Mary Adele "Dick" Mimna Turcheck combined her love for kids and a talent for cooking to become a mainstay in the cafeteria operations at the Ligonier Valley School District for 24 years.
"The kids they said were bad kids, she never saw that," said Rhonda Toohey, of Bellefonte, one of Turcheck's five children. "She only saw the good part of kids. She would let kids slide who didn't have money, and she would take care of them."
Julie Smith, a long-time co-worker of Turcheck's, concurred.
"She loved the kids," Smith said. "That was the most important thing. She loved to feed the kids, and her kids were there too. Most of them are wonderful, and they treated her fantastic. If a kid didn't have money, she would say 'Here, don't worry about it, pay me later.'"
Turcheck, 69, of Wilpen in Ligonier Township, died Saturday, June 12, 2004, in UPMC Shadyside.
"She was a happy person, straightforward," Toohey said. "You couldn't get anything over on her. Her children came first before anything in her life. Having her children, that was the biggest thing."
Having a mother working at school wasn't always an advantage, she recalled.
"Not for me, I was a good kid," Toohey said, laughing. "For my brothers that might have been a detriment because if you skipped school or anything she would have heard about it."
That often led to consequences at home as well as at school, she said.
Smith remembers Turcheck warmly as a good friend as well as a good boss because she was the cafeteria supervisor.
"She was the kind of person who had a big heart, and she would do anything for anybody," Smith said.
Toohey and Smith said Turcheck, who was born Aug. 28, 1934, in Ligonier Township, was an avid bingo player and fan of country music, who with her husband, of 52 years, Edward G. Turcheck, would travel to West Virginia to attend concerts. She also was a member of the Holy Trinity Church in Ligonier.
Toohey said her mother was given the nickname "Dick" at a young age when she was something of a tomboy. She said her mother stuck up for a boy named Richard who other kids were picking on and from that time on, she was known as "Dick."
Smith said Turcheck was looking forward to retirement and traveling with her husband, but that was not to be. Shortly after finishing her last year in the school district, Turcheck suffered an aneurysm and then several strokes that left her confined to a wheelchair. Those years demonstrated the love and devotion between Turcheck and her husband.
"Her husband, you couldn't ask for a better man," Smith said. " He did everything for her.
"She said, 'I just wish I could get up and walk,' but she never did.''
But through it all, Turcheck maintained her special spirit.
"Even through everything, she always had a smile, no matter how bad it got," Toohey said.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Cavell and Margaret Morrow Mimna; a brother, Bill Mimna; and a sister, Marguerite Bovat.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by her five children, Dennis Turcheck and his wife, Julie, of Colorado Springs, Colo., Colleen Gonda and her husband, Thomas, of Ligonier, Randy Turcheck of Fredericksburg, Va., Rhonda Toohey and her husband, David of Bellefonte, and Roxanne Warner and her husband, Michael, of Latrobe; nine grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; a brother, Ronald Mimna; and four sisters, Louise Mizak, Gladys Hoza, Nancy Hoza and Sandra Graham.
Friends will be received today from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. with a vigil for the deceased at 6:30 p.m. in the Snyder Funeral Home Inc. and Crematory, Bell and East Church streets, Ligonier. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated Wednesday at 10 a.m. in St. Ann's Chapel, Wilpen by the Rev. Joseph P. Maddalena. The family suggests memorial contributions be made to Holy Trinity Churchy, 342 W. Main St., Ligonier, PA, 15658.
