• Burial will take place at Forest Hill Memorial Park (3301 E. Forest Hill Ave, Oak Creek Wi).

Predrag Deronja

Predrag (meaning “very dear”, nicknamed Pedja) Osman Deronja passed away unexpectedly on 2025 Thanksgiving Day. He was born in the city of Mostar in Bosnia & Herzegovina, the youngest son of Dr. Osman and Kimeta (nee Osmanagic) Deronja. His father graduated from Vienna University in Austria with a degree in medicine and was a doctor.

After completing his elementary and secondary education in the Mostar gymnasium, young Predrag enrolled in a middle technical school in the city of Kragujevac in Serbia. Following graduation, he returned home to Mostar and worked as a mechanical technician. He was also a Yugoslavian Navy reserve officer.

Always easy-going and ready for new adventures, Predrag enrolled in Sarajevo University to study mechanical engineering. After graduating, he worked briefly in Sarajevo but later decided to go to the United States, first coming to Austria and then landing and settling initially in New Jersey.

Predrag was an exceptional mechanical engineer, working around the country at many nuclear power plants. He was very talented and once developed a design for a breeder nuclear reactor that would save tens of millions of dollars. Additionally, he had truly golden hands. He loved woodworking and was exceptionally good at it. He could build furniture, kitchen and bathroom cabinets, molding, jewelry, and many other things.  He designed his own house and built its foundation and basement walls by himself.

Predrag was very artistic and romantic, loved classical music, waltzes, and country dancing, played guitar, and loved beautiful melodious songs from his homeland known as “sevdalinka”.

Predrag was quite young when he lost his parents, but he endlessly loved and remembered them all his life. He was very soulful, with a very warm charming smile, always cheerful and optimistic, loved to be around people, and was exceptionally friendly, often joking, and very pleasant.

Predrag was preceded in death by his beloved parents, Dr. Osman and Kimeta Deronja, his dear son, Adrian Henry Deronja, a post-September 11 firefighter in New York City, his dear older brother, Chaslav Deronja, and brother’s wife, Emira, his nephew, Vedran Deronja, and his first wife, Kathleen (nee Henry).

Predrag is survived by his loving wife of 25 happiest years, Alla (nee Tylman), his beloved daughter, Leah Esther, his nieces, Kimeta Ljeljak of Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Svjetlana Bricic of Zebulon, North Carolina, and their families, brother-in-law, Roman Y. Tylman, and his family, and in-laws.

Farewell, my dearest, most beloved, and most precious Predrag! I will sorely miss you as long as I live, but I hope so much and cannot wait to meet you in Heaven in God’s glory and spend eternity with you in the presence of the Lord.