Walter Stanley Lysik of Smithfield and Narragansett, RI, passed away on Thursday, December 29th, a month shy of his 85th birthday. Born to Polish immigrants in the small village of Pouru St. Remy, France on the eve of World War II, Walter spent his childhood traversing the French countryside with his brother and mother, Sophie, a domestic worker. Following her early death in 1947, Walter and his brother, Richard, immigrated to Providence, RI, where they lived with their great-uncle and grandfather, respectively. After a brief period studying machine design at RISD, Walter attended a dance at Rhode Island College with his best friend, Eddie, where he met the love of his life. Barbara Pugliese and Walter were married in 1964, and have spent every moment together since.
While Walter was always a quiet man, his rational exterior masked a well of deep love and devotion to his family, traits he passed along to his three sons and five grandchildren. Throughout his life, he exhibited a hunger for knowledge, beginning in his early years when he would hide out in his great-aunt’s garage past bedtime to read Shakespeare and Chaucer. Eventually, this pursuit evolved into a passion for traveling, as he and his wife toured the world alongside their dear friends Kathy & Donald McKiernan, Ed & Peg Day, and Mary Lou & Bob Reilly. In his free time, Walter loved to garden, a skill he likely picked up while living at the Villevassol estate in Buzançais, France as a boy, and took care of his vegetable garden and lawn well into his seventies. In everything he did, Walter marched to the beat of his own drum, and believed firmly in the idea that all people “should have the right to determine their own fate.”
In addition to his wife, Walter is survived by his sons Jon and his wife Amy, of North Kingstown, RI, David and his wife Jennifer of Scituate, RI, and Richard of Block Island, RI; and five grandchildren, Katie Blythe and her husband Tanner of Coventry, RI, Christopher Lysik of Iowa City, IA, Ella Lysik of Block Island, and Judah and Vivienne Lysik of Scituate. A life-long Catholic, Walter went to rest knowing he would soon be reunited with his mother, brother, Richard Lysik and daughter-in-law Martha Lysik.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held in St. Philip Church, 622 Putnam Pike, Greenville, RI 02828 on Thursday, January 5th at 10am. Burial in St. Ann’s Cemetery, Cranston. Visitation respectfully omitted. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Greenville Public Library, 573 Putnam Pike, Greenville, RI 02828.