Hanover, NH - Olena Ivanovna Kalayda passed away on January 26, 2025 at DHMC in Lebanon, NH. She was born on December 18, 1937 to Lubov Kamen and Ivan Kostuchenko in Kyiv, Ukraine (then part of the USSR).

Olena spent most of her childhood in Kyiv, apart from 3 years living in Kazakhstan as part of civilian evacuations during the height of World War II. Her father perished defending Kyiv against German occupation in 1941, leaving her mother to raise two children on her own.

A brilliant student, Olena graduated with a Mathematics degree from Kyiv State University and started to work there in a brand-new field at the time: computer programming. There she met her husband, Aleksey, and they married in 1960 and had their daughter, Irina, the following year. Olena then worked for over 30 years at the Electronmash state company, creating programs for the first generation of Ukrainian computers. She became the head of an operational systems laboratory and loved the intellectual challenges her work provided. Outside of work she took care of her family. She enjoyed playing chess, music, and singing, performing in Ukrainian folk music choirs. She loved to spend her vacations by the sea.

In her retirement years she moved to the U.S. and dedicated herself to caring for and tutoring her grandchildren in Hanover. She liked to attend their soccer games, piano and ballet recitals. She took great pride in whatever she did, whether that was cooking traditional Ukrainian food or teaching herself how to garden, growing vegetables and flowers. Her constant desire to learn extended to trying new recipes and learning English in her later years. To all who knew her she was a kind and life-loving person, and an ever-patient teacher.

Olena is predeceased by her parents, Ivan and Lubov, and her older brother Yulian. She is survived and remembered by: Aleksey (husband); Irina (daughter); Oleg (son-in-law); Natasha, Andrei, and Lena (grandchildren); Rowan (great-grandchild); and other extended family members and friends.

A memorial service will take place at Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Claremont, NH on Wednesday January 29th beginning at 11:00am