Irene Petrie (December 12, 1923-January 4, 2024) was born in Brooklyn, NY, to Michael and Katherine Szypot, Ukrainian immigrants from Halychyna, and was one of 10 siblings and half-siblings who survived to adulthood. She moved with her family to Brentwood, Long Island, in 1934 and attended school in Brentwood and graduated from Central Islip High School in 1941. She went to work as a bookkeeper for Republic Aviation, and later worked for Martin’s apparel stores and then was a long-time bookkeeper for the dental practice of Drs. Gaines and Chaitovitz in Brentwood, retiring in 1991. She met and fell in love with Rodion Iwanczuk, a recent Ukrainian Displaced Person at a Holy Family Ukrainian Catholic Church picnic in 1950 and they married the same year. Daughter Daria was born in 1951 and son Rodion Jr. in 1957. Following Rodion Srs. Sudden passing in 1974, she later was married to Kenneth Petrie. Irene loved to travel, with family vacations by car each summer and then longer trips to Hawaii, San Francisco, Las Vegas, the Holy Land, and Alaska. She also loved spending time in her garden in Brentwood on a half-acre parcel subdivided from the land her parents purchased in 1934. She later lived at Leisure Village in Ridge, NY, winters with her sisters Mary and Julia in Sarasota, FL, and then with her daughter Daria in West Virginia, and the past several years at an Assisted Living in Winchester, VA.

The two constants in Irene’s life were family and her Ukrainian Catholic faith. She did all that she could to help her sisters, brothers, and children, and remained close to all of them, and at different times took in Mary and Julia to live with her due to various circumstances. She became a parishioner at Holy Family Ukrainian Catholic Church upon the parish’s founding in 1948, and worked often at different parish events such as picnics and yard sales. She loved the color purple, and always had a cheerful disposition, even when circumstances were less than ideal, something that she instilled in her children. She was blessed to live a long and happy life, and her passing is felt deeply by her children and other family and friends.