Maria Wieclawek

Maria Wieclawek, formerly of Daytona Beach, Florida passed away peacefully on June 19, 2019 in Palm Coast, Florida. She was born on February 2, 1921 in Lilimberg, district of Slonim, province of Nowogrodek, Poland to the late Adam Pawlikowski and Jadwiga Pawlikowski (Bohdanowicz). Upon graduation from Gimnazjum Tadeusza Kosciuszki in June, 1939, she applied to Liceum Pedagogicznego in Grodno, Poland to continue her studies as a teacher. Upon the German invasion of Poland in 1939, her father was arrested and deported to Siberia. Maria and her mother, along with others from her village, were forced onto railroad cattle cars for a twenty-seven day journey from Poland to a labor camp in Pietuchnowo, Kazakhstan. After the Armistice was declared, she joined General Wladyslaw Anders’ 2nd Corps on March 3, 1942 as a nurse in charge of nearly three hundred volunteers of the Polish Women’s Auxiliary Service. She served under severe conditions throughout Europe and the Middle East. In 1943, she was assigned to field hospitals in Palestine and Tel Aviv as the Polish Army prepared for battle in Italy. In 1945 Maria was assigned to a hospital in El Kantara, Egypt, on the coast of the Suez Canal, for training as an x-ray technician. She received the British Defense and War Medal 1939-1945. At the end of the war, Maria and her mother were reunited with her father, first immigrating to the Dominican Republic and finally to the United States in 1951. Upon settling in Manhattan, New York, she worked as a typist at the Gotham and Warrick Hotels and later as an x-ray technician at Bellevue Hospital. In 1959 she married her husband, Dr. Tadeusz Wieclawek, a pulmonologist and veteran of the Polish Army. Upon the death of her father, they moved to Dixon, Illinois, then to St. Augustine and Gainesville, Florida, before settling in Palm Coast. Upon her husband’s death in 1986, she lived with her beloved mother, Jadwiga Bohdanowicz, in Palm Coast until she died in 1996 at the age of 102. Maria was active in her Church, veterans’ organizations and the Polonia Society of Korona, Florida, Inc., promoting Polish faith, culture and history. She enjoyed a full life and will be missed by many friends who appreciated her wit, kindness and wonderful personality. There are no local surviving family members. A visitation will be held on Monday, June 24, from 4:00-6:00PM at the chapel of Craig-Flagler Palms Funeral Home, 511 Old Kings Rd. South Flagler Beach. A funeral mass will be celebrated on Tuesday, June 25, 11:30AM at St. Marys Catholic Church, 89 Saint Mary Place, Bunnell. Burial will be at Our Lady of Czestochowa Cemetery, Doylestown, Pennsylvania. For online condolences go to:www.craigflaglerpalms.com. Arrangements are in the care and trust of Craig-Flagler Palms Funeral Home & Memorial Gardens.