PELYHE, Joseph
Joseph PELYHE was born in Egerszalók, Hungary on March 18, 1927, he escaped communism to emigrate to Canada to marry Theresa (nee Noll) and was a wonderful father to Irene and Michele. Joe passed away quietly with his two daughters at his side and his cat on his lap the afternoon of September 15, 2020 in Orillia, 70 years to the day that he arrived in Canada.

Our courageous father Jóska slipped across the Iron Curtain at night from Hungary into Austria looking for safe refuge and unable to go home. Canada was open to young men so he sailed to Halifax arriving 15 September 1950. Having paid back his immigration commitment by planting trees in Manitoba, he settled in Toronto where he met our mother at a dance in 1953 - she herself a recent escapee from Kernei, (Batschka, Yugoslavia) - neither spoke the other's language and so they learned English, became Canadian citizens together in 1956, and made a family and many friends in Toronto.

Granted amnesty in 1965, he was finally able to take his new family back to Hungary. Poor Theresa didn't speak a word of Hungarian but somehow managed to make fast friends with her sister-in-law Erzsi. She had a hard time keeping our baby chicks that our aunties gifted us out of our wonderful straw feather beds. Dad was very happy that his wife and daughters met and or got to know his mother, seven siblings, their spouses, our 13 cousins and their children.

He loved the outdoors especially fishing, building a family cottage near Wilberforce and spending hours in the kitchen when he made a big pot of gulyas...

After 35 years of staging co-ordination at CBC and hanging around famous people, he retired to Peterborough with Mom. After Mom's passing, he stayed in Orillia near Irene with our beloved Chui.
He knew he was loved - and was very, very happy with the wonderful life that he shared with so many of us.