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Velta Lyons

April 7, 2018
Lunenburg, MA

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Beloved Mother and Grandmother Lunenburg-Velta (Jirgens) Lyons was born May 21, 1931, to the late Eduards Ernest and Lida (Senbergs) Jirgens, in Engure, Latvia. She was 86. She died peacefully at home April 7, 2018 after a two-year battle with cancer. She resided in Lunenburg for the last 44 years. She is survived by seven children; Patricia Belliveau and her husband Kenneth of Moultonboro, NH, Brian Lyons of Gillette, WY, William Lyons of Lunenburg, Kevin Lyons and his wife Kim of Bluffton, NC, Rose Soubie of Lunenburg, Eric Lyons of Leominster and Marsha Lyons of West Hollywood, CA; eight grandchildren; Lauren Conrad, Dylan Soubie, Shawnna Lyons, Melissa Ford, Scott Lyons, Eric Lyons Jr, Maverick Lyons and Brandon Lyons. She always cherished her grandchildren and loved them dearly. Christmas was her favorite time with all her children and grandchildren gathering around her and her well stocked gifts under her tree. We will always miss her. She also leaves two brothers; Zigfrids Jirgens of Kalamazoo, MI and Peter Jirgens and his wife Barbara of Kalamazoo, MI; one sister, Maija Miller and her husband Conrad of Otsego, MI; many nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, and her goddaughter, Debbie (Paeglis) Marr of Kalamazoo, MI. She is predeceased by her husband, Bernard S. Lyons in 1994 after 42 years of marriage. She also was predeceased by one brother, Imants Jirgens and two sisters, Arija Smith and Rita Paeglis. She came to the United States in June 1950. She and her family escaped Latvia during World War II. When the war was engulfing the world, in one of the most-darkest days in Latvian history on June 14,1941, the Russians took 35,000 Latvians away. Velta's dad being involved in politics and the military knew his name was on the list for removal. He hid, and the Russians left without him. Before the Russians could come back, the German Army pushed through Latvia to Russia. Velta's parents helped the Germans on their farm and help saved their lives. As the tide of the war changed quickly and, in the summer of 1944, Eduards Jirgens with his wife and six children in a covered wagon with few possessions and dried food made their way to Ventspils, Latvia, a port on the Baltic Sea. They boarded on a German army transport boat and sailed to Danzig (now Gdansk) Poland. They were put on a train with other displaced persons and sent south to Cracow in southern Poland. On their way through, the Germans took them all off the train, separating the men from the women and children, sending them to the showers and powdering them with disinfectant. Somehow they were sent back to the train and on their way. They wondered if it was for health reasons, or narrowly missed the German gas chambers, or was it faith? The trains were attacked by allied planes, missing them once again. The family was sent to Czechoslovakia where the Germans wanted them to work on a farm. They had escaped once again as the Russians came to pillage the town they lived in, the family they stayed with, were taken away as they hid in the fields. Now they boarded another train to Pilsen, coming to a Russian camp and an American camp in the crossroads. They chose the right way to the American camp. Along with many other displaced people, the Jirgens family was taken SW to the occupied American zone to Munich, Germany, housed in military quarters that once housed Hilter's feared SS troops. For five years the family lived in Munich, where her sister was born, hoping they could return to Latvia someday. The freedom of Latvia never came. In 1950 a family from Boyertown, Penn sponsored the Jirgens to come and work on their farm. The family of nine traveled to Bremerhaven, Germany on the North Sea. They boarded the former American troop ship named the General Stewart. On June 8, 1950 they arrived in New York Harbor at Ellis Island. Her name was put on The Wall at Ellis Island as Velta Jirgens, December 2015, by her children. She is now with her parents, sister Maija Jirgens, and Miervaldis (Peter) Jirgens on the wall. The family settled eventually to Alamo, MI, buying a farm, during that time Velta came to live in Boston, going to modeling school, and married Bernard Lyons, raising seven children, working at RCA in Needham, Digital for twenty years, retiring and working again part and full time at Horn Industries till she was 80. On behalf of the family, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the Health Alliance Medical Oncology at the Burbank Campus for the Doctors and staff whom Velta was so kindly treated for in her early stage of Cancer. Another very special thanks to the HealthAlliance Hospital Home Health and Hospice care team and her nurses, Jackie, Gina, Peggy and Jen. Her home health care aids: Arlene and Tiffany for all their special care, compassion and support from the entire staff. Calling Hours will be held on Tuesday, April 10, 2018 from 3:00 6:00 p.m. with a service at 5:45 p.m. in the Lunenburg Chapel of the Sawyer-Miller-Masciarelli Funeral Homes, 763 Mass Avenue, Lunenburg, MA 01462. Burial will be private. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in Velta's memory to HealthAlliance Hospital Home Health and Hospice, 60 Hospital Road, Leominster, MA 01453 or may be left at the funeral home. For further info see www.masciarellifamilyfuneralhomes.net. John F. Masciarelli, Walter C. Taylor and James M. Hebert, funeral directors