Friday, May 30, 2008
Luca Radonic, RIP version 2My beloved uncle, Luca died last week, and some of the senior male family are going to Austria to pay our last respects. He is survived by his wife, Ridi, they had no children. Luca and his wife Ridi retired to her ancestral home in Eisenerz, Austria, and shared some time at an apartment in Vienna. Over the years people traveling through there, especially my brother and his girlfriends, would visit him. I was not able to get there for a visit -- the demands of the job, and family , and an extended family that lived in the opposite direction in Vancouver, where I went for summer vacation.
Luca and Ridi met in Austria when he escaped from communist Yugoslavia in the mid 50's. They married and emigrated in the late 50's to Canada where they opened a hair salon and ran it successfully for about 25-30 years. My parents escaped in the late 50's from Yugoslavia and after a stay in a camp in Italy where I was born, and emigrated to Canada in 1960. We lived with and near Luca and Ridi for a few years and moved to Vancouver in '65. My uncle, because of the nature of their business knew many of the politicians of the day. He bought the governor general's used Packard sedan, and later gave it to my father. I remember driving the big black beast along the country roads around Ottawa going to church. You could take the keys out and we children played with them while my Dad continued to drive. Hmmmm. Not any more.
After we moved away I rarely saw him. He and my father went back to Yugoslavia in '72 and they saw their mother. She died a few years later. I never met her. She was old, my father is the 9th of 11 children. Luca was the 11th. Only my father is left. Luca came out to see us twice in Vancouver, once when I was growing up, and with Ridi for my wedding in '88. We had been living in Toronto and saw them in Ottawa a couple of times in the few years we lived there.
My last meeting with Luca and Ridi was on September 8th and 9th of 2001. We had moved from Toronto to Calgary to Washington DC in the early 90's for my job. I flew up to Montreal to see a Picasso exhibition, and then had an asthmatic attack trying to march in Montreal's 100% humidity to the bus station. I'd left my inhaler in Washington, since it was fall. Ha! Luca picked me up from the bus station and he and Ridi made dinner and we talked. I took some pictures and videos of my visit and our discussion. They are posted at http://web.mac.com/nick_r/Site/Welcome.html . On Sunday morning Luca drove me to the airport, we rushed to catch the plane, but then it was delayed. The attendant came up to me with a package from the kiosk - toys for the children that never went through security - we are no longer so innocent.
I never saw him again, but Joe kept touring Europe and visiting Luca and Ridi at Eisenerz and in Dubrovnik and Vienna. This winter I started to think about seeing him again, after I heard he had a stroke in Toronto last fall. With work and the children in school it was not possible. Cousin Nikola's wife Mary tells me he was in Florida this winter. That would have been an easy trip.
Nikola and Mary saw Luca and Ridi quite often because they go regularly to Croatia. Mary seemed to be taking his death hard. All my siblings liked him a lot as well and are saddened by this loss. The magic of the man was that his bright and driven personality meshed well with his vocation of hair dresser. He professionally listened to people. We knew this instinctively. In a sense this is why he was a family favorite.
In addition he was forever on the move, doing, building, fixing, patching, trying things out. They went to Cuba after the revolution and he talked of felling threatened in a bar and jumping up on the table with a knife yelling at potential opponents if they were about to attack him. He fixed up his houses, built roofs, and put glass doors into the ceiling of a garage to make it an extended living room of his small house. He fixed the plumbing and heating of his rental house. It was not strange that he was attempting to do something on the Eisenerz house (an old church) when he fell to his death. I miss him, though I am not anguished.
He was 80 years old (approximately 1928-2008), and had lived a rich life, touching many people. He had survived almost everybody from his generation. I will miss him.
--
My brother from Vancouver is flying with my father to Austria, I am coming from Washington, my cousin Nikola (from another deceased uncle from my father's family) is coming from Boston, and by coincidence my brother in law from Creston is in Switzerland on a course and has rerouted his departure to go to Eisenerz as well. With any other attendees, this will be a Radonic male reunion. My father has only been back to Croatia once since he left. This is visit to Austria will be an occasion for us to drive him down to Zagreb, and from there down to the Dubrovnik coast and Mliniste and Gruda. My mother and sisters and my family will not be going. My father is the last of his siblings still alive. My mother's family is younger, and there are more of them, but many of them are near Vancouver. We will try to see her family in Mliniste on our way down the Adriatic coast.
-----
(There are two Luca posts because I slipped and closed the wrong window while writing this up, only to find the first draft archived after I finished the second, so I post them both, along with a link to pictures and videos I have from my 2001 visit to Ottawa)
Link posted by Nick 9:46:00 PM
Luca Radonic, RIP - draft 1
My beloved uncle passed away last week. Luca was 80 years old. He is survived by his wife, Ridi, they had no children.
Luca was driven all his life, as far back as I remember he was doing things. Fixing the house, or his rental apartments, or driving from Ottawa to Baltimore to play competitive chess, or visiting Cuba after the revolution. He was apparently trying to repair something on the roof of their house in Eisenerz, Austria last week and fell off the ladder or roof. He died shortly afterwards. In a conversation with my father, only days before, they discussed the difficulties with the old house (an old church) and my father advised him not to go up any more.
Luca and Ridi lived in Ottawa for about 35 years and for 20 of that had a business of a hair dressing salon. He was always personable, and told a great number of stories. Apparently he was very popular in their business. He knew, or at least had rubbed shoulders with the likes of Vidal Sassoon, and had met all of Ottawa's top politicians. In the 60's he bought the governor general's (Michner or Massey?) old Packard sedan, which he later passed onto my father. I remember driving in the back seat going to church through the Ottawa country side while I was quite small. You could take the keys out while the car was running, and it would keep going.
After we left Ottawa for Vancouver in '65 I saw little of Luca. I lived in Toronto for a couple of years in the 80's with my girlfriend and later wife, and I think we got up there a couple of times. He dropped in on us once or twice briefly, but never met the youngest children.
In the 90's we moved to Washington and I went to a Picasso show in Montreal on September 8th, 2001, and took a bus to Ottawa to see them. They had long since retired and were considering moving permanently to Austria. I had a horrible asthma attack running for the bus in Montreal's humidity and felt sick that day. No inhaler with me. Who needed it in the fall -- except in Montreal. We had dinner, I stayed the night, he drove me to the airport on the Sunday morning. He bought the children something at the concession stand and asked the attendant to pass it to me -- she almost certainly didn't run it through security. The innocence of our youth during the Clinton times and first few month's of Bush 2.
I never saw him again. This past winter I thought about going to Austria, but couldn't fit it in with the new job and the children in school. Then I heard from NIkola's wife Mary, that Luca was in Florida this winter. I wish he had called, that would have been an easy trip.
Mary called me with the news of the accident, my father confirmed that he was dead, he had talked with Ridi.
My family and siblings considered him a favorite uncle. Lots of fun, willing to try things, and a philosopher. I had talked about my future, while visiting in 2001 and I'm sure all my siblings did the same -- an outgrowth I'm sure of 25 years of practice listening to customers at the salon with personal problems. He was a professional friendly person.
Now I my father from Vancouver with my brother, my cousin from Boston and whatever friends and family I don't know about are on our way to Eisenerz to pay our last respects. I travel in the morning. A rather long journey. To bid farewell to a beloved uncle.
I have had few moments of tearfulness, mostly I miss him. Quietly.
Since my father is 82, we will be driving him south to Zagreb and Dubrovnk and Gruda to see the old friends remaining and family. We'll try to be easy on the trip. Joe took him down to get a rush passport last weekend, and they are ready to go. We'll meet in Graz, the nearest large center to Eisenerz,
I have posted pictures on the web for family to look at: http://web.mac.com/nick_r/Site/Welcome.html
Link posted by Nick 8:21:00 PM
