Eileen Walto Collick

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. - Eileen Walto Collick, 88, passed away on Nov. 4, 2015, in Newport Beach.

She was born May 28, 1927, to John and Serafina Walto, who immigrated to Ironwood via Canada from Finland prior to Eileen's birth. Their three daughters were Billie, Helen and the youngest, Eileen. John was an iron ore minor in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Eileen lost her mother when she was very young after a lengthy illness. She remembered her dad brushing her mother's hair each night before bed when she was bedridden. Likely he brushed his daughter's hair as well, as he was a tender and caring man. Once when Eileen was asked how she became such a good mother she quickly replied "from my dad."

John and his girls lived in Ironwood until they were grown. On Sunday afternoons in the summer he took them to the town baseball games. He cooked dinner but it was often a Finnish fish stew, and Eileen, who became a remarkably good cook, never chose to make anything remotely resembling fish stew. But she recalled her father's domestic skills fondly and often described him as very loving and gentle with his daughters.

Eileen's sisters headed west after they finished school but Eileen went to nursing school in Oak Park, Ill. Just prior to starting school, she met Bob Collick who was about to enter the U.S. Air Force. The two soon circled back to their hometown and among their Ironwood friends became better acquainted, dated, fell in love and married in 1950. Eileen who had been motherless soon had Bob's mother, Pearl, and his dear Aunt Ruthie who drew her into the family and supported her new role as a wife, in time, a mother, and as a partner to Bob who was now in the seminary.

Eileen traveled along in Bob's journey - they always referred to themselves as a team - from Phoenix to Moline, Ill., where Bruce was born. They moved to Salt Lake City to their first church, a mission, and little sister Carolyn was born. After three years they left for Skokie, Ill., where Bob served as assistant pastor in preparation for their 20-year tenure in Wayne, N.J., where they established a mission church, St. Timothy's. Their third child, Paul, was born in 1963.

In time, Eileen returned to her work as a nurse and continued to work as a traumatic care specialist in the ICU at Irvine Hospital in Newport Beach, when Bob became pastor of Church of the Master in that community. They continued their work for 11 more years and in 1989 "retired" to La Quinta, in the desert. Bob resisted full retirement and continued to work with Hope Lutheran Church in Palm Desert. Eileen soon found a retirement career as a volunteer docent at the Living Desert. Her quiet nature and her love of the environment made her an extraordinary leader to the school children who came on regular tours.

The family cottage in the Upper Peninsula at Lake Gogebic was a touchstone for Bob and Eileen and in the retirement years they were able to spend a full three months there. The cottage remains a storehouse of memories, keepsakes, antiques and, most of all, traditions of family life. The trek to the northwoods became a cherished ritual, too, for the partners. They drove cross country more than 50 times visiting friends and family on each leg of the journey. Apart from domestic travel which included numerous trips to New York and the East Coast, up the West Coast regularly, Eileen and Bob traveled abroad several times including visits to the Holy Land, staying with Bruce in Switzerland during his studies and enjoying a lavish trip late in their lives with dear friends from their church. And, in early retirement, they spent several summers in Honolulu managing a congregation while a pastor friend took time off.

Eileen was easy going, loving, optimistic and highly adaptable, although strong in her preferences. She liked style over fashion, quality over quantity, quiet over noise, outdoors over indoors, family over strangers, warmth over coolness, books over television and her wish was to live to be 90 to watch her kids all grow up.

She will be interred in the family plot in the Riverside Cemetery in Ironwood. She is the mother of Bruce (Patricia), Carolyn (Terry), Paul (Kerry) and the grandmother to Chase, Morgan, Makenna and Samantha, stepgrandmother to Elliott and Amanda Veith, and great-grandmother to Teddy and Milo. We all miss her.