Milton Florine Svetlik

Part 1 of 2:

Below was prepared by daughter, Margaret Rose (Svetlik) Abbott:

Milton Florine Woodall Svetlik, age 94, was born April 18, 1920 to Harvey Zephaniah and Willie Lou Hipp Woodall in Houston Texas. She died December 18, 2014 in San Antonio, Texas

Early years:

Milton had intelligent parents with a strong sense of obligation and work ethic. Charitable deeds formed MIlton's character. They were principled people with the utmost ethics who instilled those qualities into their daughter, Milton Florine. They had little tolerance for and great suspicion of the Catholic Church.

MIlton Florine learned first hand about the results of being curious in a time when virtually everything was an advancement, improvement or scientific application for humanity. (The first time she saw a hanging light socket in a bathroom – she didn’t know what it was, climbed on a crate and stuck her finger in – thus learning first hand what electricity can do to humans.)

She rode the rails (read that as the train) during the summers with her Mother to be with her Daddy while he supervised the installation of the Western Union lines as the train tracks were laid from Texarkana to El Paso. She later commented on the sad state of the tracks as she rode from her daughter, Mary Anne’s home in Iowa City, IA to her son, George’s home in Akron, OH.

The lessons she learned from her parents were the standards set for the rest of her life. Her father taught her to be a gracious winner as well as a good loser in life as well as games and sports. Her Mother worked hard and took her obligation to family and community seriously. Mother took the best of both parents as models for raising her own children.

Being an only child she swore she would never have just one child.

She was a compassionate woman – when she found an injured bat, it became her pet and nursed it back to health for release.

She experienced the “Great” depression first hand. She was sent to a cousin’s farm – they had a garden and animals – and were told she was having so much fun she was to stay another month (two weeks??)

Her parents bought a shell of a house in Duncanville, TX. Mother learned how to dress under the covers, relish the Sear’s catalogue in the outhouse, install electrical wiring, plumbing, how to lay the subfloor, lathe and plaster the walls under her Daddy’s tutelage. She, like her Daddy, could be focused, stubborn and advanced in planning ahead – witness her Father’s insistence the electric company install underground wiring from the road to the house.

She attended Lida Hoey Elementary School and Sunshine High School in Dallas. An athletic woman she played hard and worked hard.

She was raised in a time when nothing was owed to you. She had little tolerance for whiners.

Young adulthood:

She attended a community college for the first two years – a practical way to attend college without incurring additional debt for either her parents or herself.

She had a talent for art, but knew there was little likelihood of supporting herself during the dustbowl, depression and an impending war. She transferred to Texas Tech to become a Chemical Engineer, knowing she could perhaps be a teacher.

She dated, as would be expected of a good looking woman, but on Daddy’s (Frank Svetlik) third try, she knew he wouldn’t ask again if she declined, so she gave him an opportunity by indicating she was free on Saturday a week.

In a letter I asked her why she converted to Catholicism. She told me she knew Daddy was Catholic and all children had to be raised in the Catholic faith. Since they were becoming closer she wanted to learn more about the faith because if she could not believe/support it she would need to stop the relationship before either was hurt more. Milton – a strong name for a strong woman

She converted (Catholic baptismal name: Mary) resulting in a schism with her parents who attended neither her college graduation nor her wedding.

Early marriage:

Mother was a true partner to Daddy. Their common background in Engineering meant they could share their days with each other. She worked for Phillips Petroleum Company for two summers and immediately after graduation. She returned several months after marriage until the end of the war when soldiers returned and she decided they needed the jobs for their family, Daddy’s income would provide for their growing family and she could focus on the children. She never “GAVE UP” anything, she had her career and segued into the role of Mother and Life partner, discussing events, research problems, management issues and family issues together.

Mother embraced Daddy’s family, referring to them as Mamma and Pappa – as Daddy did, in the Czech tradition. She knew family was important, so they sacrificed their own vacation time to ensure the children not only met, but looked forward to being with their Aunts and Uncles. It was years before her children had the realization Mother’s Aunt Bessie and Aunt Mae were really our Great Aunts.

The Svetlik clan welcomed each of us into their homes and gathered as a family at Grandmother Svetlik’s home for cook outs. Eight of nine children, 7 spouses and 29 grandchildren in country. The Czech language was everywhere. Mother would take pictures, Mary Anne would take 35 mm color slide pictures and then there were 8 mm movies. Every year the projector and movies were brought to Bay City so everyone could see the fun from the year before. Few women would have been so considerate and selfless for their families benefit.

Raising children

Whatever was necessary was provided with limited funding. Practicality was in the forefront. We were never told we were too poor for something, but we learned to prioritize nice to haves, wants and needs for life. Learning to say no to ourselves was a life lesson worth passing on. The need to save for a future day and learning that having a company store credit tab meant it is better to pay as you go to prevent being caught up in a constant life of indebtedness.

Part of that selfless lesson from our parents was the ability to attend Catholic schools once they became available (in 1955). It meant a sacrifice by our parents that was beyond inconvenience of time. Mother said she has had five “only” children and 29 “only” nieces and nephews. There were no favorites, although I am sure that could be disputed by the older ones as they did not have the great joy of Mother and Daddy’s undivided attention as an only child by default.

Every joy and every sorrow was felt by Mother. She was pretty much a single Mother when Daddy was traveling on the road – which was often – at time when travel across the ocean to Europe or Japan meant being gone no less than three weeks. If there was misbehavior, she provided swift and fair punishment followed by a hug and an I love you to ensure we, as children, knew it was for our own good, not because she wanted or looked forward to its administration.

Mother protected her children without fanfare. She would soften the blow of Daddy’s disapproval or mediate on behalf of us when we were not meeting his expectations. Now this is not to say Mother didn’t express herself. If you did not want an honest opinion, even to her last moments, she would say what was on her mind. It was her obligation to her family to be sure we knew what was right, whether we wanted to hear it or not. She knew it was a kindness to let people know when they were falling short of common courtesy, social obligations or apparent feelings of self importance or entitlement, regardless of age. She did this out of love for family and at the risk of her feelings being hurt in retribution.

Post Children

Mother finally was able to express herself and be professionally trained in art when she turned 55. Kent State’s Senior program permitted free attendance of classes with Professor permission. Again she was the first in the Art Department. Plans for retirement began. Daddy would support Mother’s artistic bent by cutting and polishing stones while Mother created their settings.

When first in Richardson (1980), they took carving lessons and learned how to make stained glass windows/art. As a widow (October, 1983), she began traveling – availing herself of the opportunity to visit with family overseas and around the country. As always, if she only had 30 minutes to visit with a friend or family along the route, she made time for them just to stay in touch.

Mother continued to take classes to hone her jewelry and drawing skills. She was finally convinced to take classes for credit and at age 81 – some 60+ years after her Chemical Engineering graduation – she received an Associate of Art degree in Dallas, TX and totally skewed the average age of the graduates that year.

The last years

Mother lived to entertain and her family. She looked forward to having guests for bridge or a casual chat. She always said the best guests are the ones that knew how to offer assistance or at the end of their stay would minimize her workload by stripping the bed, washing the sheets and towels and remaking the bed.

She recently wrote” STAY AWAY FROM THESE PLACES” if possible – meaning the Franklin Park Sonterra Assisted Living facility – not because it was bad, but the loss of independence ripped away a part of her life-force. Her advice was to move to a facility early enough to make friends, feel comfortable in the neighborhood and church.

While each of us feels we will know when it is time to quit driving, seldom does it become a freely made decision. The same goes for taking care of her home. Mother became a captive to her house – frustrated with her inability to do what she could at 65 much less 75 or 85 and the lack of hired help that take pride in true gardening, another love of hers.

She always said she would move so we would not have to do what she had to do for her Mother – relocate her in assisted living. However, she was her Mother’s daughter – stubborn and resistant.

So, if we learn anything from Mother, it is to be gracious, selfless, thirst for knowledge – formal and informal – honest, forthright, loving, rejoice in family, revel in children, grandchildren and her special pride of great-grandchildren and take solace in her faith. She loved Jesus, had a special relationship with St. Anthony and relied on the intervention of the Virgin Mary and the Rosary and we are better for her being a part of our lives.

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Part 2 of 2

Below was prepared by daughter, Mary Anne Svetlik, PhD.

Millton Florine Svetlik, 94, born April 18, 1920, Houston, TX died December 18, 2014, in San Antonio, TX.

She was an intelligent, spirited, talented, and determined woman who will be dearly missed. Her parents, Harvey Zephaniah Woodall and Willie Lou (Hipp) Woodall preceded her in death.

During the summers of her youth, Milton and her mother traveled with her father who worked for Western Union Telegraph, then considered the state of the art form of communication. He strung wires from the west to the east side of Texas and into Arkansas and Oklahoma. They often lived in the caboose of trains during the summer trips.

As a child Milton chopped cotton on the farm in Princeton and Duncanville, TX, and ate small boiled onions daily from the family garden during the Great Depression. She told her children they ate onions because that was all there was. She noted in her autobiography that the farm they purchased in Duncanville was owned by a man who helped pour cement for the Panama Canal. (The property is now called Presidential Estates.) In 1938-39 after graduating from high school, she helped her father wire the house on the farm in Duncanville. At first there was no running water or gas. Rainwater was collected in a “well” (cistern) and clothes were washed on a washboard.

In college she was an able fencer. Her mother sewed her fencing uniform. Professors hired her to grade the English papers of their students. Her superb knowledge of English grammar was inculcated into each of her children which was a great scholastic asset to them. As a late teenager, she had a nearly life-size oil painting done of her posing in a beautiful dark green bathing suit. It was painted by Mrs. Betty Grace Larson, the mother of one of her beaus, and once hung in the Dallas Museum of Art for a season.

She met her future husband at Texas Tech College in one of the engineering classes where he sat in front of her. She asked Frank Svetlik to show her some of the finer points of using the slide rule. Soon they were courting.

In 1942 she became the first female to graduate in chemical engineering from Texas Tech University. She was then hired as a chemical engineer for Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville, OK, and later married Joseph Frank Svetlik, Sr., who joined Phillips 66 as a chemical engineer just prior to their marriage. During WWII Frank worked on the task force that invented and developed synthetic rubber for tires, (more durable than natural rubber that was in limited supply during the war). This invention helped the US to win WWII.

In 1944 Milton became a full time homemaker to her 5 children, all of whom survive: Colonel, Medical Service Corps, US Army (ret) Mary Anne Svetlik, PhD ( Lieutenant Colonel, Infantry, US Army (ret) Tony Blieberger) - San Antonio; J. Frank Svetlik, Jr., JD, Esq. (Barbara) - Houston; Harvey Emil Svetlik (Linda Kayton) - Grand Prairie; George R. Svetlik (Mary Ellen) - Akron, OH; Margaret R. (Svetlik) Abbott (Lieutenant Colonel, Armor, US Army (ret) Verlin Abbott) – Carmel, IN.

Frank and Milton and their five children lived in Phillips, TX on Phillips Avenue from 1944 until they were moved by his company to Akron, OH in 1955. The oldest 3 attended Phillips elementary school from 1949 – 1955.

All five children attended St. Peter Grade School (Akron, Ohio) from 1955 - 1960. The youngest 2 children attended St. Vincent Grade School. Her sons all graduated from St. Vincent High School (1963- 67) (now titled St. Vincent-St. Mary HS); Mary Anne graduated from Our Lady of the Elms High School (1962) where Margaret attended grades 9-10, before her parents moved to Bartlesville, OK in 1968 where she graduated from Sooner High School in 1970.

In the 1950s and 1960s Milton devoted many hours (over many years) of volunteer work in the school office and cafeteria of St. Peter and St. Vincent Grade Schools. She was also a substitute teacher and a Cub Scout leader for her boys' troop for many years. For over 20 years she attended all the Catholic Youth Organization and high school varsity sports events of her girls and boys - basketball, field hockey, football, wrestling, baseball, etc.

Son, Frank, graduated from Michigan State University, Margaret from Kent State (Ohio). The other children have Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Akron (Ohio). Milton is also survived by 9 grandchildren, 4 in Akron area: Amy Moyer (Dave); Meg Bugg (Jason); Mike (Tera); Tom (Abbey); Jon - Columbus, OH; Sean - New Orleans, LA; Danielle Dyer (Eric) - Victoria, TX; Scott - Houston, TX; and Stephanie Svetlik-Haley (David Haley) - Claremont, CA; and 5 great grandchildren.

Milton’s husband, Frank, (born July 23, 1918) was a lifelong Phillips 66 employee, retiring on Jan 1, 1980 from Phillips Chemical Company’s Stow, OH office where Milton and Frank resided from 1971 to 1980. They retired to Richardson, TX where Milton Svetlik resided until 2010, when she moved to San Antonio, TX. (She was widowed October 9, 1983).

Milton is also survived by numerous nieces and nephews in the Bay City, TX, and Missouri City, TX, area as well as Mississipi, and two cousins, David Brannan (Joyce) - Dallas, TX, and Jim Brannan (Gail) - Evergreen, CO, on her mother’s side of the family.

Milton Florine (Woodall) Svetlik converted to Catholicism while an undergraduate at Texas Tech College. She was very devout and faithful in the practice of her religion throughout her life. When she was in her 80’s she took many classes on theology at her church, St. Joseph Catholic Church, Richardson, TX. She became so interested in the study of the Old and New Testament that she undertook a 3-4 year (part time) course of studies in religion at the University of Dallas. She took the same courses as the men who were studying for the deaconate, a rigorous theological program, indeed.

In her later years Milton was an accomplished artist and jeweler who was commissioned to make several pieces of gold and silver jewelry. She created many skilled pencil sketches. For her artistic training, she had attended Kent State’s invited student program for “seniors” in the 1970s and studied under several renowned artists on their faculty.

Milton Florine loved to travel and accompanied her husband on several business trips to Europe in the late 1970s and early 1980s and later did numerous tours throughout Europe, Egypt, Russia, Turkey, Greece, China, Panama Canal and Alaska with her daughters.

She was a very good bridge player and enjoyed all manner of other card games. She was proud that she still had all her teeth to the very end of her life.

In her 70s and 80s she delivered "meals on wheels" to the home bound in Richardson. She also participated actively in the neighborhood association's social activities, never missing the 4th of July parade and picnic. In her 70s and 80s she also served in the neighborhood watch program, driving with a fellow neighbor to cover the midnight to 2 am shift at least once a week.

She was a 50-year member of the LaSalle Corbell Pickett (Akron, Ohio) Chapter Number 2070 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and a lifelong member of Jane Phillips Sorority (associated with Phillips 66, her husband's employer).

She was tech savvy, having acquired her first PC computer in the mid 1980s. She transitioned to laptops and liked to visit on the video system “Skype” with her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who lived in other states. In the early 2000s she wrote an extraordinarily detailed autobiography of her life that shed light on life in the US from the Depression (1930s) to the 21 st Century.

She lived during an amazing time in US history – going from an era of outhouses and travel by horseback to the space age and the conveniences of modern times.

Having been raised during the Great Depression, Milton was proud that all 5 of her children graduated from college and own their homes, and have been able to live the American dream. She always put her children first and sacrificed having many comforts and luxuries (and some “necessities”) so that her 5 children could have a good education and could go to college. She loved her grandchildren and was proud of their accomplishments as well. She particularly loved seeing her young great grandchildren "live" on the computer screen.

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She will be greatly missed by all her relatives as well as her many friends in the Richardson, TX area.

Rosary (7 pm) and visitation (5-8:30) will occur at Sparkman Richardson Funeral Home on DEC 29, 2014. Funeral Mass will be held at 10:30 am DEC 30, 2014, at St. Joseph Catholic Church, Richardson, TX followed by a reception in the church hall. Burial will be at 2 pm on DEC 30, 2014.

Mrs. MIlton Florine Svetlik will be laid to rest beside her husband, J Frank Svetlik, Sr., in the Princeton Cemetery in Princeton, TX.

.You may access the obituaries that were placed in several papers:

http://baycitytribune.com/obituaries/article_f16b5a54-8d2b-11e4-b495-fb766f0b13d6.html

http://www.borgernewsherald.com/obituaries

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/examiner-enterprise/obituary.aspx?n=milton-florine-svetlik&pid=173584462

www.dallasnews.com

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ohio/obituary.aspx?n=milton-florine-svetlik-woodall&pid=173577167&fhid=11531