Dafina Vlaucin Rankov

Dafina Vlaučin Rankov (March 1932 – March 2025)

Dafina Vlaučin Rankov was born in what was then former Yugoslavia, now the northern Serbian region of Vojvodina. She was the firstborn child of Milica Dragan Vlaučin and Bogdan Vlaučin. When Dafina was just six years old, her father passed away, leaving her young mother, Milica, pregnant with her brother Alexander, and caring for two young daughters, Dafina and her younger sister Olgica. After Alexander was born, the family fell victim to the hardships that precluded World War II. They lost their homestead and land, but they did what they could to survive.

Before Dafina became a teenager, she began learning sewing and tailoring as an apprentice in a local shop. This skill helped support her family, and over the years, she became a skilled tailor, a craft she continued practicing and loving well into her late 80s.

In 1960, Dafina met Peter Rankov, and they married shortly after. The couple settled in Novi Sad, near Peter’s family. In the mid-1960s, Dafina became a mother to two girls, Jana and Nadia. She loved sewing matching outfits for herself and her daughters, saving the best ones for special occasions, like the weekly church services, where she sang in the choir while Peter accompanied her with his guitar.

In the late 1960s, the young family relocated to Bissingen, just north of Stuttgart, Germany, for Peter’s career. After a time, when Peter’s parents fell ill, they returned to care for them. This living arrangement proved challenging, and eventually, Dafina and her daughters moved in with her sister Olga and her family in Glendale, California.

In California, Dafina and her daughters settled into their new life. She continued to practice her craft in various projects wherever her tailoring and pattern-making skills were needed. After her daughters graduated high school, Jana moved to Omaha, Nebraska, to attend the University of Nebraska, and Nadia married and moved to Oregon. Dafina kept busy working, caring for her aging mother, and participating in church activities. She loved her weekly choir practices and singing at church and Sabbath school. She volunteered at both the Glendale Vallejo Adventist Church and the Yugoslavian Adventist Church in San Pedro, California, where her mother Milica lived.

In 1994, with the birth of Nadia’s firstborn, Ethan Adams, Dafina earned the beloved title of Baka, the Yugoslav term for grandmother. Soon, she welcomed more grandchildren: Maia, Sage, and then Payton Wheatley, born in 1999. In 2002, Dafina relocated to Omaha, Nebraska, temporarily, to be closer to her growing family and to enjoy the birth of her granddaughter MacKenzie. Her family expanded further with the birth of her sixth grandchild, Jackson, in 2005.

Over the years, Dafina split her time between California, Oregon, and Nebraska, continuing to serve and engage with her church community. In 2019, at the age of 87, Omaha became her permanent home.

We are forever grateful for the lessons, experiences, and memories Dafina gave us. Her work ethic, perseverance, faith, and grit shaped not only her life but also ours. Through happy times and difficult ones, Dafina lived life to the fullest, and her legacy will live on in our hearts as long as we live.

As she always said to those she loved most: “Volem te srce moje,” which means, “I love you, my heart!”

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Memorial service, this Saturday, March 15 at 2:30 PM at Omaha Memorial SDA Christian Church, 840 N. 72nd St., Omaha, NE 68114.

Memorials to family or Omaha Memorial SDA Christian Church.

Preceded in death by: Her parents, Milica Dragan Vlaučin and Bogdan Vlaučin; brother Alexander Vlaučin; younger sister Olga Martinov; and daughter Nadia Adams.

Survived by:  Her daughter, Jana Wheatley Renault, and Jana’s husband, Pascal Renault, and their children Payton, MacKenzie, and Jackson Wheatley of Omaha, Nebraska, and Ethan Renault of Helena, Montana, and Laurine Renault of Paris, France. Nadia’s children, Ethan and wife Rachelle Adams, Maja Adams of Newburg, Oregon, and Sage Adams residing in Bellevue, Nebraska, along with family and friends across the United States, Serbia, Slovenia, Germany, Sweden, France, and Australia.