Your Gift Makes a Difference

Janine Dalecki 

Janine Dalecki was born in Poland on March 6, 1934. It was a time of war, poverty, and hardship. She described that during this austere time, the one thing that sustained her spirit was her passion for caring for others. When she was about 10 years of age, she said that she would often go to the house of the village healer, where she would help bandage wounds and tend to the sick. Janine said that her destiny was to be a nurse and she "could not imagine doing anything else". During WWII, she lost both of her parents and eldest brother.

Janine and her younger step-brother were raised by their loving maternal grandmother. They lived on a farm but life was hard and food was scarce. Janine had to look after her younger brother while their grandmother walked to the local village to barter for food and items that they needed to survive. When Janine was about 17 years of age, she was able to attend the School of Agriculture in Baltow, Poland, where she completed her high school education. She never gave up on her dream of nursing and was able to complete a Poland Department of Health Interim Certificate in 1956. After marrying her husband, John Dalecki in the late 1950s, they both immigrated to Canada.