Peter John Dielschneider

It’s a bit difficult to put into words the life of someone who lived such a full life.

Peter John Dielschneider was born December 20,1951. He was the youngest of 6 children and was raised on a farm in Cahterintal colony, just a few miles from Kronau, Sk.

In his early teens Peter and his only brother Ron began a Dairy farm, which at the time was one of the most modern parlour style dairies in the province. They put in long days, beginning at 5 am and ending late into the evenings. Peter might have been small in stature, but what he may have lacked in size, he more than made up for with ambition and talent. In his younger years Peter was an avid horseman, raising, riding, showing and competing with his beautiful quarter horses all over Saskatchewan. He also raised and showed Great Dane dogs.

Peter met his future wife in 1969 when he was just 18 and she was 16. They were married April 29, 1972 and together raised 3 beautiful children. In 1975 Peter decided farming was not for him, so he sold his share of the dairy to his brother and went to work in Regina. His first job was at Sears Warehouse, being a material handler. He later went to work for Federated Co-op Warehouse and worked there for 13 years until it closed. In 1979, Peter and his family moved into Kronau.

One day Peter was visiting a friend in Regina, whose children danced with the Austrian Edelweiss Dancers. Peter thought this looked like it could be a lot of fun and came home asking who wanted to go with him the following Tuesday night to see what more they could find out about this organization. By the time he came home, he and the 3 children had joined, and his wife joined a few weeks later… that turned into one of the best things they could ever have done. They formed lifetime friendships and got to travel to many beautiful places to perform such as Kimberly BC, Winnipeg (Folklorama), and their favourite Disneyland, California. Peter was so proud of his German/Austrian heritage and also of the fact he was able to spend all of this time with his wife and children performing together as a family for over 15 years.

Peter truly lived by the motto “Go Big or Go Home”, so no matter what he did, he gave it 110%. There was no in between for him. In June of 1988 they moved to Regina, after 13 years of working at Federated coop the warehouse closed down in 1993 and Peter decided to fulfill his dream of opening a flower shop and found a commercial space on College Avenue, and July of 1994, The Flower Hut was born. Peter put his heart and soul into that business. He worked long hours every day either by himself, or with the help of their youngest daughter who was still in school. Peter was gifted in being artistic and creative. Shortly after the Flower Hut opened, there was a floral competition put on by one of the suppliers in Winnipeg, MB. Peter figured he needed to find out how his arrangements compared to those of other shops as he had no formal training. So he decided he would enter this competition. Not only did he find out how good he was, but he also won the competition, becoming Regina’s first Award Winning designer…a title he was very proud of.

From the first $5 sale Peter made in his shop (which he had framed), The Flower Hut grew into a thriving well renowned and successful business. He eventually sold the business to his niece, who still operates it today, and it is still very successful. Another example of Peters ambition was one day, when he was at home and his wife was at work, he called her to say he had just signed up to ride in The MS Bike tour which was a total of 150 miles over two days. She reminded him, he didn’t even own a bike and they both had a good laugh… but that didn’t stop him. A couple of days later, he went to a local bike shop, purchased a bike and began cycling every day. He rode his bike to work, cycled with friends, and just went out for enjoyment. Before long he had put on hundreds of miles. He also made it his mission to collect at least $1000 in donations for MS. And that first year he ended up collecting well over $2000 and became the Rookie of the year. Over several years, he raised Thousands of dollars for MS, and rode hundreds of miles.

After Peter sold the Flower Hut, he went to work at Alford’s Furniture in furniture Sales. Peter loved being around people and was truly interested and honest with them. His eye for colour and design were definitely an asset and he soon became one of the top salespeople to work there.

Peter’s latest venture was wood carving. He joined the Regina Carvers and Whittlers in 19– and carving soon became his passion. He could take a piece of wood and visualize something with in, and before you knew it, he would have turned that vision into a reality. He truly had an artistic eye.

Though he carved many Beautiful pieces, including different animals, Wood spirits, birds etc. the one thing that brought him the most joy was a little carved mouse, who eventually gained the name Seymore.

Seymore was born one Mosaic at the Austrian Club. Peter was doing carving demonstrations there and had carved this little mouse and placed him on his carving table. Unbeknown to him, someone took the mouse, and soon Peter started receiving messages of pictures with the mouse appearing at different pavilions, on plates of food, on top of drinks and with different people. It became such a fun thing, that Peter thought it would be great if he could keep this going. So the little mouse was given the name Seymore, because they wanted him To “See More” places. His daughter Jodi created a Facebook page called Seymore of Sk and Peter would carve more little mice and give them away to people who were going on vacations or travelling to other destinations. They in turn, would post pictures of Seymore on his adventures. Through several years, Peter carved and gave away hundreds of Seymore’s. They are all over the world, including places like, London, Australia, Cayman Islands, Greece, Austria and many many more places. If you want to see his adventures, check out his FB page.

His family is honoured to let you know that the legacy of Seymore will continue. Peter’s friends at the Regina Carvers and Whittlers, have offered to carve more Seymores, and these ones will be sold to people wanting to take him on adventures. The money raised from the sale of these Seymores will go to Peter’s family Light the Night Fundraising team and will continue for as long as we can get Seymores made.

Peter’s life was dedicated to volunteering. He spent countless hours sitting on volunteer committees and boards, such as The Austrian club board, Austrian Dancers Executive, Multicultural Council of Saskatchewan, Community Connection, Plant World, Regina Carvers & Whittlers and many many more.

He was also an active member of the Knight of Columbus, being a Past Grand Knight.

Peter’s favourite time of year was Christmas. He would spend hours decorating their home and yard for the festive Season. He also taught 100’s of Christmas floral arrangement classes in their home, and everyone who attended would leave with a beautiful arrangement.

Peter and his wife loved to travel and have been to many places like Mexico, Maritimes, Phoenix, BC, Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore, Lake Superior, and many more. Most of their travels over the past 30 years have been with their best friends Glen & Deb. Peter and Judy had finally booked the trip of their Dreams for May 2020 to spend 1 month touring Austria and Greece. Unfortunately, that trip never happened.

Peter’s cancer journey started December 24, 2019. Up to that day, he had never been seriously sick or ever in the hospital in his lifetime. That day, he thought he was having a heart attack, as he was having chest pains and shortness of breath. Once paramedics arrived, they ruled out a heart attack, but said he seemed quite anemic, but because of the holidays, we were probably better off to wait a few days to get things checked out unless things got worse. On Dec 26th Peter hardly had the energy to get dressed. His wife took him to the emergency, where they ran some tests and found his blood and platelets were extremely low. He was given transfusions of each, and was sent to a blood specialist, and from there to an oncologist who performed a bone marrow biopsy, confirming that Peter had Acute My Leukemia.

Talk about a shock… everything moved along so quickly, there wasn’t much time to stop and think.

Peter was booked into Regina General Hospital for 7 days of 24/7 chemotherapy and then spent a total of 30 days there.

He was also told that he was a candidate for a bone marrow transplant in Saskatoon and that process began.

As Peter was quite a bit younger than his siblings, they were all beyond the age to be a donor for him, so the search went to the 1 match bank for a donor and it didn’t take long before they found a 100% match (the family will be forever grateful to a complete stranger that offered Peter the chance at a new life).

Peter underwent another round of chemo and another 30 days in Regina hospital and was then sent to Saskatoon for the transplant which would take place on April 30th, 2020. There he had more chemo and full body radiation.

Everything went perfectly, and although with COVID, none of the family could be there for the transplant in person, they were all able to watch it live via zoom. After another month in the hospital, Peter finally got to go to the apartment they had rented in Saskatoon. Things progressed fairly normal from there, and it looked as though all was going to turn out good. However, in September, Peter’s blood work showed some abnormalities, and a bone marrow biopsy showed the cancer had returned.

Through all the days in hospital, and the whole year of treatment, Peter never once lost hope or got discouraged. Everyday he was in the hospital, he would get up early, shower, make his bed and put on his street clothes. And he never went back to bed until the evening. He kept himself busy doing rug hooking, cross stitching, word search, riding his stationary bike and occasionally reading. He always said if you don’t look sick, you won’t feel sick… and he never did. The only side effect he ever had from all the chemo and radiation was some mouth sores, and a bit of Graft vs Host. When anyone asked him how he was doing, he would say he felt great, and almost felt guilty that he felt as good as he did, for as sick as they said he really was.

Unfortunately, In Dec, his platelets continued to decline, and his blood kept going low, and his white cells started taking over. He continued to go every other day for transfusions and then on Dec 18, 2020 when getting a blood transfusion, he spiked a fever. They thought it may be a reaction to the blood, so gave him a Tylenol and an antihistamine, and the fever went down. Two days later when he went for another transfusion the same thing happened, and this time they admitted him. He had developed a virus on his lungs. They began treatment, and all was going well until Dec 24th (exactly 1 year from his initial illness). He was on a low dose oxygen, but now he was developing more aggressive shortness of breath, so they had to put him on stronger oxygen that night. The next day, his breathing became even more laboured, so he was transferred to the ICU, and put on a ventilator. Unfortunately, on December 26th, they said the cancer was taking over and his system was shutting down, so we had the toughest decision of our life to make. However, we knew that Peter always said... he was not afraid to die, (as he had lived such a full life), he just didn’t want to have to suffer to get there. So, we knew in our hearts what he wanted, and let our Warrior go to be free from all pain.

He will forever be in our hearts and the hearts of every person he touched… and there were thousands…he always said he knew half the world… and we believe he wasn’t far off.

He will always be remembered for his strength, talents, kindness, smile and love for life.

Never take a day for granted, live life to the fullest as he did, and always stay positive no matter what life deals you. Peter you were and are an inspiration to all those who knew and loved you. You will never be forgotten.