Catherine "Kay" Marie Skodzus

Catherine Marie Skodzus (Kay) was an amazing woman, a Force of Nature.

She was one of six children who grew up during the Great Depression, the only daughter of Albert and Catherine Tucker. Her little brother, Harry, was born in 1925 but died of pneumonia in 1928 leaving her heartbroken at age 5. She and her four older brothers Al, Dave, Jim and Walt grew up fast and poor. Her father abandoned the family in 1933, when she was 10.
Her first job was delivering bottles in brown paper sacks to the little old ladies in the neighborhood. It was Prohibition and her father was a rum runner. It gave her a little pocket money and helped her mother out. She went on to do babysitting and dog walking. In 1949 she left high school and went to work.

She got a waitress job at the Horn and Hardart Café. That lasted almost a day. The story goes that she dumped a tray on a guy, who was not a gentleman, and walked out. She never looked back.

She went on to get a job at the Philadelphia Naval Ship Yard where she was a machine operator making parts for ships and war planes after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
She met and married Eugene (Gene) D. Skodzus in 1943. He was a machinist at the Navy Yard and a poet at heart. A year after their marriage he enlisted in the army and was sent to the Front Lines to fight the Germans.

She lived with his parents on a chicken farm in Ashland, New Jersey in a sleepy little town, giving half the checks he sent her to his parents to help with the farm expenses.
She was half Irish. Her mother came over from Ireland as a teenager. Gene’s parents had both immigrated here from Lithuania as teenagers. They did not approve of her and felt she wasn’t good enough for their son making living in their home while he was at war a challenge .
She continued working at the Navy Yard while going to secretarial school and achieving Certification from Strayer’s Business Academy, then she earned a Certification in design and dressmaking from Philadelphia School for Dressmaking and Design.

Her husband returned from the war in 1947 a different person than when he left. She continued to work as a secretary at Curtis Publishing Co. She wanted her own place and a family, he wanted to remain at home with his parents. She had a miscarriage in 1948 but in 1949 her daughter Karen was born.

She and Gene built their home from the ground up by hand. She had two years, not living with her in-laws, when her father in law was diagnosed with cancer and subsequently took his life in 1955. This triggered the beginning of Gene’s alcoholic spiral. Her mother in law came to live with them until 1958 when she was sent to New York to live with her daughter Alice.
In 1960 Kay finally took her driving test and passed. She had to take it twice. I don’t think she’d ever failed a test before.

They moved to Vineland for Gene’s job. Kay worked secretarial and bookkeeping positions and took her test to get her GED. She aced it, of course. They developed a group of good friends through Genes work. They took dance lessons and became coaches. She and Karen started art lessons at the Recreation Center with her good friend Edith and her daughter Sue. This was a friendship that lasted a lifetime.

The Instructor was Eva Salier, a survivor of the Death Camps in Germany, an amazing teacher and a beautiful soul. Kay participated in juried shows on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.
Her daughter Karen married and had a son in 1969. In 1970 Gene lost his job due to his alcoholism and they moved to western Pennsylvania, Cambridge Springs.

Separated from her daughter, grandchild and all of her friends she threw herself into the new community in Cambridge Springs. Square Dancing was popular so she mastered it and explored some new avenues in the craft area. She made some very dear friends who helped her through an extremely tough time.

In 1971, a year later, Gene lost his job again and they moved to Clarion, Pennsylvania, a college town, where once again she started over. This time, at least, she was close enough to the friends she’d made in Cambridge Springs to visit and keep in touch.
She took classes and became heavily involved in the art scene and with Clarion Teachers College. Once again she rose to the challenges of reinventing Kay and her art work blossomed to include new areas of exploration.

In 1972 her daughter’s marriage self destructed and Karen and grandson John now 3 ½ came home. She jumped right in and helped her daughter get back on her feet and get into college. Things seemed to be coming together.

In 1973 Gene was transferred, this time to Indianapolis. They drove out of town on Karen’s 23rd birthday. It was time to start again.

When they reached Indianapolis she set out in search of art, which had been a savior through each transition and new friends. She became involved in her new neighborhood joining the fight against commercial rezoning. She signed up at the Indianapolis Art League for classes in sketching and water color and painting.

In 1974 her daughter and grandson came home again. This time her family would be together for all that came next. She joined Al-Anon in 1975 and Karen remarried in late August of that year. She began her journey into sculpture.

In 1983 and 1984 she took First Prize in Advance Sculpture at the Indianapolis Art League. In 1984 Gene was forced into retirement and went into the Stress Center for his alcoholism. For a short while it seemed there was hope. It didn’t last. Her mother died in 1985 followed by her favorite brother Dave and a cherished friend from Cambridge Springs Carolyn Peterson in 1987.

On Sept 12, 1990 Gene died from an alcohol related fall and for the first time in her life she was completely on her own. She went to grief counseling to help work through the complexities of her grief. She made more friends. She also began a crusade to eliminate grass from her life, adding more naturalizing plants to her yard and turning it into a sanctuary.
In 1992 she joined St Christopher’s Episcopal Church, became active in Prime Life playing cards and taking classes, bought a lap top and took computer classes. She took up scrap booking and writing and continued to work on her art. She became an expert on using Google.

In later years as her physical strength gradually decreased she returned to painting. She dated briefly but decided she didn’t get enough out of it for what she had to put into it.
She was there for friends and family always. She kept up a loving relationship with her sister in law Alice until she passed and her dear friends Charlie and Edith Porter until they too passed. She built new friendships everywhere she went. The deaths of her friends Paul and Peggy Sweeny and Jane Englert hit her hard. All the losses took their toll.

She remained as active and involved as her health permitted throughout her 70’s, 80’s and into her 90’s. She demonstrated, on more than one occasion, that Nursing Home life was not for her. She remained living in her home with the help and care of her Grandson and daughter, her Heart daughter Sue and of course Polar Bear and Benny two of our five family dogs. In this last year her caretakers were with her 24/7 an amazing group of women to whom we, the family, owe great thanks.

She said “the problem with old age is that you wind up burying all the people you love”. To the very last days of her life she continued to build new relationships, new friendships.
Her family and friends will miss her. Her world, as she put it just a few months ago, “had grown very small”. Too small to contain that indomitable will. Her Spirit is free now, her pain and fear are gone and I believe the Universe is going to have its hands full.