Petronella Cicenas (Vinicskas)

SIOUX CITY -- Petronella Cicenas, 90, formerly of Sioux City died June 19, 2010, at Meadowbrook Manor in Naperville, Ill. following a lengthy illness.
Graveside services will be 11 a.m. Wednesday in Calvary Cemetery, Sioux City, with Monsignor Roger J. Augustine of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church officiating. Mrs. Cicenas was cremated. Memorial services were held June 29 at the Catholic church in Naperville. Arrangements are under the direction of Larkin Northside Chapel, Christy-Smith Funeral Home in Sioux City. Condolences may be sent online to www.christysmith.com .
Mrs. Cicenas was born on a farm near Kalvarija, Lietuva (Lithuania) in Dec. 2, 1919, the daughter of Andrius and Marija (Dagilis) Vinicskas. She was raised in that same area and graduated from high school. She moved to Vilnius, Lithuania.
She met her husband, Jeronimas Cicenas. They were married on Dec. 26, 1940, in Lithuania. He died Oct. 21, 1987, in Sioux City. The couple left Lithuania around 1942, with nothing but basically the clothes on their backs. They immigrated to the U.S. and the Omaha area. They moved to Sioux City in the early 1960s. She moved to Naperville to live with her daughters around 2000.
Jeronimas became a victim of Parkinson's disease. That made Petronella the bread winner for the family. She worked at a pork processing plant in Omaha, then for Armour and Co. in Sioux City. She retired after working for 27 years at Armour.
She was a former member of St. Casimer's Catholic Church in Sioux City. She was a former member of St. Anthony's Lithuania Catholic Church in Omaha and a member of St. Thomas Apostle Catholic Church in Naperville. One of her proudest moments was when she became a citizen of the United States. She worked as a secretary for her husband, on five books he published in Lithuania. He was a journalist, one of his books has just been reprinted for the third time in Lithuania in the last couple of months. She was active in St. Casimer's Lithuania Catholic Church. She even protested its closing. She was also active at St. Anthony's in Omaha, being a part of the Lithuanian choir that traveled all around the United States performing.
She spoke much of her time in Sioux City, considering it to be her home like no other. She considered it the perfect place to have lived and to have raised her family.
She is survived by her daughter, Raminta (born in Lithuania) and her husband, Ashok Muzumdar of Naperville; a son, Edvydas Cicenas (born in the U.S.A.) and his wife, Krystal of Illinois; and three grandchildren, Daiva and her husband, Steve Deegan, Sunit Muzumdar and her husband, Randi, and Alexander Cicenas.
She was preceded in death by her parents; and her husband.