Zinaida (Rucka) BALUCZYNSKI

BALUCZYNSKI, RUCKA, BARATAJEW, JOPLIN, SWENSON, DALIDA, KOSCIELAK, PETROWSKI, RUCKI

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 12/11/2008 at 20:25:38

Zina Baluczynski

Zinaida Rucka was born on July 7, 1915 in Zdulbunow, Poland to Pawel (Paul) Rucki and Olga Baratajew. She grew up and attended school in Kovel, Poland. As a young woman, she was undergoing nurses training in Germany when World War II broke out. Due to restrictions imposed by the government, she could not travel back to Poland. During the war she worked as a secretary for a missionary society and did some nursing work in a hospital run by the society. After the war, she met and married Francisczek (Frank) Baluczynski in a displaced person camp. The couple emigrated to the U.S. in 1949 with their 18 month old son, Alexander. They lived with their sponsors, Ed and Frances Nelson at first, and later in the Hinckley, MN area for several years. Their daughter, Amber, was born in 1950. Zina was well known for her singing voice and was asked to move to Chicago to sing for Christian programs broadcast over HCJB Radio in Quito, Ecuador. The programs were intended to reach Slavic people who had emigrated to South America. The family eventually returned to Minnesota, settling in Minneapolis where she worked at Swedish Hospital/Metropolitan Medical Center for 17 years. Her husband, Frank, passed away in 1984.

Zina moved to Eagle Grove, Iowa in 1990. She was talented at learning languages, and was fluent in at least five. A Fort Dodge Messenger article published on August 5, 1991 reported about her translation work in Minneapolis at the hospital, with Russian immigrants, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and in Iowa with visiting farmers from the then Soviet Union. When macular degeneration caused deteriorating eyesight she moved to Storm Lake in 2000 to live with Amber's family and was a member of Faith Bible Chapel. Zina returned to Wright County in April 2007, living at the Clarion Care Center, then at Southfield in Webster City and finally Rotary Ann in Eagle Grove where she died at the age of 93 on December 9, 2008.

She was preceded in death by her parents, an infant brother, Victor, and son-in-law, David Joplin. Survivors include a son, Alexander Baluczynski (Diane) of Eagle Grove, daughter, Amber Joplin of Spokane, WA, five grandchildren: Aaron Baluczynski, Dena Swenson, Maren Dalida, Adam Baluczynski and Valerie Joplin; two sisters, Aniela Koscielak of Poland and Helen Petrowski of Winnipeg, and a brother, Aleksander Rucki of Winnipeg, Canada.

A memorial service was held on December 13, 2008 at Grace Evangelical Free Church of Eagle Grove, where Zina had been a member, with Pastor John Nett officiating. Burial will be at Hillside Cemetery in Minneapolis, MN at a later date.

http://www.funeralplan.com/foustfh/obits?id=151363