Obituary for Theresa Yeager (Spak)

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Life Story for Theresa Yeager (Spak)

Theresa Yeager (Spak) was born on June 22, 1922 in Akron, OH to Daniel and IRMA Spak(). She lived in the Kenmore section for most of her life, first on 7th Street, then on 13th and lastly on 11th. As a child she contacted chickenpox and had to sleep on the front porch and the house had to have a sign out front warning of the chickenpox. As a child mom and he mother and sisters had to walk from her house, across eight sets of railroad tracks to an orchard on Wilbeth Road; she loved fruit, especially apples. While living on 11thStreet, mom met her best friend, Martha Cauyak, who lived nearby and they both attended Kenmore High School as freshman. Mom and Martha had a lot of fun together and both would walk with their mothers and just laugh and play all along the walk. When Summit Beach Park first opened, her and her friends would attend fundraisers where they would dance and just have a good time.
Mom would also go to Derby Downs with her parents when it first opened. The best part about this for mom was taking a trolley car to and from Kenmore to the Downs.
Later in life Mom would watch her brother George play football for Kenmore High School at “Old Forge Field”. After the game Mom and her friends would go to the local Iselys for ice cream and a fun time.
As a teenager, during the Depression, mom worked in a store on Howard Street in Akron. Here she would sit in the front window and make flowers out of tissue paper.
Mom met her future husband, John Patrick, while all worked at the Firestone Tire Warehouse.
While dating, mom and dad (Still Theresa Spak and John Yeager at the time) took a trip to Watkins Glen and Niagara Falls. Mom said she liked the Falls, but that they weren’t what she had imagined.
Dad proposed to mom in Sand Run Park and were then married on January 18, 1947 at the rectory at St. Mary’s Church in Akron. Mom’s sister Ann was her maid of honor and dad’s brother Ed was best man. They had a small, but joyful reception at mom’s parents (grandma and grandpa Spak) house on 11th Street. The menu included cake, coffee and punch.

For a time after they were married, mom & dad, lived on the third floor in an apartment on Grand Ave in kroon. While living here mom remembers she made a meatloaf and put it in a slow cooker while they both went to work. When they got home the smell was great but the meatloaf was as hard as a rock. They had a good laugh and threw the meatloaf outside for the dog to eat, but he wouldn’t touch it either.
After the firs born, Kathleen (1947), mom became a stay at home mom. John came next (1949), then Tim (1953) and finally Tom (1955). About 10 years after Tom was born, mom went back to working outside the house. Her first job was as a clerk at Vaughn’s store on South Street. A few years later she took a job as a secretary for the first Montessori school (dad’s pet project) in the Akron area. Finally, mom ended up at the O’Neil’s Department store in downtown Akron where she stayed for the rest of her working career. In her later years while at O’Neil’s mom worked in the children’s section which was just fine with her because it was around this time that her first grand child was born and mom got the best deals on clothes for the first and most of the rest of her grand kids.