Celebrating the Life of Frances Sivak

Frances Sivak - an Activist Patriot November 28, 1938 – October 29, 2006

Though many in this area knew and appreciated Frances, she was so modest and self-effacing, most people had no idea of how much she had done and what motivated her life-long devotion to social justice. She was raised with a love of God and Country, but decided early in life that the way to put those values to work was to dedicate her life to others.
Frances grew up in a small town in Michigan . It was when her 8th grade teacher taught her about the Japanese American World War internment that she first realized that the United States might do the wrong thing. She had many other occasions for recognizing and decrying the deviations from our country’s ideals, but she never lost her faith in the true American values. By high school graduation, she was even questioning the social expectations of her era. Upon hearing a newly-engaged friend thrilled because a new washing machine was paid for, she wondered, "Is that all there is to life?" At age 17 she entered a religious order and became a parochial school teacher.
In the 1960's "Vatican II" ushered in a new era for the Catholic Church, emphasizing the need to take "the option for the poor". This doctrine became her lifelong philosophy, and she found support being with others equally committed to her social vocation. She went to Chicago, worked to support herself while receiving Montessori training, and returned to found a Montessori school in one of Detroit 's poor African-American neighborhoods. While she taught pre-schoolers she also trained neighborhood residents in the Montessori method; when they were ready to run the school, she turned it over to them.
By that time, after twenty years as a sister, she joined the many others who left religious life as it again turned away from social activism. Reading in the Catholic Worker newspaper that the UFW needed a pre-school teacher for its La Paz headquarters, Frances uprooted herself and came to California. Over the next couple of years she took on a variety of roles for the Union, in La Paz and Delano . When Frances moved back to Michigan she founded the first bilingual pre-school in Detroit, then worked in Adult Education, teaching English as a second language to Chaldeans. During this time, in1989, she joined Nancy Marsh, Jason Hubbard, Carolyn Murphy, Cindy Calvert, and CSUF students in building a school in Fresno's sister city of Telpaneca, Nicaragua.
In 1996 Hugo Morales at Radio Bilingue needed a reliable person to coordinate the execution of several grants and Frances was ready to make a move. As she did wherever she worked, Frances made herself beloved. Every day she would buy pan dulce for the whole station, and later it was fruit. And, as always, she was the most organized person around. While she always disclaimed any other virtue, even she admitted that she was organized.

Now for Frances there was no difference between life and work, so retirement was just a word for moving to the next job. For the next two years she taught English as a second language to parents of pre-schoolers, first in Kerman and then in Sanger. Again, for her there was no distinction between her job and her "free" time. For example, when one of her students was having trouble passing the math section of the GED she tutored her in the needed skills and then went to the family party to celebrate the woman's success.
In the ten years she lived here Frances quickly became a worker in the political scene, supporting immigrant rights, working with the Democratic Party on building a strong precinct system for Fresno (she was born in Chicago, after all), and participating in the anti-war efforts. But it was only in the fight for a Living Wage Ordinance for the City of Fresno that she took a leadership role.
The Living Wage Campaign exemplified her values and approach. She truly cared about working people, and hated the injustice of a system where people toiled day-in-day-out and still lived in poverty. She was not waiting for a revolution, but looking for a practical means to advance the idea of a more egalitarian society. Gentle but dogged persistence was her style. But with the deaths of both Frances and Larry Trullinger, (the other primary leader of the campaign), there is a big void to fill.
Frances loved American history and read greatly about the Enlightenment, Jefferson, and Revolutionary war history. She knew that her country often betrayed its values, but she still believed that it is every citizen’s duty to work for equality in all spheres of American life, including the economic one. She carried an American flag to demonstrations because she saw no reason to let reactionaries co-opt this symbol. But she also had a UFW flag and a Cuban flag, because being a patriot also meant working for the oppressed everywhere.