Obituary of Jovan Vignjevic

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Jovan (John) Vignjevic who left us peacefully in the late evening of July 17, 2025, in his 93rd year.  Jovan leaves behind his wife of 59 years, Elizabeth, and his son Peter (John). The family would like to thank Jovan’s best friend, Boro Vukelich for his unwavering friendship and daily visits to provide Jovan with emotional support and companionship.  Jovan will be dearly missed by his nephew Rade Divic and niece Radmila Basara (Peter) and great niece Rebecca and great nephew Benjamin, as well as extended family in Canada, Serbia, Croatia, The United States and Germany.  Jovan is predeceased by his mother, Ruzica (nee Lalic) and father Bozidar Vignjevic, his brothers Mile, Petar (Christina), Simo (Ljuba) Nikola, and Ignjatije, his sister Milka Busic (Dusan) and his first cousin Ljuba Divic (Stojan), who was more like a sister to him.  

Jovan was born in the village of Ponikve in the region of Gorski Kotar on May 3, 1932.  Realizing that he needed to seek out other opportunities, on the evening of September 13, 1956, he and his best friend, also named Jovo (Joe) Vignjevic took the train to Jasenice in Slovenia.  He and his friend missed their stop and had to sleep over the night in the train car.  The next day they continued their journey, leaving the train before the last stop, where they knew that authorities were frequently waiting to catch people who were trying to cross the border.  After four days of climbing through bushes and up and down mountains, they escaped across the border, arriving in Austria on September 16, 1956.  They turned themselves into the local authorities and were then transferred to a refugee camp in Klagenfurt, where he stayed for six months. In 1957, he left for Canada on the steamship “The New Yorker”, departing from Bremerhaven, Germany to Halifax, arriving at Pier 21 on March 17, 1957, and then on a train to Windsor, Ontario where he went to live with his brother Petar.  One of his first jobs was picking raspberries for 2 cents a pint and the other was weeding and hoeing rows of sugar beets that he said seemed to stretch forever into the horizon.  He married Elizabeth Kulmatycky on September 4, 1965.  They eventually moved to Strathroy, Ontario, where he worked for Pittsburgh Plate and Glass assembling aluminum doors and windows and then to Hamilton in 1971.   He continued to work for PPG until the early 1980s, when PPG closed their Hamilton location.  Luckily, Boro Vukelich was able to get him a job at Wentworth Mould and Die – first as a cleaner and then as a polisher.  He enjoyed the comradery at Wentworth Mould and Die with his fellow workers, many of whom were from the Balkans, and he always enjoyed joking around with them.   He enjoyed playing bocce ball with his friends on the lawn at Sir Isaac Brock School, tending his garden and fruit trees at home and at his hobby farm in Beamsville, and having coffee with his friends at Tim Hortons and McDonalds on Queenston Road, where they would discuss events of the day, this year’s plum crop and other important topics.   He enjoyed working out at Goodlife Fitness and went to work out religiously every other day.  At one point he was their oldest active member at the age of 92.  He continued to go to the gym until November 2024 when his health no longer enabled him to enjoy working out.  He enjoyed travelling and was always open to seeing new places and joined his son Peter on trips to Austria, The Caribbean, St. Petersburg, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia. He had hoped to be able to go see his birthplace one last time this spring, but fate had other ideas.  

The Funeral Service will be held at St. Nicholas Serbian Orthodox Cathedral, 149 Nash Road South, Hamilton, on Monday July 21st, at 11:00 a.m. with the Very Reverend Father Dragomir Ninkovic officiating. Interment Eastlawn cemetery in Hamilton (Barton and Nash).   

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to St. Nicholas Serbian Orthodox Cathedral (Nash Road), or the Heart and Stroke Foundation.