Hildegard Snigurowicz

Hilda (Hildegard) Snigurowicz, nee Rabenreither, was born 8 September 1928 in Vienna, Austria. She and her two siblings, a younger brother Konrad and an older sister Elfriede, grew up in inter-war Vienna, where their parents owned a popular Gasthaus (restaurant). Idyllic summers were spent in the Austrian countryside, at their grandparents’ farm. After World War II, Hilda worked as a stenographer/typist in Vienna but also travelled widely in western Europe, studying French in France and visiting Italy. She met Emil Leon Snigurowicz in the early 1950s. They decided to immigrate to Canada, settling in Montreal, where they married in May 1954. After raising three children, Hilda and her family moved to Vancouver in 1974, where Hilda resumed a professional career. She worked as a medical secretary in various private practices and then the Vancouver Children’s Hospital until her retirement in 1994. Throughout her life, Hilda was an avid cook and baker, as well as an expert seamstress and knitter. Her children remember fondly the pierogis, cabbage rolls, poppy seed pastries, and other Eastern European specialties that she would regularly make and still have many of the sweaters that she had knit. Hilda was an equally avid jogger, religiously running her three laps around Douglas Park most days, until failing health slowed her down. Although the last years of her life were marked by pain and suffering, she was surrounded by family and friends. She is survived by her brother Konrad Rabenreither (Perchtoldsdorf, Austria); her three children, Diana Snigurowicz (Washington D.C.), Alexander Snigurowicz (North Vancouver), and Elizabeth Tom-Wing (Vancouver); and two grandchildren, Michael and Matthew Tom-Wing (Vancouver). A graveside service will be held on Thursday, January 28th at 1:00pm at Ocean View Burial Park, 4000 Imperial St, Burnaby, BC. In lieu of flowers donation the Vancouver Children’s Hospital would be greatly appreciated.