- Date Of Birth: April 1, 1928
- Date Of Death: December 26, 2017
- State: Colorado
Geraldine “Geri” Thelma (Cunningham) Skalicky, 89, passed peacefully on December 26, 2017, in Lakewood, Colorado. She was born on April 1, 1928, in Wilson, Kansas, the youngest of nine children (all of whom preceded her in death), the daughter of Daniel Presley Cunningham and Icah Forney Cunningham. Geri graduated in 1946 from Wilson High School where she was active as a drum majorette, a drum player, a writer, and even back then was noted as “having a mind of her own” which she stayed true to with great wit and humor, for her entire life. On June 16, 1947 she married her high school sweetheart, Melvyn “Mick” Ernest Skalicky to whom she was married until widowed in 1998. Geri was co-owner of The Silver Grill restaurant in Wilson. She later graduated from cosmetology school in Wichita. Following her graduation she worked as a cosmetologist for 40 years working at several salons until opening her own shop – Geri’s Beauty Salon – in Salina, Kansas. Mick and Geri lived in numerous towns throughout Kansas and for some time in Fairbanks, Alaska, in the 1950s. They settled in Salina to work and raise their daughter until they retired in the mid 1990s back to their hometown of Wilson, where Geri stayed active in her prayer circle, sewing group, and assisting at LaShiro’s Boutique (owned by her sister-in-law LaVange Shiroky). In 2006 Geri moved to Lakewood, Colorado, to live with her daughter and for the past several years has lived at Cedars Health Care Center. Geri loved to read, wear hats, tell jokes and laugh. She was a talented seamstress who made costumes for her Czech relatives as well as costumes for Denver’s professional dance company, Kim Robards Dance. There she served as the Company’s number one volunteer and loved attending their live dance concerts. Geri will be remembered as a committed wife of more than 50 years, a devoted mother; for her indomitable spirit, positive attitude, caring nature; for her wisdom, smile, ensuing laugh and unique sense of humor. She was preceded in death by her husband, Mick, and baby Mark Allen Skalicky. She is survived by her daughter LaRana Skalicky of Lakewood, Colorado and numerous loving nieces and nephews.
