Geraldine “Jerrie” Madge Fuller Ruks

Geraldine “Jerrie” Madge Fuller Ruks, 85, died May 30, 2013.

She was born in Chicago in Feb. 27, 1928, as the youngest of three children to Florence and Jack Burns. When she was just 6 months old, her parents divorced, but she continued to live in Chicago with her mother until she was 14. She then moved to Warren, Ohio, to live with her father.

After graduating from high school at age 17, she moved to Philadelphia, and then to Norfolk, Va., during World War II. In 1946, she visited her stepfather’s family, who lived in West Virginia. There she met Alex Fuller of West Virginia, who had recently returned from the war. After just two weeks, she married him.

Soon after their marriage, they drove from West Virginia to Alaska on the newly created Alaska Highway. They first settled in Sutton, then Palmer, where they established themselves, had a family and, according to Jerrie, where the best part of her life was spent despite the many tragedies she encountered there.

Jerrie and Alex had two sons, Richard in 1951 and Raymond in 1953, and Jerrie was a stay-at-home mom until the boys started school. She enjoyed being a mother and wife and having a family life, which was absent in her own childhood as her parents divorced so soon after her birth.

Jerrie and Alex resided in Palmer, a town she was so fond to live in, until Alex was killed in a tragic airplane accident in 1968. A few years later in 1972, Jerrie moved to Anchorage. In 1975, she married Frank Ruks and she moved to Seward. They moved to Lynnwood north of Seattle, Wash., in 1983, one year after the death of Jerrie’s son, Richard.

While married to Frank, Jerrie especially enjoyed touring in their RV. They drove all over the U.S. to visit family in the Midwest and on the East Coast, and every fall they went to Mexico to spend the winter months there and be with their close Mexican friends. Jerrie and Frank also went to Europe and to Australia, where they spent a couple of months.

In 1990, Jerrie became a widow again and she moved to Seattle, next to her son, Raymond, his wife Anni and her grandson, Erik. She resided in Seattle until she died suddenly. Despite many tragedies in Jerrie’s life, she felt she had had a good and long life. She was a remarkable and talented woman in so many ways and she was able to overcome life obstacles and challenges that she encountered. She had an amazing ability to see the positive aspects in life and always put these in front of the more negative.

Until her death, she was social and enjoyed having a good time with her family and friends, and she was active and busy with her garden, crocheting, baking, cooking and playing cards with friends and walking her small and beloved Chihuahua, Button. She also worked part-time as a bookkeeper in her son’s office, something she enjoyed and took pride in.

Throughout Jerrie’s life, she adored and loved everyone in her family and all of her friends. She was a wonderful and caring mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, aunt and friend, a rock to so many, a woman everyone could count on and a woman who gave her love to so many and shared what she had. She always spoke highly of all the good friends and family she had in Alaska. She loved and missed Alaska and still considered Palmer her hometown. We all loved her and she is deeply missed.

A memorial at the Palmer Moose Lodge is planned at a later date.