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w w w . o a kv ill eb ea ve r.c o m O A KV IL LE B EA V ER W e dn es da y, Se pt em be r 2 2, 2 01 0 1 0 Family and friends say goodbye to a hero By Angela Blackburn OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Irene Wedeles was a hero to her chil- dren and grandchildren, to many Oakville residents, young and old, even to Canadian hero, astronaut Chris Hadfield. Goodbye Mum, Our Hero, reads her obituary outlining visitation details today (Wednesday, Sept. 22) at Kopriva Taylor Funeral Home, and a 1 p.m. funeral service at St. John's United Church on Randall Street tomorrow (Thursday, Sept. 23). Then again, thats what people reflect on when youre best described as feisty. Wedeles, 86, died Sept. 18 at Burlingtons Brant Centre after what her family describes as a lengthy period of declining health. It was in life however, that the strong- willed teacher, volunteer, mother and grandmother put her zeal for living into play. Wedeles treated all learning as an adventure. Her attitude was This is what we are going to be learning and I want you to use your own mind to discover things, to look into things, to understand things and to look at the world around you and not to view things in a static way, Hadfield was quoted in a 2001 story about teachers that influenced him in Professionally Speaking magazine. Chris Hadfield decided to be an astro- naut on July 20, 1969, the night that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Over 30 years later, on April 22, 2001, he became the first Canadian ever to leave a spacecraft and float free in space. Wedeles was Hadfields teacher in an enriched program in Grades 5 to 7 at W. H. Morden Elementary School a good number of years before her student floated in space, and soon after reflected on giving her some of the credit. It was far from Oct. 29, 1923 when Wedeles was born Irene Feitelberg in Paderborn, Germany. After a happy early childhood, Wedeles Jewish ancestry led to increasingly difficult times. She lost her mother when she was only six. Her father was soon sending his daugh- ters to an aunts homt in Estonia to escape the realities of the war and he died soon after. Upon escaping from there to England, it was thanks to help from Quakers that young Wedeles was adopted by an Anglican minister and his wife Mummy and Uncle Edward. My mom overcame so much. She was self-supporting very early. She lost her par- ents very, very early in her life, said her daughter Judy Wedeles, an English teacher and teacher/librarian at T. A. Blakelock High School. After being schooled in Wales because of the evacuations of London during the war, Wedeles lived for a time at Girl Guide head- quarters, backpacked with a friend across Europe as it was rebuilding after the war and then worked in a clerical role at the BBC. Feeling unfulfilled in her life, Wedeles apparently applied for a job in France and said if it didnt work out, shed head to Canada. After moving to Toronto in the 1950s, she met her husband of 40 years, Herbert, who was of Austrian descent, at a meeting for new Canadians. Several years after marrying, the couple settled in Oakville where Wedeles would remain for 48 years, even after her retire- ment in 1986 and then Herberts death in 1996. As the couple raised three children, Wedeles managed to study part-time to earn her Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Education and Masters of Education. She became the enrichment teacher for Haltons public school board where she taught for nearly 30 years, first at John Wilson Public School, then W.H. Morden for 17 years, then New Central. Her daughter Judy was in her moms class for several years and, like many of the stu- dents who continued to keep in touch over the next four decades, remembers the amaz- ing plays her mom used to stage, the mas- sively daunting major project assignments Irene Wedeles See Wedeles page 11