Obituary – Luci But

On the morning of January 1936 a little beautiful brown eyed girl was born in Jac village to Maria and Ioan Taloș. Her parents named her Lucretia.

Around the tender age of 3 while swinging on the little gate an older man with tears in his eyes approached her and offered her a cumin cake. In her heart he always was a beacon of love for God, family and country. A hero who was always at his post.

An unforgettable memory was when her grandmother begged her father “Ioan, you now have four daughters: Milica, Lenuța and Raveica. Let me have Lucretia in my old days.” And that is how  this young girl ended up in the Brusturi church  where at the mere age of 8 amazed the elders with her ability to memorize Scripture. Over the years the joy was amplified when on the river bank stood a young lady to be baptized.

Lucretia moved to Brașov to live with an aunt where she graduated nursing school and then continued her medical studies in Bârlad where she graduated in 1954.

While visiting her parents, she went on a mission trip to Jibou where she heard an angelic voice and a flood of light filled the air and the church. That is where before her eye she beheld a young man. “My name is Isidor But” he introduced himself awaking her from her dream.  “Lucretia” she said timidly. And in that moment Christ sealed them for eternity.Because Isidor’s oldest sister was also named Lucretia, he suggested she changes her name to Luci, and that’s how it was from then on.

A year into their marriage, while expecting their first child, Luci worked as nurse at the Sarmașag coal mine when suddenly a group of panicked workers took her to one of the miners whose arm was ripped from the shoulder by a conveyor band. The Lord took her trembling hand and placed it directly on the main artery stopping the bleeding. The doctors told the young miner: “Don’t you ever forget. This nurse saved your life.”

After Luci moved to Arad, at the Sega medical office, she was assigned to house calls in a not-so-desirable neighborhood. A place with no electricity, unpaved roads, potholes full of mud, drunks, vagabonds and many who didn’t know God. But she lovingly took care of them for 24 years and that is how she become the beloved “Ms. Dottor Luci.”

In the spring of 1985 together with her husband Isidor, their oldest son Dorel, their second son Marius and their daughter Claudia she immigrated to the United States and settled in Atlanta, Georgia. This is where she had the joy and blessing to see her children get married, move into their own homes an give her beautiful grand children: Gabrielle, Johny, Robert, Renee, Alex-Isidor, Michelle, Ashley, Joey along with the son and daughters in law: Joe, Cristina and Ramona. Each one holding a special place in her heart.

In January 1966, while sitting in the church parking lot, Isidor had a massive heart attack temporarily leaving a great void and pain in her heart. A few years later someone asked her if she ever thought about remarrying – preferably some millionaire who could save her from the proverbial rat race. But in a serious tone she answered “I am going to stay pure until I meet my Jesus and the love of my youth.”

In 2016 God allowed Luci to go through a difficult trial, lung cancer, which slowly weakened her strength due to the chemotherapy treatments. But her joy was renewed with each great-grandbaby’s birth: Noah, TJ, Evelyn and Wesley. Because He who allows the pain also brings the  comfort and balm, “my energizer bunny (Buni, Buna) had a near complete healing and restoration from the illness which devastated her body.