Yvonne M. Jezioranski

Yvonne was a devout Catholic and a gentle and kind mother. Her softness belied a tough constitution that gave her the resilience to thrive, in spite of what life threw in her way. The four Klement sisters lost both parents by the time Yvonne was 7, and they were raised by their dear grandmother Arra (declared “a saint” by Yvonne), supported by their Catholic parish and their community in Adelaide, South Australia. Yvonne was at the top of her class but left school after 10th grade to become a stenographer. Her brilliance was displayed time and time again throughout her life as she consistently found solutions and made improvements–no problem was too small to be addressed, or at least lamented–and her ingenuity would have made her a good inventor.

Yvonne would say “Faith without good works is dead” and one of her good works was to serve as a pen pal to displaced Polish soldiers after WWII. Those letters developed into friendships with Polish immigrants to Australia, and she eventually chased one all the way to Canada. Three weeks after disembarking her ship in British Columbia, she married Joseph Stanislaw Jezioranski, beginning a 32-year marriage bearing five children. Yvonne’s calling was motherhood and her humility, kindness, and faith in God produced a strong rambunctious family who, allowing her to draw on her ever-ready pocketful of idioms, occasionally made her want to “spit spiders”. But mostly an exhausted “Oh dear me, what a flower I be” at the end of each day would suffice. Content to sit at the edges of family gatherings and enjoy quietly observing the fray, she would often surprise people with a depth of understanding of the human condition and her wise counsel.

Loyal to her beloved home of Australia, Yvonne served as an officer in the Cary branch of Daughters of the British Empire. A lifelong knitter, she provided socks for displaced war refugees and kept her family warm.

For the last two years of her life, the staff of Our Promise Care Home at Falls Church lovingly cared for Yvonne. There she served as “unofficial greeter” and was known for her beautiful smile, offered up to everyone who entered the front door.

Yvonne is preceded by the passing of her husband Joseph and sister Eileen. She is survived by her two sisters Marie "Audie" and Millie, her five children, John (Ann), Jim, Lisa (Rob), Paul (Betsy), and Helen (Willy), her 17 grandchildren Norm, Marie, Joe, Mike, Cora, Maeve, Gavin, Leona, Nate, Daniel, Nathan, Elizabeth, Faith, Anthony, Hallie, Dylan, and Alex, and her two great grandchildren Sadie and JJ.

May Jesus hold her in his arms and guide her to her eternal rest.

Memorials: Yvonne loved flowers. She also never met a charity she didn’t like. Please feel free to memorialize Yvonne by sending flowers to the Brown-Wynne Funeral Home in Cary, NC, or by making a donation to your favorite charity.

Wake: Tuesday, December 2, 4-6 p.m., at the Brown-Wynne Funeral Home at 200 SE Maynard Dr., Cary, NC.

Funeral: Wednesday, December 3, 10:45 a.m., at St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church, 3008 Old Raleigh Rd, Apex, NC. Followed by luncheon in the church hall.

Interment: Wednesday, December 3, 2 p.m., at Raleigh Memorial Park, 7501 Glenwood Ave, Raleigh, NC. For those attending the interment, there will be no funeral procession–please drive to the park on your own.

Memorial tributes and messages of sympathy can be left by clicking the "Add a Memory" box below. Brown Wynne of Cary is honored to serve the Jezioranski family.