Nov. 15, 1930 — Aug. 12, 2022
In loving memory of Elfriede who has left us to finally be together with her husband of 64 years, Anton «Toni» Gutri. She was 91 years old and waited 7 years to join husband Toni who was her first and only love. She often said that the plan was that they were supposed to die together, but he’d left her behind. Toni called his young bride ‘Fritzi’, a nick-name that stuck till the end, but she was also known as Mami, Oma, Frieda, and Elfi.
Fritzi was a joyful woman who loved her family. She grew up in the idyllic village of Georgshausen where her dad Kristof Hirsch was owner of the General Store. He was fluent in 5 languages and had educated himself as a businessman.
Fritzi’s mother Katarina (nee Eisler) loved to work in the garden. She also crafted beautiful pieces of crochet and was a loving and trusting mother. Fritzi and her sister, the late Elisabeth, had the run of the village from a young age, often seeking out their farm friends and neighborhood kids with animals.
Fritzi’s parents were lenient with their daughter since they almost lost her as an infant. At age 6 months she got infected with two child-killer diseases – diphtheria and pneumonia. Her funeral gown had already been sewn. However she beat the odds, little Fritzi survived!
During the war, both Fritzi and Toni had to flee from their villages, her with family and he with a group of school children from his village. They were refugees from their invaded Danube Swabian homeland of Banat, Yugoslavia. Once in North America, they found each other again and wed in Canada in 1951. Their home on Langford Ave. in Toronto was at first home to a dozen or so relatives who eventually moved on to buy their own homes. Fritzi remained in that home for 70 years, until she moved to The Westhill seniors residence in Waterloo, Ontario in the fall of 2021.
Fritzi spent most of the first 33 years of marriage to Toni raising children, doing phone bookings for his Toni’s TV Service business and keeping up the books for the business. Later when he retired the business, Fritzi became employed in housekeeping services at Nisbet Lodge, a home for seniors. Her boss often told her that she was their best worker and she stayed on for 10 years.
Together Fritzi and Toni were a team and spent many hours on their passion, their «baby,» their cottage on Drag Lake at Indian Point near Haliburton Ontario. They initially shared a cottage from about 1960 to 1976 with her brother-in-law and his wife, the late John and Katie (nee Matheis) Gutri. In 1976 they decided to buy their own cottage on the same lake.
Fritzi was a pro with an axe and loved to split and stack wood and prepare kindling. She was quite handy herself and often helped Toni with repairs around the cottage, including re-shingling the roof.
Throughout her life, Fritzi had a deep love of animals and especially cats. As a child, at one time she had 18 cats hidden in the attic, where they lived off of mice. She also loved dogs and had a dog, Fiffi. Her love of animals was evident from the fact that she knew every dog that passed her Langford home for walks.
Just like her mother made beautiful creations with crochet, Fritzi expressed her talents with sewing. Most of her wardrobe was self-made. She sewed clothes for everyone in the immediate family. She made jackets, shirts, pants, dresses, blouses, bathing suits and upholstery for their furniture. She spent many a Saturday fabric shopping and poring over buttons and ribbons and clothing pattern books.
Fritzi also had a few hobbies in later life when she wasn’t sewing anymore. She enjoyed brief ownership of a cell phone and a Facebook account under her Elfi persona. She pulled together 30 people who called her friend, among them grandchildren and grand nieces.
Fritzi, positive and cheerful, enjoyed many happy memories. With the help of Toni, she wrote a book about her life and family called A Stroll Through My Life from Georgshausen to Toronto. The book was filled with pictures of friends and relatives as saving photos was a hobby. She had over 30 photo albums, many of them two and three inches thick. She also wrote a second book, a fairy tale, called Rosie.
Fritzi’s passing really is the end of an era. She’s the last of her cohort to die. We’ve all had the joy of eating the cooking of her generation. Many will remember the Thanksgiving dinners of pork on a spit cooked over the fire pit at the cottage. Mouthwatering.
Fritzi is survived by her three children – John (Gail), Linda and Robert (Susie); her seven grandchildren – Kirsten (Sarah), Shannon (Lee), Erin (Tom), Nicholas, Ian, Amy, and Jennifer; and two great grandchildren – Leevon and Ava. She was Tante Fritzi to Tony, Steve, Norbert and the late Karin.
Anyone wondering about flowers is encouraged to donate to their favourite charity or to Fritzi’s favourite charity Operation Smile Canada. They are a charity who fund a medical team of doctors that go to underdeveloped countries to perform free surgery on children with a cleft palate.
R.I.P. Mami, Fritzi, Oma
Love you forever
2022
Nos plus sincères sympathies à la famille et aux amis de Elfriede Gutri 2022..
Décès pour la Ville:Toronto, Province: Ontario