Obituary of Irene A Zajac

Irene Zajac at age 100 Irene (Johnson) Zajac, of Dudley died Monday at Harrington Hospital from Natural causes. She was born on December 14, 1919, in the wake of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and left this world 100 years later in the wake of the Covid 19 Pandemic. She was predeceased by a husband, Charles Zajac in 2005 (age 95) and a daughter, Linda Zajac Marin in 2009 (age 58). She leaves behind a brother, Peter Johnson of Brookfield, a son, Jeffrey Zajac of Dudley and beloved nieces, Deborah Chabot of Mansfield, CT and Marlene Piehler of Dudley. She spent nearly a decade as Acquisitions Librarian at Nichols College in the 1980's, but her great passion was natural health and healing through proper nutrition. She was an avid reader with an extensive library of books on alternative medicine and healing. She became close friends with the late Adelle Davis, a pioneering nutritionist, lecturer and author of a number of books still referenced today in the field of nutrition. Having been born prematurely and being a sickly child she contracted Rheumatic Fever at the age of 8 years. Having overheard the doctor tell her mother: “This child will not see 12 years old” she was determined to get as healthy as possible and learned as much about health as she could. Her maternal grandmother was a midwife and herbalist from Europe and with her help and reading what little was available regarding nutrition she managed to regain health. She opted for organic foods whenever possible and maintained a strict supplementation regimen The doctor told her in her early 30's that she would never see age 40 owing to her damaged heart valve as a result of the Rheumatic Fever. Finally at age 80 in June of 2000, she had an Aortic Valve replacement at the Cleveland Clinic and told that owing to her age she should expect 10 good years from the valve which would bring her to 90, as none of them assumed that she would actually reach that age. Twenty years later she passed away. What she had that amazed all of her doctors was amazing resilience. Her favorite saying was; “Your health is your wealth”. She is a lady who defied all of the odds for over 100 years before peacefully slipping away only a few month short of her 101st birthday. Services and burial are private.