Phyllis Ann Sturek

1941 - 2022

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

Phyllis Ann Sturek, a former high school teacher and occupational therapy assistant for whom service to others was foremost, died Dec. 14 in ProMedica Ebeid Hospice Residence, Sylvania. She was 81.

She had been in declining health after a stroke in 2013, her daughter Sandy Winterhalter said. Formerly of West Toledo, was a resident of Kingston of Sylvania.

Mrs. Sturek taught English and was student newspaper adviser about six years at Whitmer High School, followed by those duties for six years at Central Catholic High School, where her husband, Robert, taught and coached.

She was able to bring the material to the students' level, Mrs. Winterhalter said.

"She was very down to earth and could relate well and could give good instruction. She had been a detailed and thorough person," she said.

Mrs. Sturek left the classroom to care for her daughters at home. In the late 1990s, she returned to the classroom as a student at what is now Lourdes University, from which she received an associate degree in occupational therapy assisting in 1999.

Some classmates were decades her junior, whom she advised, "'You're going to be taking care of people like me,'" said Mrs. Winterhalter, who became a physical therapist. "She treated everybody with respect and wanted to learn."

Mrs. Sturek was chosen to be a speaker at her graduation ceremony.

"She was proud of that," Mrs. Winterhalter said.

Her daughter Corry Voll, an occupational therapist, recalled the role reversal. She'd earlier sought her mother's guidance in writing school papers, and her mother sought her assistance when working on projects at Lourdes.

"She really enjoyed helping people and serving others," Mrs. Voll said. "She felt a calling to serve people more her age or older. That's my mom. She could do just about anything she put her mind to."

Mrs. Sturek developed a rapport with her patients, typically adults in care facilities whom she helped learn a new way to bathe or dress or feed themselves. The occupational therapist's report on a patient would say which body parts worked and which were weak.

"She would go in and engineer a treatment plan that would get them to their goals," Mrs. Voll said.

"She was empathetic and sympathetic. She used her teaching skills," she said. "She wasn't teaching English or literature, but how do you do these daily activities you've done all your life, but now you've had a stroke or an injury. And you can't do them the way you used to."

She did not regard this second career as work.

"She was able to go and help people," Mrs. Winterhalter said. "She felt she had a sense of purpose.

Mrs. Sturek employed this thorough approach to her chief avocation - making elaborate themed cakes for family occasions. She baked and constructed the wedding cakes for her daughters incorporating pillars and other features, including fountains in two of the cakes.

The hobby escalated when grandchildren came along, "and whatever the grandkids wanted as far as their theme, she would find a way to make it," Mrs. Winterhalter said.

To make a cake in the shape of a push lawn mower, Mrs. Sturek first plotted it out on paper, "like a floor plan of a cake," said Mrs. Voll, whose oldest son had the request. Other cakes looked like a water slide, a John Deere tractor, Winnie the Pooh, and featured a Finding-Nemo-themed ocean scape.

She was born Feb. 26, 1941, to Julia and Theodore Wrzesinski and grew up on East Central Avenue in North Toledo. After St. Hedwig Parish school, she attended Woodward High School. She was a 1959 graduate.

She went to the University of Toledo and received a bachelor's degree in education.

"She's always been a driven person, and she described there weren't many choices for women - you were a nurse or a teacher or at home," Mrs. Winterhalter said.

She enjoyed reading, and teaching English seemed a natural fit.

"More than just her career, she was a teacher of life," Mrs. Winterhalter said. "She was gentle and kind and a good listener."

A longtime member of St. Clement Church, she served as a lector, Eucharistic minister, and parish council member.

Surviving are her husband, Robert Sturek, whom she married July 12, 1969; daughters Sandy Winterhalter, Corry Voll, and Julie Seib; sister, Carol Landin; brothers Theodore Wrzesinski and Edward Wrzesinski, and five grandchildren.

Visitation will begin at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday in St. Clement Church, where a funeral Mass will begin at 10:30 a.m. Arrangements are by Urbanski Funeral Home on Secor Road.

The family suggests tributes to St. Clement Parish.