Sonja Martha Milochenko

SONJA MILOCHENKO NÉE SCHŐNKAES

(22 November 1943-23 December 2021)

Sonja and her brother Richard were born in Detroit, Michigan. Their parents were German immigrants. While Sonja’s mother had arrived in Detroit in 1928, her father’s experience of North America was more peripatetic! He had arrived in Canada in 1920. His travels, which began in Montreal, included various adventures which took him as far as Vancouver. In 1921 he moved to the U.S.A., eventually settling in Detroit where in 1934 he became an employee of the Chrysler Corporation. Sonja’s future parents met in Detroit where they were married in 1941. As husband and wife they were to become the proud parents of two remarkable children – Sonja, born in 1943, and her brother Richard!

After attending and graduating from primary and secondary school, Sonja’s education continued to advance as she began undergraduate studies at Wayne University in Detroit, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree. She then further advanced her education with her post graduate studies, earning qualification as a teacher of English as a Second Language (EST)! Her teaching career commenced in 1965 in the same part of Detroit in which she had grown up. It was Sonja’s pursuit of a career in teaching which was to define the essence of who she was a person! She had emphatically dedicated her life not to self serving pursuits but to the concern, care and service of others! Increasingly, wonderfully, Sonja’s life was defined by the virtues of compassion and love! This nobility of character was to flourish not only in her teaching, but in her marriage and in absolutely every aspect of her life!

In this respect, Sonja’s marriage to Alexander Milochenko is a true romance story. After meeting in Mexico on vacation, they began to correspond with one another, and in July 1974 they were married in Detroit in an Orthodox service conducted by the same priest who had baptized Alexander in Paris. It was Sonja’s marriage which brought her to Toronto, to a new teaching career and to a close involvement in the parish life of Christ the Saviour Russian Orthodox Cathedral where Alex was to serve faithfully and diligently as warden for thirty years.

In Toronto, Sonja put her education to good use in a teaching career in schools in North York and Toronto. After retiring from teaching in 1988 she moved into other fields, including management of Moyer’s, the Teachers’ Store. Then, in 1998 she went back to teaching. She provided instruction in English as part of the Linc Programme’s assistance to new immigrants arriving in Canada, and also provided private tutoring. She also embarked on a study course to acquire certification for teaching English as a Second Language to adults. She also served as a teacher at Seneca College until 2005, the year of her retirement.

Sonja’s extraordinary devotion to helping others extended to her involvement with the congregation at Toronto’s Russian Orthodox Church of Christ the Saviour, which included parish council and others duties extending from the 1990s to 2016!

There was much more to Sonja, however, than could ever be recorded in a mere check list of events. She and Alex were the living epitome of the word “team”. Their love for one another was an extension of their profound faith, and to the best of their ability they turned the words of the Two Great Commandments – Love God! Love your neighbour! – into a living and lively reality for everyone whose lives were made better and happier through the gift of love and friendship they extended to everyone they met! This included not only those in their immediate circle of friends in Toronto but the countless numbers of people they met on their travels to other countries.

Sonja brought light, the light of a living faith, into the darkness of the world! She brought cheer into the lives of all who knew her! This was her greatest and most resilient strength in the way she dealt with terminal cancer. She could be honest about the discomfort and anguish of chemotherapy, but she was able to rise above every aspect of her illness and to show not just courage but an unquenchable vibrancy of spirit! To the very end she exuded a rare redeeming spiritual strength which will live on in the hearts, the souls, the minds of all who knew and loved her! Sonja is admired, respected, loved, remembered both for who she was and who she will always be in spirit but also for the incalculable and authentic joy she brought into the lives of so many others! In this sense, Sonja lives on in the souls of so many whose lives were brightened and enlivened by her presence which was and is the hallmark of true faith, true witness to that faith, and a gift and blessing to a world which needs the comfort, the peace, the happiness, the redeeming sense of humour which she brought into the world and into the lives of so many people! Donations to the Canadian Cancer Society would be appreciated by the family.

A First Visitation for Sonja will be held on Tuesday December 28, 2021 from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM at Paul O’Connor Funeral Home. A Second Visitation will be held on Wednesday December 29, 2021 from 9:00 A.M - 11:00 AM, 1939 Lawrence Ave. E, Scarborough, ON M1R 2Y8. For the Visitation proof of full vaccination and Government photo identification is required. There is no limit to the number of guests that may attend the visitation. Upon entry to the funeral home guests will be required to provide their contact information for the purpose of contact tracing. Masks or face coverings are required indoors. A Chapel Service will be held on Wednesday December 29, 2021 at 11:00 AM at the Paul O'Connor Funeral Home Chapel with an Interment to follow at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery located at 8361 Yonge Street, Thornhill, Ontario, L3T 2C7.

To view the Funeral Mass please visit: https://funeraweb.tv/diffusions/43053

To view the Interment please visit: https://funeraweb.tv/diffusions/43054