandkids, Thomas (Meredith), Patrick (Tara), Jake (Siobhan), Donna (Dustin) and four great grandkids, Sadie, Oscar, Cassidy and Isabel. Thank you Baba, we love you!

Join us for a Celebration of Baba’s life.

Visitation will be held at the Turner and Porter Yorke Chapel, 2357 Bloor St. W., on Tuesday August 30, 2022 from 2-4 and 6-8 pm. Funeral Mass will take place at St. Pius X, 2305 Bloor St. W., on Wednesday August 31, 2022 at 10 am. Reception will follow at Turner & Porter. Interment will take place following the reception at Park Lawn Cemetery.

Baba proudly called Copernicus Lodge her home, a spirited home nestled in the heart of the Polish community in West Toronto, which opened in 1972 to compassionately meet the physical, social, medical and cultural needs of neighbours in the community. Baba supported Copernicus Lodge from the start and was a volunteer for the Copernicus Lodge Auxiliary, and served as Auxiliary president for two years. Please consider donating to Copernicus Lodge at https://www.copernicuslodge.com/


Eulogy by Don Astill, Cecelia’s son in law and Connie’s husband:

Cecelia was born in 1924 in a small village in Krakow, Poland. She was born Secunda Golik and like so many immigrants of her day, willingly allowed her name to be anglicized to fit in and get along in her adopted country.
1920’s Poland was far different than 21st century Canada. Her home was a small two-room structure with a dirt floor in the kitchen. It had a small wood stove for cooking which also provided heat for the children’s beds, that were closest to the kitchen. The plumbing was outdoor, the electricity was sparse, there weren’t very many stores and there was very little money to buy things if there had been. She described it as a place where it was always muddy and where a stick could not lay on the forest floor because it was needed to provide fuel. She also told us about the time they saw a car driving down the road, way across the field, and they could smell the gas fumes.
It was a place where different families would take turns providing pork or beef for each other as food could not be preserved for very long. A place where, if your family dog let someone steal your share of the butchered animal, you might just have to do without. Cecele told us the story when their family dog let some thieves get away with all of their drying meat, lured by a piece of kielbasa.
I often think that if I, or any of us grew up that way, we might become bitter, selfish, clinging tenaciously to what is ours and unwilling to share. Anyone who knew Cecelia, or Baba as we called her, knew that is not who she became. Somehow, through this upbringing and early poverty, she became a very generous person with the true heart of a servant.
Even near the very end of her life at Copernicus, this was evident. She was almost blind, could not shop, could not cook, and unable to chew most foods. Her meals were being provided to her from the Copernicus kitchen in a thoroughly minced state. As Stan would attest, she still wanted to share. Stan went there every day to eat and spend time with her these last months and Cecele enjoyed saving him some food from her previous night’s dinner. I can picture this, “Stas’, I saved you some roast beef.” And Stan responding, “Thank you, mom, let me get a spoon and I’ll join you!”
Back to 1920’s Poland. Her parents decided that they might be better off in Canada. Her father left the family in Poland and went to get established. Then he sent for her mother, Mary, leaving Cecelia and her sister, Jania, to be raised by their grandparents and their Aunt Cathy, their new loving family. When it came time for her to come to Canada, it was very sad; her parents seemed like strangers to her. Her sister Jania had a spot on her lung and was denied entry. She never made it to Canada and they never saw each other again.
Cecelia was nine years old when she emigrated from Poland and she then settled in with her parents and their newest little addition, a sister, Lillian (Lottie) who had been born in those years of separation.
Even though it was during the depression when she came, Canada still offered much more than Poland and it’s meagre beginnings. She entered school without knowing English and she proved to be a bright and energetic student. She had finished Gr 3 but had to start over when she arrived in Canada. With the tutoring help of a few devoted nuns, she managed to catch up in a very short time. She was looking forward to high school but this never happened. She was going to be asked to serve. This was a role she performed the rest of her life. Her father told her that she needed to work to help provide for the family. So Cecelia went to work in a variety of jobs: waitress, elevator operator, seamstress and factory worker during the war.
It was during this time she began her lifelong love of dance. This was the Big Band era. Cecelia told us many, many times of the fun that she and her friends would have dancing at the Palais Royale dance hall (apparently while beating admirers off with a stick).
Later she met Stan.. (not Stan her dad, Stan her brother-in-law, or Stan Haidasz one of her early suitors), but this Stan would be her husband to be. (Funny, she used to say that Stan was not a popular Polish name).
After this brief time of dance, fun and frolic, Cecelia was being asked to serve her own family. She lovingly and dutifully looked after Stan and their 4 children; Sandy, Mary Anne, Stan (of course) and Connie. This included many years of caring for her husband, who suffered with a long illness and had many needs. Cecele even got her driver’s license in her early 50’s and she did it to serve; first her ailing husband and later on, it allowed her to serve our family in Hillsburgh. She didn’t want to get her license, it was something she struggled with but used to tell us how proud and happy she was that she did it.
After her children became independent and her husband passed away, Cecelia spent some time; traveling, learning how to play bridge, cake decorating, knitting, doing exercise classes and more. This time was brief but thoroughly enjoyed. After serving her parents, her husband and family it was time now to serve her grandchildren. First Thomas and Patrick and then Jake and Donna. Cecele often mentioned that these where the best years of her life.
Cecele was always, and I mean always, available. She absolutely never gave the impression that you were imposing on her, although we were. She dutifully and lovingly served her children’s children until they too became independent. I don’t know how many bowls of porridge she served up in that time, but we know it was plenty! Cecele also helped to care for her aging mother, Mary. She and her sister Lillian, or Lodzia as she called her, worked together to keep their mom in her own home and made sure their mother got the care she needed.
After serving her parents and her family, she wasn’t done. Cecele, aging now and losing her vision to Macular Degeneration, she helped to provide care and support to her daughter, after Mary Anne suffered a brain injury. This was heart wrenching and very difficult at times but she persevered until her eyesight and mobility made it impossible to help.
She found time to serve Copernicus Lodge where she lived the last 15 years of her life. Cecelia spent some 30 years on the auxilliary (with a couple of those years as president) but she was mostly content just to serve in any role that was needed.
I almost forgot, on top of all this, that she was providing years of service in this very church, St Pius X. She was involved in the Catholic Women’s League; providing meals, helping families and doing many background jobs that are so necessary but can and do sometimes go unappreciated.
I believe that God is not nearly as pleased with big demonstrations of works or charity as He is with those who obediently use the gifts that He has given them. I believe that God gave Cecelia the quiet heart of a servant and that she used that gift very well. She was the glue for her entire family and had a profound effect on all who knew her and watched her love of a life of service.


Reading by Donna Stubbs, Cecelia’s granddaughter from The Book of Ephesians, Chapter 2:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.