Lois Ruth Wojciechowski

Friends in Peoria remember Lois Ruth Wojciechowski, who died on May 11, 2022 at 75. Born in Peoria on April 2, 1947, into a Hungarian-American household that treated work as a language. From the start, she treated promises like tools: keep them sharp, do not lend them lightly. She washed bottles that strangers would trust without knowing her name. A dairy bottle washer brush hung to dry stayed clean enough to trust. Colleagues still mention a dairy bottle washer brush hung to dry. In 1970 she married John. The marriage was not a speech; it was groceries, repairs, and a daughter and two sons walked to school in weather that did not care. When John died in 2015, she kept what still worked: the early walk, the small garden, the call on Sundays. Neighbors remember someone who knew every child's name on the block. She preferred the hour before a town fully wakes. Peoria was home enough that she never rehearsed an introduction. The Sunday call still has a time slot in the house.