MARIEREINE EWONCHUK (MARIE)

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MARIEREINE EWONCHUK
January 29, 1940 - December 18, 2019

Marie passed away after a brief battle with cancer, with her loving children by her side.
She left to cherish her life, her daughter Michelle Harrison (Troy) and son Mark (Tracy), along with Michelle and Troy's sons, Mitchell, Brett and Riley. She also cherished her special role as the MaTante of Rene and Isabelle Maynard, along with their parents, David and Danielle. She will also be greatly missed by her brother Rene Maynard; sisters, Laurette Chapman and Therese Berard, also her in-laws and many other relatives. She was predeceased by her husband Jerry, in 2000; her parents, Antoine and Marie Louise, and several brothers and sisters.
Marie was born in St. Malo in a large french family. As a teenager, she met Jerry and they married a few years later. Marie became a teacher right after graduating high school. With Jerry and his brother Bob, Marie took her singing talents into the Winnipeg entertainment scene as The Winedrops. Marie had an incredible, angelic voice and made three french records. Both Marie and Jerry were very hard-working people, working during the day and entertaining at night. In the early 1970s, Marie and Jerry broke into the hotel business starting with the Lakeshore Hotel in Keewatin, ON and proceeding to Cypress River, Holland, Treherne and finally the Royal George Hotel in Winnipeg, where Marie retired from after selling, shortly after Jerry passed away. In the Royal George, she often sang and also played in the Aactive Pool League, usually joining her son and captaining a team.
In retirement, she moved to Paradise Village where she made several new friends and joined the local band and the church choir for several years. She took her pool cue and learned snooker, becoming the Senior Ladies Snooker Champion at the MSOS Games. After a couple of years in Winnipeg, she moved to Beausejour to be near her son. She made many good friends in Beausejour and really enjoyed her last years there. She joined the church choir, jammed with other local senior musicians, and volunteer to join the Beausejour Senior Centre's committee. Always helping at the Senior Centre, she loved baking, playing cards, and truly enjoyed helping out whenever she could. She also was able to play pool with her son again in the Beausejour Hotel's Pool League. She was the first winner of the Beausejour Lions' Club's annual pool tournament, ladies division, at the age of 77.
Marie was always a selfless and proud, loving woman, and an inspirational human being. She would have got a pass to skip the line to enter the gates to heaven, but knowing her she probably denied it, insisting on staying in line with everybody else. She had a voice of an angel, and now she is one. Heaven's incredible choir just got even better.
Marie's family thanks the friends she made in Paradise Village and in Beausejour in her retirement. We also thank her extended family and friends, the incredible people at the Beausejour Hospital and also the staff at the Beausejour Hotel.
No flowers please, instead please give blood, donate your time or donate to a charity of your choice. Also, please honour her memory of both Marie and Jerry by getting yourself checked by the doctor regularly.
A memorial celebration will take place at a later date, as per her wishes.

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on Dec 21, 2019