Iris Rose Almond passed away in Lloydminster, AB on June 21, 2025 at the age of 83 years.

Iris is survived by: her sons, Perry (Janet) Almond of Chestermere, AB and their children Madison and Mia; and Jason (Gina) Almond of Lloydminster, AB and their children, Zachery and Nicholas; sister, Lovette Dove; sisters-in-law, Elaine Lacusta and Diane (Al) Popoff; and numerous nieces, nephews, extended family and friends.

Iris is predeceased by: her husband, Harold; parents, John and Zenovia Lakusta; brothers, Walter and Peter; sister-in-law, Anna McCormick; niece, Julie Lakusta; parents-in-law, Henry and Magdalena Almond; and sister-in-law, Julia Almond.

Mass of Christian Burial for Iris will be conducted from St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church, Lloydminster, AB on Wednesday, July 2, 2025 at 2:00 PM.

Donations in memory of Iris may be made to Lloydminster Regional Health Foundation.

Card of Thanks

We wish to express our heartfelt gratitude for the love, prayers and kindness shown to our family during the loss of our Mom.  Thank you to St. Anthony’s Parish: Fr. Arun for Officiating the Mass, Lani Burry and Melanie Pellerin for leading the music.  Thank you to the Nurses Guard, the Honorary and Active Pallbearers, and to the CWL of St. Anthony’s for preparing the lunch.  Finally, thank you to Brett McCaw and the McCaw staff for their patience, compassion and guiding support.  It was a comfort to us during this difficult time.

A special thank you to all family, friends and neighbors for your prayers, visits, cards, beautiful flowers, memorial donations, gifts of food, and loving support.  Your thoughtfulness and kindness will be cherished and always remembered.

Perry, Janet, Madison & Mia

Jason, Gina, Zachery & Nicholas

Eulogy of Iris Rose Almond – July 2, 2025

To take you back a week, we had an opportunity to view Mom at the funeral home since her passing, and while we were silently reflecting as a family, Auntie Diane had commented that it’s amazing that you just put it all into perspective…

It is like looking at a treasure chest, a package filled with a journey, and inside this treasure it is filled with a person’s life:  they are born, they grow up as a little girl, then a teenager and then an adult. You find your soulmate and you get married, have a family, your work, you travel, your children have a family, grandchildren, retirement and life as a Senior and on to old age.  Then our journey called life comes to an end and we have the person here today, these treasures of moments & memories inside this treasure chest that makes up Iris’s story and how she has touched and affected so many people.

Iris Rose Almond was born in Lloydminster, SK on January 26, 1942 to John and Zenovia Lakusta.  She had two Brothers, Walter and Peter, and has one sister, Lovette.  Iris grew up on the homestead south of Lloydminster in the Furness District by Rivercourse.

Growing up on the farm for a little girl with two older brothers about 10ish years her senior, then later a baby sister, may not have been the easiest, but they did have lots of fun.

Jason recalls Mom telling a story about how entertaining it was to hunt gophers. One group would stand at one end of the holes to dump the water to flush them, and Mom would stand at the other hole with a baseball bat to try and whack them when the gopher popped up.

In addition to being a ball player, we didn’t realize Mom was also a track star in her youth… Auntie Lovette recalls a story that one evening Mom was heading out to the pasture with the dogs to check on the cows, and low and behold the coyotes had come around.  The dogs started running and she sprinted as well thinking the coyotes were after her, it turned out they were chasing the dogs… she said she had never ran so fast in her entire life.

Mom always had a fear of snakes, even garter snakes.  When walking out to the slough beyond the barn, she happened to see many garter snakes at one of the fence posts… once she saw one of the snakes lift its head, that was it, turn and burn all the way back to the house.

(Now we know why she yelped so loud at the sight of garter snakes a few summers ago at the lake, one specifically that was under a patio chair that she moved to be able to sweep the back deck at the cabin.)

Mom was a big helper in the kitchen with Baba and was Baba’s right hand girl when it was harvest time.  Mom would assist with chores around the house, helping with her baby sister Lovette, and preparing meals for Gido, Walter and Peter as they were out in the field.  

On one occasion when Baba and Gido were away visiting relatives, Iris stayed home with Walter and Peter.  She was in charge of cooking the meals for her brothers, and unfortunately she left one of Baba’s really good cooking pots unattended on the stove and badly burned some potatoes. The pot was, as mom would say, “blacker than the ace of spades.”  At first she “didn’t have a clue in a basket” of how to tell Baba that she may have ruined her good cooking pot, but I think she eventually fessed up.

Iris attended Sunnydale school for Grades 1-9. Mrs Champagne was her favourite teacher during those years, and she lived life as a typical young school girl with many friends and having lots of fun.

In grade 10, Mom wanted to attend high school in Lloydminster, so she made the move from the farm into the city.  Baba and Gido were close friends with the Bidlock family that lived in Lloydminster, so Mom was able to convince her parents that she could handle it and to move into Lloydminster.  She was involved in clubs in High School, more notably the Glee club, Teen Town and Ladies Softball club.  She also had her Red Cross certification, thus another example of her wanting to be there for others.  We saw that in Grade 10, mom was voted most likely to be an artist.

Shirley Bidlock, her close friend, was like a big sister. And Shirley’s brother, Peter Bidlock, just happened to be best friends with a guy named Harold Almond, and eventually a high school romance between Iris and Harold began.  While in high school Mom had lots of friends, but time with Harold was number one.  As referenced in her grade 11 yearbook, she was most happiest when she was “sketching Harold” and in her Grade 12 yearbook, her hobbies were listed as: Harold and drawing.

After high school, Mom continued her education in the Nursing field by training at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton.  Many friendships were made - she talked about spending lots of time with Sherron Auchstetter (Ruhl), sharing many laughs and stories about work and relationships.  She went on to do more training in Two Hills and Vermilion.

At this time, Harold was working with the CN railway. Being far apart from Mom in places like Paynton and Jasper didn’t work very well for them as travelling to see each other was not easy. And there was no “Face Time” to have a video chat.  So Dad changed his career path to something that kept him more in one place which was Lloyd as he began a 38 year career with GM working the trade as a Partsman.

Soon after, Mom and Dad got engaged and then married on November 30, 1963.

Iris and Harold started a family early on and they purchased their first house around the time Perry was born in 1964.  It was very basic but a humble home. Dad had to do some renovations to bring a few things up to speed and it was a true starter, but most importantly, it was their first home.

A few years later they moved to the house on 47th street and in 1969, Jason was born. The house on 47th street was the house we grew up in. It was a two-storey, a definite improvement from the previous house.  We have fond memories of the many family Christmas and New Year’s gatherings, the backyard skating rinks, the sandbox behind the porch, and eventually the backyard deck that mom had wanted for a bit more privacy and relaxation.

In spring of 1987, Iris and Harold moved to their current house at 61 Alberta Crescent, which would sadly be her last.

Mom loved to travel, sometimes with our relatives and sometimes were through Dad’s GM trips.  Destinations included Rome, Puerto Rico, Acapulco, Jamaica, Spain and Paris.  In 1982, Mom, Lovette, Baba, Gido and some of the cousins from Edmonton travelled to Ukraine for the first time to visit relatives from the “Old Country”.  They mainly toured the cities but did have a chance to take the train out to the old homestead on the farm where Baba grew up.  Mom told us how scary it was because the country was still heavily guarded in a lot of places. And nevermind, if you didn’t have your passport, you were in danger of being detained.  That frightened her more than the garter snakes.  The group really cherished the time together and loved reconnecting with the cousins from Baba’s family.  Even after mom was back home in Lloyd, the stories about the trip and visits with the relatives continued on.

The souvenirs… oh wow the amount of posters, trinkets, hats, sombreros, toys, that they brought back in suitcases… They could have set up a side hustle on Amazon.  Eventually, mom had to downsize the trunks and storage boxes to fewer things she wanted to keep just in case she wanted to view it again.  In the past few days, seeing all the souvenirs she kept sure brought back a lot of childhood memories.

The trip to Paris in fall of 1983 was the last of the biggie’s until Jason and Gina’s wedding in Hawaii in 1992.  Then a short trip a couple of years later to Temecula and Ensenada Mexico with Perry & Janet to visit cousin Lovette Shields and their family.

More recently, mom would join Perry, Janet and the girls on trips to Aruba, Florida, Cabo San Lucas and their condo in Glendale AZ. Perry recalls finally getting her underwater snorkeling in Aruba, and even had her in a Dune buggy “Razor” in Cabo… mom told me later on that she was “hanging on for dear life” in that Razor.

We had a few years camping with a tent trailer then the Travelaire trailer to places like North & South Dakota, Great Falls with Lacusta’s, and Spokane for Expo 74.  As well, some summers had us at Moose Lake, Garner Lake with the Makovichuks, Kelly’s and Rockwells, and Floating Stone Lake with Uncle Peter Bidlock. Eventually, the trailer settled down at Loon Lake.

 Finally it was time to be at one place for the summers and that is when Mom & Dad purchased Lot 181 at Loon Lake in June of 1976.  Wow… the cabin!  From the beginning when the clearing of the trees began on the hillside, to the digging of the pilings, the floor and decking, beams, walls and the roof.  That roof… Dad and us boys on the roof placing and nailing the boards, Mom handing up each board and having a good eye on the contrast of each board to make it flow in design. (this was a time where she did have a clue in a basket in what she was doing)   That Saturday and Sunday all day....  The Lord really blessed us those two days with clear skies.

The next 30+ years at the lake were filled with fun and fellowship with all “the Loon Lake” friends, neighbors and relatives.  Countless get togethers, lake neighbor bbqs, celebrating birthdays, New Years including the Millenium, anniversaries, even wedding proposals.  Furthermore, days and days of boating, waterskiing, fishing (cleaning fish!) and more recently golfing. Mom’s name was on the scorecard, but not for strokes, but rather the number of golf balls she would find in the trees on each hole.  She always kicked our butts as we compared our scores to the number of balls found.  She had dozens and dozens of egg cartons of golf balls, all sorted by name, even some that only had logos on them.  If you needed golf balls, Mom was the one to see.

Mom spent most of her nursing career at the Lloydminster Hospital, with the bulk of her time as a Certified Nursing Aide (now LPN) in the Operating Room where she became very good friends to her fellow nurses and the many doctors.  Auntie Elaine would come over after work on many occasions for coffee, and she and Mom would share lots of stories and laughs with the daily happenings of each of their areas at the Hospital.

One week of 7am-3pm and the next week off seemed to be the norm for Mom, and every few weeks the OR nursing staff would take turns being “on call”.  We as a family were very thankful to her colleagues for the times when Mom needed to “trade call” with one of the girls due to either hockey, a trip to Calgary, or a school event.  At home we dreaded the few times over her career when her week of being on call was during Christmas, and like most other years, an emergency happened in the wee hours of Christmas morning, mom’s beeper sounded, leaving the morning a bit quieter when Perry and I woke up to check on what Santa left under the tree.  We waited patiently for her to come home and though exhausted, she persevered to make the morning as special as possible for all of us. After approximately 30 years in nursing, mom retired in 2006.

During the winter Mom loved watching hockey, both Perry and Jason’s hockey, and Gretzky & the Oilers back in the 80’s and all the Cups, then lost interest once all the core players left.  In the past three or so years, she had a renewed interest in the Oilers again and enjoyed watching McDavid and the gang, and like all of us, became stressed out during the playoffs.

But more so than hockey, Curling was her jam.  From September to about May, there was curling every weekend.  She would even keep track of the schedule and the scores, but always had trouble following that darn Page Playoff format.  We finally had to show her on her iphone how to view scores & standings on the TSN app.  She knew all the big names, both the men and the women. Her favourite for the men was Kevin Martin, then eventually Kevin Koe, Rachel Homan for the ladies.

Gardening, her flowers, garage sale-ing and watching some of the softball/baseball circuit with Tannis’s children, were recently among her top summer hobbies.  Mom had her same sets of flowers for the backyard planters as well as the front planter.  The past few years her pride and joy were the tomatoes.  She was still so proud of her sun sugars, she would send a bag home with 10-15 baby tomatoes each time we popped over.  She had very specific procedures for planting those tomatoes: the rings around the base, the cages, sometimes using stockings to give them support.  A couple of years ago, two of the tomato plants had damaged vines.  Rather than clip them, she was so proud to tell her story that she had to do some surgery on them and they survived.  The past couple of years, Iris pared back her garden to just having 4-5 tomato plants and her broad beans.  She had fewer flower planters in the back on the deck, and in the front she switched to full planter pots instead of individual flowers.  She could never pass up a bargain though.  Even when she said she had enough, Mom found one more sale on a hanging plant at Superstore that she had to purchase … she just couldn’t pass up the deal.

But for both summer and winter, Mom’s kitchen was home base and her happy place. The thousands of cabbage rolls, the nalysynky, the dozens and dozens of different types of baking, the mighty good green relish, Christmas baking, and the meals that she would prep and package into individual portions to cut down on leftovers and make a quick meal after a long day of errands or in the garden. No one ever left Mom’s house hungry. The kitchen was her repair shop too.  No shoes or boots were ever harmed in the kitchen.  Shoo Goo and a clamp were new members of her family.

Mom was meticulous with all her recipes and papers. The details about each recipe, the date, who it was for, the book it came from or the person it came from, the additional amendments to the recipe including the date and if it was well received or scrapped. The details went on and on….

She continued to be such a wealth of knowledge.  Auntie Diane said she was like a big sister to her as Mom would always have the answer to something when Diane would ask her questions.

Mom had an amazing memory, more than anyone we knew. Her recollection of events with specific detail on exactly what happened on which day, and who was with them at the time,… sometimes when we listened to her stories we had to stop and reign her in a bit as she sometimes would get sidetracked with extraneous details and people she assumed we knew, and we got lost in the plot.  And her knowledge when Auntie Diane and Auntie Lovette would visit on the phone, usually 1 hour minimum, they would discuss obituaries and Mom knew all the connections.  She just had a working knowledge of the history of people in Lloydminster.  She was like GOOGLE in a way - Our question to her was like the Search bar on the home page, she was THE knower of all things and details relating to people, families, who was related to whom… if we needed to know something, everyone would call Iris.

Mom loved Dad very much and she would do anything for him whether it was ironing his work shirts, preparing meals (Dad would still take charge of bbq), take Perry and Jason to their games and practices when Dad was tied up at work.  Just anything and everything, they had been together for a long time, celebrating almost 50 years of marriage.

Dad’s health unfortunately took a bit of a turn in late 2008.  Mom was instrumental in caring for Dad through his long road to recovery, but unfortunately Mom’s world was shattered when Dad passed away in 2013.  The months following were tough, but through tons of love and support from her family and friends, Mom was able to move forward and start a new chapter.  

Nothing made Mom more proud than her children and grandchildren.  She took full advantage to share their accomplishments with anyone who had a moment to listen, and even if they didn’t, she would share them anyway.  

Perry & Jason had many successes over the years that she would rave about… our individual and team accomplishments in hockey, baseball, golf and work, Perry’s rise into supervising foreman at Bluebird Construction, then after Covid, starting up his own business, Heritage Contracting. And Jason’s educator career, starting as a high school Phys. Ed. teacher, then to Vice Principal and now in Career Guidance Counseling. More than this though, Mom was most proud of our families.  She gained two wonderful and talented daughters, Janet and Gina, then eventually the first two grandchildren, Zachery and Nicholas, and a few years later two more grandchildren, Madison and Mia.

Whether it was Maddy competing in cheer and further on being inspired to go into Nursing, Mia’s hockey team playing at hockey tournaments in Edmonton and winning the league banner, or Zach’s involvement in High School Catholic Youth Leadership or his successes in Film and Video at Brandt, Nic’s successes at McDonalds or competing in community and school basketball & badminton, she made sure she made every attempt to attend an event so that she had all the information, including the back story if necessary, so that when she would share these events with others, she would infuse one of her famous lines, “that one was a biggie.”

Over this past winter, Mom had peaks and valleys with her health, but through it all she remained as positive as possible, and had lots of support from family and her close neighbors, Joe and Marie next door, across the street Dave and Rita, Walter and Marlene, Glen next door to the west who cut her front lawn, and Cheryl two doors down. They were all her neighborhood watch and if something needed a quick fix, she would say, “I will just ask Joe to check on it.”

This past month of May 2025 was particularly difficult health-wise, but in the couple of weeks before she left us, Mom seemed to be back to herself. She was getting to her flowers and tidying up the yard, she had an evening with Auntie Lovette making cabbage rolls, she was feeling more confident to drive around again, she told Perry on a phone call, “It’s like I got my life back”, and on another call to Jason, “I had the best sleep in weeks and a wonderful evening on the deck enjoying the yard.”  Things started to look up.  Since her passing, the word “special” has come up in almost every conversation, text, email and card. But even that word doesn’t quite capture her.  Balancing being a wife and mother, a homemaker, a nurse, she was truly one of a kind.  If anyone deserves a place in heaven, it’s Mom - not just for her deep faith, but for the way she lived her life with love, strength and grace.

Mom had a page marked from a book called “A Mothers Prayer Book” that we found this past week, and it seemed appropriate through prayer to conclude the story of this treasure chest, this wonderful woman, our Iris, a wife, a friend, our Auntie, our Sister, our Baba, our Mom, who was indeed our everlasting treasure:

Dear God, 

Allow me to be the kind of mother that my children can be proud of,

Allow me to be the kind of friend that my children will turn to,

Allow me to be the kind of mentor that my children will seek advice from.

Allow me to be the kind of guardian that will protect my children from harm.

But, also, God, allow me to be the kind of person who knows that my children, like me, have been given the gift of freedom, the freedom to risk, to make mistakes, and even to fail.

Allow me to be the kind of parent that my children would one day like to be.  Amen

Eulogy of Iris Rose Almond – July 2, 2025