Eva Sarah Haack, 81

Eva Sarah Haack, 81, died of natural causes on Nov. 28, 2012, at 12:52 p.m. at Mountain View Care Center in Ronan. She lived a long life that could no longer contain her spirit. She passed from this world receiving the gift of many prayers and with family at her side.

Eva was a woman of faith and belief that guided her throughout her life and gave her strength up until the very end ... and, we are sure, guides her still. Her faith, like that of her husband, Walter, who passed away in September of ’98 at the age of 73, was ingrained and demonstrated in the life she lived and the lives she touched.

She lived her adult life farming and raising a family on Sunny Slope just north of Polson. Farming was hard but rewarding work requiring many skills and challenges that Eva always met or exceeded. Her witness to her faith was in the life she lived and the life she worked — and she worked from a very early age.

Eva, born to Peter and Margaret Kroeker Jan. 5, 1931, at 8 p.m. in Morden, a city located in the Pembina Valley region of southern Manitoba, was the 11th of 13 children. She attended school only through the sixth grade when, at the age of 13, she had to quit in order to work to help support the family. Hard work was always a part of Eva’s life and didn't change when she married Walter Haack, a U.S. citizen, in LeDuc, Alberta, in March of ’52.

She then began her new life farming in Polson, which included helping in the fields, with the animals, as well as running the home and, in time, helping to raise their two children, Lonnie and Wendy. She was not just a “wife” but a true life partner, an equal in the farm's success. She became a U.S. citizen in July of 1957.

Eva’s legacy, and that of her husband Walter's, was to have planted in their children and their children's children the seeds of compassion and commitment, along with a satisfaction in hard work and an enduring faith in God. It is an ongoing legacy that has touched many lives and has made a difference. And though Eva was often known for her sometimes hard, no-nonsense exterior and her get-it-done-yesterday attitude that came from a life of often hard times and hard work, those who really knew and loved her recognized that her hardness was only a protective covering beneath which beat a warm, generous heart.

She loved to sing and could play the piano and autoharp, as well as the accordion. Eva also had a good sense of humor, a contagious laugh and an engaging smile that was always a welcomed gift.

We would be remiss, too, if we failed to mention Eva’s skills in the kitchen, which she demonstrated daily. Farm wife and good cook seems a redundancy, but Eva’s talents in the kitchen were exceptional, and the good food she prepared daily, only one of her many tasks, was the fuel to the farm's operation. Her doughnuts and poppyseed rolls with the morning coffee or as a snack before bed were the stuff of which dreams are made — and that she could cook so well while at the same time maintaining a spotless kitchen would be the envy of any magician come chef and truly was one of God's blessings to all who shared her table.

Eva is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Lonnie and Theresa Haack, of Polson; and her grandchildren, Jonathan Haack, and Tawnia and her husband Blain Marsh, as well as their children, Eva’s great-grandchildren, Caitlyn, Chaira, Callie and Josiah, also of Polson. Eva is survived as well by her daughter and son-in-law, Dr. Wendy Haack and Richard Haskell of North Bend, Ore. Her surviving siblings are Betty Weibe and Isaac Kroeker of Morden, Kay Tews and John Kroeker of Wetaskwin and Edmonton, Alberta, respectively, and Harry Kroeker of Merritt, British Columbia.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Dec. 28, at New Life Christian Center in Polson. The Rev. Miles Finch will be presiding. Cremation and arrangements will be provided by Grogan Funeral Home of Polson.

Messages of condolences may be shared with the family online at www.groganfuneralhome.com.