Obituary of Velta Pavlovs

(nee Kregers)

Peacefully at Groves Park Lodge on Monday evening, March 24, 2025, Velta passed away in her 102^nd year.

Beloved wife of the late Roberts Pavlovs.

Daughter of the late Peteris and Emilija Kregers.

Predeceased by her brothers: Janis Kregers and Edgars Kregers, and sisters: Zelma Kalnins (late Rolands) and Ilga Judeikis (late Alberts).

Velta was born in Latvia on the 26th of December, 1924. After the madness and horror of the Great War, no one thought it would happen again, but of course they were wrong. Velta had not reached her 15th birthday when it all started with Russian invasions, followed by German invasions, and ending with Russian invasions.

As a 20-year-old in fear of Russian retributions (her brother was a police officer), she single-handedly escaped to Germany, and from there was conscripted to be a nurse in Italy. After the war, again single-handedly, she made her way to a Displaced Persons camp where, once again, she single-handedly tracked down her sister Zelma and  niece Inara.

The Rotary Club of Muskoka sponsored Velta to work at the big tuberculosus sanitorium in Gravenhurst and there she met a handsome fellow refugee by the name of Roberts Pavlovs. They got married, so ending Velta doing stuff single-handedly!

She left Gravenhurst to accompany Roberts to Noranda, and there she worked as a cook for a very wealthy American couple who wanted Velta and Roberts to move to the United States. They did not, and moved instead to St. Catharines in 1954. There Roberts got a job at the dry docks and Velta spent a lifetime working at Reid’s Dry Cleaning. Roberts and Velta loved the north and loved to fish, while back in St Catharines they were both active in the Latvian diaspora community.

Velta will be missed by her nieces and nephews in Lativa and her Godson Andy Kalnins and his spouse Anda Sprudzs in Arnprior, and Goddaughter Christine Buitinga of Salmon Arm, British Columbia.

Her private care and arrangements have been entrusted to the Pilon Family Funeral Home.