Monika Maria Aylward, 84, passed away at her home in Christiansburg, Virginia, on Sunday, May 24, 2026. She was the second of ten children born to Johannes and Hildegard (Witek) Schmidt, whose family owned and operated Schmidt Kistenfabrik, a major crate factory on the Oder River in Stettin, Germany.

Born October 3, 1941, she was raised in a house built by her father on Lister Weg. Narrowly evading capture when the Eastern Front arrived on her doorstep in March 1945, she fled with her family on one of the last trains heading west, and then miraculously survived the Allied bombing of Berlin. Having lost everything to the War, Monika and her family spent the next seven years as refugees in West Germany. They lived first in Scharbeutz, then Wevelinghoven, and finally Rhede (Emsland) in Lower Saxony, where they lived in a Quonset hut while her father found work building a school for boys orphaned by the War. As refugees from Pomerania suffering loss of identity and impoverishment in West Germany, Monika and her family, now with seven children, left for a new life in the USA in May 1952 under the auspices of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. They settled in Dublin, OH, where Monika helped her father build a house for their family on Summitview Rd. She became a US citizen on November 17, 1958.

Monika attended boarding school for girls at St. Francis Academy in Joliet, Illinois, and remained in Joliet to earn a liberal arts degree with a focus on art, botany, and teaching while advancing to Postulancy in Catholic formation at the College of St. Francis in the early 1960s. Back in Ohio, Monika became a teacher at St. Cecilia School in Columbus, where Helen (Aylward) Mulligan, who became one of her dearest spiritual friends, introduced her to her brother, Thomas Aylward. Monika married Tom at the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Worthington, Ohio, in 1965 and remained in loving matrimony for 48 years until his death in 2014.

With her husband, Monika began raising a family in Michigan. As they moved to Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and ultimately Arizona (with interludes in British Columbia, Canada, and Santa Fe, New Mexico), their family grew to include six children. In Arizona, Monika’s German heritage became the inspiration and culinary foundation behind a string of acclaimed bakeries, canneries and restaurants she owned and operated with her family: Monika’s Home Bakery in Tucson, Arizona; The Ovens of Patagonia, in Patagonia, Arizona; Monika’s Bakery on Gabriola Island in British Columbia, Canada; and the Grasslands Café and Monika’s Home Bakery in Sonoita, Arizona. After the death of her husband in 2014, Monika retired to Tucson, Arizona, and then to Christiansburg, Virginia.

Beyond her culinary expertise, Monika was a consummate calligrapher, clothing designer, and artist. A lover and practitioner of collage, fabric art, music, poetry, and language, she instilled a passion for culture in her children and friends. Monika was also an accomplished runner and gardener. She revered the outdoors and cherished long hikes in the wilderness with her family. Monika was a deeply spiritual person who valued prayer and never ceased to encourage peace and empathy to those around her.

Monika was preceded in death by her husband Thomas Aylward, her brothers Michael Schmidt and Thomas Schmidt, and her sister Barbara Bohland. She is survived by her sisters Maria Spiess, Felicitas Erdmann, and Theresa Franklin, her brothers John Schmidt, Bernard Schmidt, and Christopher Schmidt, and by her children Clare Aylward, William Aylward and his wife Juliet and their children Sebastian, Damian, Zenon, and Ginevra, Roberta Aylward and her husband Greg Newland and their son Luke, Eric Aylward and his wife Christine Korger, John Aylward and his wife Kate Soper and their daughter Robin, and Frank Aylward and his wife Leah Okraszewski and their children Viola and Oscar.

Services will be private.

The Aylward family is in the care of Mullins Funeral Home & Crematory in Radford, Virginia.