Madge Tomsic

HELPER-Lola Madge Tomsic, ninety-two years old, died on June 4, 2017, at the home of her son and daughter-in-law, Kim and Irene Tomsic, in Mesquite, NV, where she had been living since May 1, 2017.
She was born on January 19, 1925, in Tremonton, UT, to Radcliffe Henrie and Edna Clara Gibb Henrie, the fourth of nine children. A striking attribute of her as a child was an excitement for life, so much that she slept in her clothes to assure she could start her next day of adventure immediately. Everything in her life that followed was infused with this same inner exuberance and interest. Her mother began as a school teacher until motherhood, her father a wheat farmer in Blue Creek, and this early life offered wondrous imaginative play on the farm. The death of her mother when she was eleven years old was a shattering experience, but her great spirit ultimately survived and carried her on.
She graduated from Bear River High School, Garland-Tremonton, in 1942, and then later from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology in 1949. While attending the university she also worked in electroencephalography at the medical center on campus. She met her future husband, Eugene Louis Tomsic, in Salt Lake City, and following her graduation moved herself to Helper, UT, to be near him in his hometown. Madge got a job teaching third grade in the Spring Canyon School for a year, where she played the xylophone along with the school principal on piano to entertain the students.
Madge described her first day spent with Gene in Helper as a miracle—the people, the evening of polkas, Gene’s family. It has been said that no one loves Carbon County more than Madge Tomsic, and this love for the place where she lived for fifty-six years, along with her natural exuberance, came through in all that she did there. She and Gene married on June 30, 1951, in Las Vegas, NV, and later when Madge converted to Catholicism, they were remarried in St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Helper.
The ten years following marriage she devoted to raising her four children. She brought her creativity, which was at the heart of her spirit for life, and sparked her children with so many ways to bring out their own. She wrote plays and directed the children in her neighborhood in these productions, held down the street in the backyard of her longtime friend Margaret Garavaglia. Boxes of dress-up clothes, dough for her children to make and bake all kinds of decorations for Valentine’s Day or Christmas, or a drive up the canyon to cast animal tracks—she turned everything into something interesting to explore.
During this time of creativity with her children, she realized that the very career that she had rejected because so many people in her family were teachers was the perfect job for her. She returned to the University of Utah for her teaching certification to begin her twenty-seven-year career as a fourth-grade teacher in the Carbon School District. She was teamed up with her friend and fellow teacher Marge Curtis, and it was this collaboration that truly allowed their creative teaching to flourish. In 1984, they were honored together for the Teacher of the Year Award.
Madge’s greatest individual offering as a teacher was probably her loving dedication to children who had difficulty with reading. She worked with them until they were confident readers. Her tutoring at times extended even into her summers, when a parent would ask for her reading help for their child. And after leaving her home in Helper in 2006 and moving into an independent living retirement community, Fairwinds, in Idaho Falls, ID, she again offered her tutoring for reading to first grade students in the classroom of her daughter Joan Tomsic-Bell.
She believed in helping the poor and the sick, and cared deeply about all oppressed peoples. The history of the sufferings of local workers, and the causes of the unions, fueled her dedication after her retirement in 1988 to help educate and tell their stories throughout her seventeen years as volunteer curator at the Western Mining and Railroad Museum in Helper. In addition, she also produced a walking tour brochure, A Tour of Historic Helper Main Street.
She received numerous acknowledgements during her service there. In 1998, the Helper Projects Committee honored her for lifetime service to the community during the Helper Electric Light Parade for her years as an elementary school teacher, an active member of her Catholic Church choir, and her volunteer work donated to the Western Mining and Railroad Museum. In 2003, the museum and Madge personally received the coveted Public History Award from the Utah State Historical Society “for being an important force in collecting, researching, preserving, and sharing eastern Utah’s rich and diverse history.”
In her personal life she read historical novels; traveled; loved opera, ballet, the symphony, and fine art.
For thirty-five years Madge served St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Parish in Helper as Choir Director and Organist for each second Sunday Mass, selecting hymns that complemented the readings. Helping to provide the music for many funerals of friends, relatives, and neighbors was especially meaningful to her. For this service to her church she was honored at the 2004 Woman of the Year Banquet by the Salt Lake Council of Catholic Women, representing St. Anthony Parish.
Prayer and meditation were an important part of her day. The list of people she prayed for increased with her years, deepening her time with God. She prayed most fervently for her children and grandchildren, and always encouraged each of us to pray for her as well. In Idaho Falls, she also seriously dedicated herself to listening to the Bible being read. Jesus Christ was her Savior, and the depth of her trust in Him and her humility in her suffering became most apparent to those around her in the months leading up to her death.
Everything throughout her life connected to each other like beautiful threads woven together by her spirit. She wrote in her poem in 2005, “I am sure I will wake up on the other side with as much feeling of excitement as in my childhood years.”
Madge left her own words to the people of Carbon County, “I adored the multi-ethnicity. The people were the most interesting, the kindest, and most hospitable people I have ever met. It was a wonderful place to raise children and to teach children. I am so grateful for the gift of my life in Carbon County. I love you all.”
Survived by her four children: Lori Jean Tomsic, Cape Elizabeth, ME; Rory Kim (Irene) Tomsic, Mesquite, NV; Joan Sherice Tomsic-Bell, Ammon, ID; Becky Ellen Tomsic, Jackson, WY; by her two granddaughters: Trinity Dawn Tomsic (Cheye Calvo), San Jose, CA; Josephine Isabella Powell, Price, UT; and by her siblings: Weston Gibb Henrie, North Logan, UT; Edna “Teddy” Henrie (Richard) Brinkworth, Elizabeth, CO; Freda Henrie (Phil Rees) Harris, Salt Lake City, UT; Steven Lyle (Donna McCully) Henrie, Kannapolis, NC; Ann Henrie (William O. “Bill”) Venn, Bellevue, WA; Jane Henrie (Harold B.) Hess, Farr West, UT.
Preceded in death by her husband, Eugene Louis Tomsic; her parents; stepmother, Phoebe Hall Henrie; and her siblings Flora Deaun Henrie Hall; Radcliffe Winn Henrie; Helen Henrie; Jayna Monette Henrie Holmes; Shirle Mae Henrie Davis; and Ruth Henrie Buttars.
Memorial Mass will be Friday, June 23, 2017, 11:00 a.m., at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Helper where the family will receive friends one hour prior to the Mass. Committal service, Mt. View Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Mitchell Funeral Home where friends are always welcome daily and may share memories of Madge online at www.mitchellfunerahome.net
Thank you to the doctors, nurses, wound care specialists, home health and hospice, and the staff and her friends at Fairwinds for the excellent and loving care of our mother and grandmother in both Idaho Falls, ID, and Mesquite, NV.
Memorial donations can be made to the Western Mining & Railroad Museum, Helper, UT, (435) 472-3009.