Joseph Shelestynski

Born in 1932 in Mayfair, Saskatchewan, Dad was the fourth child of Ukrainian immigrants recently arrived in search of a new life after years of ongoing war and famine in Eastern Europe. Dad’s father Dymetro arrived first in 1924 to find farmland and get established while his mother Maria followed him four years later along with Dad’s older sister Olga and brother Matt.

Growing up in the 1930s on the Canadian prairie were hard times, as tough as they come. Drought and endless hardship led them to abandon the farm in 1946 and relocate to Manitoba where they settled on a farm in the Steele Bridge area not far from Gladstone. In his later teen years Dad traveled periodically to work in the logging camps of Northern Ontario and then took a job at the Gladstone Garage before getting married in 1957.

Shortly after, Dad and Mom took up farming full time and remained in Steele Bridge to raise a family and then eventually retired to Gladstone in 2004. Dad was fortunate enough to enjoy a long and healthy life surrounded by close family and great friends. When he wasn’t farming or in the shop building something his favourite pastimes were curling and baseball, hunting, and especially fishing.

Besides the outdoors Dad’s big passion was the guitar he learned to play with buddies in the camps north of Port Arthur. He eventually got playing Country favourites with a local band and looked forward each week to entertaining the residents of Gladstone’s Care Home. Among his biggest disappointments in recent years was the pandemic when he wasn’t allowed to play.

Dad is predeceased by sister Olga, brothers Matt, Nick, Walter, and Sy and leaves behind his younger sister Elizabeth.

He is survived by wife Louise; daughter Linda (Jerry); sons Garth, Darrin, and Grant (Ana) along with seven grandchildren and one great grandchild.

You’re gonna be missed, Dad

Kids