Ligonier woman managed cafeteria, ran ceramics shop

Nancy Vucina loved to sew clothing and make rosary beads for Catholic missionaries.

“She made hundreds of rosaries for charity” using a kit containing beads, wire and pliers, said her daughter, Anna Stufft of Ligonier.

Mrs. Vucina would go to Saint Vincent College and give the nuns her homemade lye soap and hospital gowns for the missionaries, Stufft said.

“She would send them overseas to Africa and different countries,” said her daughter, Sharon V. Seidel of Johnstown.

Nancy Marie Vucina of Ligonier Township died Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020, at Ligonier Gardens. She was 88.

She was born Oct. 10, 1931, in Fort Palmer, Fairfield Township, the daughter of the late Elmer D. and Mary A. McMaster Shaulis.

Mrs. Vucina married her husband, John Vucina, in October 1948, and they lived in the Waterford section of the township. A World War II veteran, he died Nov. 19, 2019.

When her three daughters and son were young, she worked at the former Holy Trinity Catholic School in Ligonier as manager of the cafeteria, Stufft said.

She was a member of Holy Trinity Catholic Church and a past member of the Rosary Altar Society and prayer shawl group. The women made prayer shawls for those who were sick and delivered them.

Mrs. Vucina operated a business, Nancy’s Ceramics, from her home for 32 years. Customers would paint the ceramics, and she had a kiln where the piece would be fired, Stufft said.

When she “retired,” she went to work cooking in the Little Shop, a gift shop in the former Latrobe Area Hospital, Seidel said.

Mrs. Vucina and her husband loved to listen to polka music and loved to dance, Stufft said. She taught her daughters and neighborhood children how to sew.

She loved to garden and had flower gardens throughout her yard, making mowing the lawn a challenge, Stufft said. Seidel said her mother had the talent “to nurse sick flowers back to health.”

Mrs. Vucina is survived by three daughters, Anna Stufft, Sharon V. Seidel and Frances L. Gamble of Ligonier; a brother; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Friends will be received from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Snyder Funeral Home, 402 E. Church St., Ligonier. A blessing service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in the funeral home with the Rev. Anthony J. Carbone as celebrant. Interment will follow in Menoher Memorial Park.

Memorial donations may be made to a charity of one’s choice.