Agnes Ceyer

[Saaga EAA.1268.1.432:76?192,1961,1252,773,0] http://www.ra.ee/dgs/browser.php?tid=18&iid=200704453959&img=eaa126...

Eestist lahkunud isikute kartoteek (Eesti Arhiiv Lakewoodis USA-s) : https://www.ra.ee/dgs/_purl.php?shc=ERA.4942.4.17:1308

Eesti Mälu Instituut/Estonian Institute of Historical Memory: https://2024.wwii-refugees.ee/andmebaas/?q=0000345810

Abielu: Marriage registration: https://search.findmypast.com/record?id=BMD%2FM%2F1950%2F2%2FAZ%2F0...

Obituary: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/agnes-ceyer-obituary?id=5...

Agnes Ceyer Obituary
Obituary published on Legacy.com by Modell Funeral Home - Darien on May 1, 2023.
With deep sadness, we announce that Agnes Ceyer, nee Tiits, beloved wife of the late Alfons W. Ceyer, passed away peacefully on April 28, 2023. She was 100 years and 5 days young. Agnes is the loving mother of Sylvia Ceyer, Ingrid (Gregory) Gentile, Benno (Mariola) Ceyer. She is also the cherished grandmother of Richard Ceyer, Alexander Gentile, and Andrew (Rachel) Gentile and dearest sister of the late Feida (late Walter) Tindale. She is survived by her four-legged feline friend, Ms. Gunther.
A Good Life
On April 23, 1923, a baby girl was born in Tsooru, Estonia, a small farming village in southeastern Estonia. Her parents, Liis (nee Mirka) and Voldemar Tiits, named her Agnes, their third daughter and final child. She entered the world in the house attached to the Tiits family store, the store that served as the source of food and goods for the Tsooru village. Her parents soon nicknamed her Ants, a boy's name, because by all accounts, Ants or Agnes, was a strong-willed tomboy, who threw caution to the wind and investigated every nook and cranny, in contrast to her sister Feida, who was 5 years older. Even letters to Agnes from her mother years later started with "Tere Ants". By Agnes' own account, it seems that one place that the young Agnes explored often was the store candy counter. Her love of everything sweet remained solidly in place 100 years later. Agnes loved playing dress up in her mother's fancy clothes from her days as a governess for the Russian nobility in St. Petersburg, just prior to the Russian revolution in 1917.
The Tiits family operated the store and tended to their farm until about 1928. At that time, Agnes's father, Voldemar, decided that he would rather pursue an occupation as a banker, so the family moved to Tallinn and lived in a house on Preesi Street. However, each summer they traveled 175 miles south to Tsooru and spent joy filled vacations back in the country.
By all accounts, the Tiits family and all of Estonia prospered between 1920 and 1930's. Agnes attended grammar school in Tallinn and then went on to the gymnasium or high school. By the time she was 16, in 1939, the Russians and Germans were knocking at Estonia's door. Life became uncertain. Agnes wanted to follow in her sister Feida's footsteps., who was attending dental school at the University of Tartu. But with the German occupation firmly in place by 1942 when Agnes completed the gymnasium, Agnes opted temporarily to design hats on Suur-Karja Street in Tallinn at a shop called F. Eskel Moodi Äri. Agnes recalled earning good money there!
As WWII raged on, Agnes tells the story of her and her sister Feida hiding from the Russian shelling in a building near the opera house and how she wanted to run out of her hiding place and back to her home. She described how her level-headed sister Feida physically restrained her from running out into the street, just as a shell landed close by. Even so, they were close enough so that their stockings caught fire. By the summer of 1944, with the German war machine faltering, the Germans began pulling out of Estonia, with the Russians poised to take their place. Many Estonians anguished over fleeing Estonia from the feared Russian occupation. The Tiits family faced a similar dilemma. Ultimately, their parents decided to send Agnes and her sister Feida to Sweden, to wait out the war. On September 19, 1944, on one of the last boats to leave Tallinn harbor before the Russian forces reached Tallinn, a devasted and heartbroken Agnes and Feida sailed off. It was not long however, before their boat was captured by the Germans and led into the port of Danzig. As German soldiers were off loading the now prisoners into rail cars, Agnes and Feida caught the eye of a young Austrian soldier. He pulled them aside and told them to go through an open gate and make their way to Vienna, Austria, where his aunt would help them. Many train rides and jumping off moving trains later, they arrived and Agnes proclaimed that the room and bed were the most comfortable ever! They also described burying their Estonian credentials in the basement or garden of that house or near that house because they feared for their safety if they were identifiable as Estonians.
Somehow, Agnes and Feida were introduced to a Displaced Persons Camp in Vienna. Feida was employed as a dentist and Agnes as a dental technician. In essence, they unwittingly were employed by the Nazi regime, who badly needed workers to support their economy and war effort. By the spring of 1945, the Russians were advancing on Vienna and the German government moved the entire Vienna based Displaced Persons Camp to Osnabruck, Germany. There, Agnes and Feida found many other Estonian compatriots. This group of Estonians quickly bonded, forming an Estonian folk dancing group who enjoyed many hours of good fun.
As the war came to an end, the Osnabruck camp was liberated by the Allies and became a United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration camp (designed to administer relief to the victims of WWII) as part of the British sector of the newly liberated country of Germany. In 1946, Agnes and Feida were interviewed for assessment of their qualifications to work in the English sanitoriums as nurses' aides and in Feida's case, as a dentist. The program's official name was the Balt Cygnet program, which aimed to recruit specifically young Baltic women. By 1946, Agnes and Feida were moved by this program to Great Britain. Agnes worked as a nurse's aide in King George V Sanitorium in Godalming, Surrey from November 1946 until December 1947 and in Manor Hospital Epsom from 1947 until 1950.
In March 1950, Feida married Walter Tindale, an Englishman who worked for UNRRA. Not to be left behind, on June 24, 1950, Agnes married the love of her life, Alfons Ceyer, a Polish refugee who, along with his brother Benno, was captured in Danzig by the Germans on September 1, 1939. Alfons eventually arrived in England where he became part of the Polish Resistance Movement and British-Polish Army.
The newlywed couple lived in Godalming, England, where Agnes continued to work as a nurse's aide and Alfons was employed as a draftsman. Looking for greater opportunities, Agnes and Alfons were quickly awarded a visa to enter the United States. They set sail from Southampton, England on the MS Georgic of the Cunard Line, arriving in New York on July 18, 1953, the hottest day in New York ever with a record setting temperature of 101 degrees. From New York, Agnes and Alfons made their way by train to Chicago, to stay with Zenon (Bruno) Krzesinski and his wife, who was a friend of Roman Strzelecki, an army colleague of Alfons. They soon settled in an apartment on north Marshfield Ave and Alfons found work as a mechanical engineer at Ajax Tool Works.
A week before Christmas 1953, their first child, Sylvia Teresse, came into the world at St. Elizabeth's hospital. Without a car, Agnes described toting Sylvia everywhere on buses and the Chicago "L". Luckily, by the time Sylvia was a year old, there was a car and a superb camera that documented the young family's travels around the city of Chicago. By June of 1956, the arrival of a second daughter, Ingrid Astrid necessitated a move to a larger apartment on south Drake Avenue, a Chicago neighborhood with a large population of Polish heritage. There, Christmases of 1956 through 1958 were celebrated and Sylvia and Ingrid tore up the sidewalk with their tricycles and experienced their first sleigh rides. The year of 1958 brought a much-wanted son, Benno Olaf, followed by the purchase of a home on Wesley Avenue in Berwyn, IL in 1959.
Alfons worked day and night to modernize their new home, with Agnes always at his side, stabilizing his ladders, putting up drywall, helping pour concrete and shoveling mounds of dirt to raise the ground around the home. Agnes was his consummate partner, always willing to do anything and everything to better the life of their family. Agnes was constantly tending to the housework of raising three children and to planting and nurturing her flowers in the yard. Above all, she wanted her children to be intelligent and loving human beings. She always sacrificed her own interests for those of her family. She loved small animals, particularly cats, and attracted all the Berwyn neighborhood stray cats to her door. She adored the Lawrence Welk show and never went anywhere without her eyebrow pencil.
In 1979, Alfons retired from Evans Products Company (formerly Chicago Railway Equipment Company) and with Agnes, began to travel the US by car. By 1984 or so, they purchased a Winnebago and used it to spend the winters in Florida. Because Alfons was 9 years senior to Agnes, he was concerned about her well-being should he pass. To wit, they sold their two-story Berwyn home and together with Benno, purchased a two-family home in Brookeridge, an unincorporated airport community in Downers Grove, IL, where they enjoyed watching airplane take-offs and landings and the good company of neighbors. In late spring 1993, they bought a manufactured home in Punta Gorda, Florida, as a winter residence. Unfortunately, Alfons passed away in January 1994, before they could realize their semi-permanent Florida dream. Nevertheless, Agnes was adventurous enough to go to Florida on her own, with Sylvia accompanying her by car to and from Punta Gorda until 2016. Agnes loved her winters in Florida, finally having the time to make friends, do water exercises and play pool.
Agnes was an incredibly sweet and caring person. Everyone loved her! She was so upbeat and pleasant and always wanted the best for everyone. She made everyone feel good about themselves. We will so deeply miss her and miss hearing her sign off with "tulooluloo!"

Viimne puhkepaik: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/253127621/agnes-ceyer