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“Self-promotion was new at the time,” Maureen of New Lenox said. “Bur she was willing to give it a shot.” Sophie also started a blog, “A Never Ending Path,” where Sophie chronicled the highlights of her daily walks on the path near her New Lenox home. Her last entry on June 17, 2010 starts with, "On the path I took today there are several wooden bridges separated by about a mile or more. I stopped at the first one I came to and watched the water flowing beneath it, left there by the recent rain. I watched it as it dwindled and ended in muddy puddles of bracken and weeds.” Sophie started writing in childhood. When Sophie was in first grade at the former Sts. Cyril and Methodius Catholic School in Joliet, she won a writing contest and received a rosary made of glass beads as a prize, Maureen said. In a 2009 Herald-News story, Sophie said she also penned "silly, little tales" about her friends. Also in that story, Sophie shared insights into her writing process, including tips for writing believable stories. “Writing has always been difficult for me,” Sophie said in the story. “Staring at a blank sheet of paper is daunting. But at the same time, it was fascinating making up imaginary situations and creating characters with their individual habits and traits. Once I got started, it flowed pretty easily.” Sophie grew up on Draper Avenue during the Depression, the second in an immigrant family of five children. "She and her brother did not learn to speak English until they went to school," Maureen said. As an adult, Sophie worked a variety of jobs: at Woolworths, at a bank and on an assembly line, while living at her parents’ home and raising Maureen. “She was very independent,” Maureen said. “Being a single mom and getting a divorce, that was not the thing to do at that time. Women depended on their husbands.” Years later, Maureen thanked her mother for not being a traditional mother, she said. “I think she was a little shocked,” Maureen said. “But she was not a traditional mother. She did not go to the meetings at school. She did not stay home and bake cookies. That probably made me the same way." Maureen herself loved staying home with her children and baking cookies, she said. Her resemblance to her mother is in the mindset. "I am not a traditional person. I don’t have traditional ideas. I’m very liberal in my thinkings," Maureen said. "And I believe I got that from her.”
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For many years Sophie wrote for magazines. Her first book, “The Choice,” was published in 1977 by Jednota Press and is still available on Amazon. “The Choice” is a romantic, young adult novel set in Slovakia at the turn of the century. Maureen said her mother based the novel on stories Sophie’s parents had told her about their experiences “in the old country.” “It’s about a young schoolmaster who accepted a teaching post in a small village who tries to remain indifferent to the injustice of the people,” Maureen said. “But in time, he is forced to face up to them and makes a decision that changes his life and the lives of the people he loves.” “The Choice” is also the story of a girl named Christina, who falls in love with the schoolmaster, Maureen said. Sophie, who was also an accomplished oil painter, created the book’s cover, Maureen said. “She was a very good artist,” Maureen said. “She did a portrait of me when I was younger than I wish I still had. My youngest daughter Rachel has the original oil for ‘The Choice’ at her house.”
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Sophie’s second b “Why God Has Gray Hair,” is a collection of short stories revolving around a 1930s parochial, elementary school, are based on Sophie’s own school experiences, Maureen said. Those stories originally appeared as columns in a publication called Senior Connections. Sophie’s third book, “St. Michael the Archangel’s Washboard Band,” tells the story of human relationships and a robbery gone bad. The story takes place during the Depression and is told from the perspective an 11-year-old Slavic girl living in a small Illinois town. (Photo provided)
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But her final novel, “The Watchers,” published in 2009, was the spy novel Sophie had longed to write ever since she’d visited Berlin in the early 1970s. In a 2009 Herald-News story, Sophia talked about seeing the Berlin wall and rubble from World War II. She recalled East Berlin’s dreariness and the big city atmosphere of West Berlin, impressions that inspired Sophie to work them into her last novel. In addition, Sophie wrote a fairy tale for Maureen’s daughters. “We have to publish it someday,” Maureen said. “But they all have copies. They were very fond of that.” Maureen created the cover art for the last three books. She admired her mother’s independence and determination. “She wanted to have a book published and she did it,” Maureen said. “She would send stories off to publishers and tell me how hard it was. But she kept at it.”
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Sophie was creative in other ways, too. She liked paper tole (3-D images with paper) and creating her line of Busy Body Dolls. Each 6-inch collectible doll was posed in a different activity, such as sewing, baking or cleaning. With Maureen and her sister Joanne Rungaitis of Joliet, Sophie also created Western store fronts out of old barn wood for people to hang on their walls. "At one art fair we were approached by a gentleman who liked our work and said he wanted to reproduce it. We of course were skeptical, but he turned out to be legitimate," Maureen said. "He ran an import business and selected some of our pieces to be reproduced in Taiwan. We collected royalties from those for several years." Sophie let her blog slide when she developed vision problems but reading was harder for Sophie to abandon. Ernest Hemingway was her favorite author; she also liked John Grisham and Anne Lamott. “She didn’t think she had another book in her,” Maureen said. “But she did like to read.” Sophie was 97 when she died Feb. 5 "Why God Has Grey Hair," "The Watchers" and "The Choice" are available on Amazon at amzn.to/2UHkXSN. "The Choice" is paperback only; the other two are also published on Kindle. A used copy of "St. Michael the Archangel's Washboard Band" is available in paperback through Abe Books. Visit bit.ly/2JlElzl. • To feature someone in “An Extraordinary Life,” contact Denise M. Baran-Unland at 815-280-4122 or dunland@shawmedia.com.