PATRICIA DIANE OLSON

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PATRICIA DIANE OLSON

Peacefully, in the late afternoon of September 16, 2025, at the Health Sciences Centre, Patricia Diane Olson (née Strugar and nicknamed “Strug” in her school years) returned to her spiritual home.

Patricia was born in Montréal, Quebec, on February 19, 1953, to her parents Conrad Strugar (Constantine Strugari) and Grace Strugar (née Hognerud). The family lived in Longueuil, near Montréal, in her early childhood, then moved to Summerside, Prince Edward Island, and later, when she was a young girl, to Winnipeg, where her father was stationed as an officer in the Canadian Forces.

When she was a child, a doctor noticed the dark cuticles of her fingernails and told Patti that she had an eastern background, perhaps from India. And, although she did not know it at the time, indeed she did; on her father’s side she was partly Roma. On her mother’s side, she came from an old Norwegian family, with a family tree that reached back to the 1500s.

Patti attended Lincoln and Sansome schools for her early and middle years, and Westwood collegiate for high school. She went on to the University of Winnipeg, earning a BA honours and a Master of Arts in 1983.

University cultivated and refined her literary sensitivity, and Patricia remained a student of literature for the rest of her days, reading widely from pulp and romance fiction to the Anne of Green Gables of her childhood, to authors of the literary canon, and above all her beloved Thomas Hardy and English Romantic poets. She read their works, not just for the sublime cadences of poetry, but also for the ridiculous, and had an eye for humour that was subtle but kind and sympathetic to its subjects. All of which inspired her to write prolifically herself, and to amass a collection of over 3000 of her own poems.

In her school and university years, Patricia made a small group of deep, lifelong friends, and met her husband, Victor. They married at Westminster United Church on August 21, 1981, and remained together until October 2003. Although they separated, separation did not mean the end of their friendship, and they remained close and caring friends in a mutually supportive relationship to her final breath.

Of course, literature is not all that she enjoyed. Patti loved the fall, the trees in autumn colour, the hay bales, the clouds of longing, the icy wind and waters of Lake Winnipeg, the salt air of the Atlantic Ocean at Peggy’s Cove, and the red sandstone cliffs of Cavendish beach. She was a devoted caregiver to her two dog companions, Laci and Natalie. English country dance music, the song Greensleeves, Leonard Cohen, Marianne Faithfull, the Rolling Stones and the Doobie Brothers, were favourites. She was a fierce and feisty fan of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Jets. And, not least, of a hearty dish of mac and cheese with farmers sausage.

Look homeward, Angel.

Her inhumation will take place at Waverley Memorial Gardens cemetery at 1501 Waverley Street at Chevrier Boulevard at 1:00 p.m., Thursday, October 2, 2025, under the care of Bethel Mennonite Church, with a reception to follow the service. Anyone who wishes may write to patolson0219@gmail.com for further information.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her name to the Winnipeg Humane Society or Soi Dog Foundation.

Tribute Link: www.alternacremation.ca

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As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Sep 27, 2025