Gerri was born July 19th, 1937, in Bessemer Michigan, Daughter of the Late Eleanor and Luther Anderson.
Graduated from Bessemer High School in 1955. Attended Gogebic Community college. Geraldine loved music and played numerous instruments (piano, trombone, accordion and organ). She played trombone in the marching band, accompanied choirs on the piano, played the accordion through high school and at various functions after High School and in her foreign travels. She also played organ for Trinity Lutheran Church. She later played piano at several churches in her overseas assignments. She met her husband through his sister May. They started dating and on December 21st, 1957, she married Leslie C Koski in Ironwood Michigan at Trinity Lutheran Church. From there they traveled to her husband’s first assignment overseas with Capital Engineers in Saigon, Vietnam where her first child Karla was born. He then worked for the City of Detroit where their 2nd child, Kurt was born. He then joined the Foreign Service (State Department) in 1963 in Saigon. They also had assignments in Nepal, Bolivia, Nigeria, Laos, Indonesia, Syria, Mali. Their youngest son Dane was born in Katmandu, Nepal. She requested a 2nd story room in the hospital so she would not have the cows roaming through her hospital bedroom where Dane was born.
They had many interesting stories with their foreign travels. They were evacuated from Saigon when the Vietnam war heated up. They were also held hostage in Laos when the communist (Pathet Lao) took over the country for several weeks and then evacuated to Thailand. They loved to stop in Hong Kong and Hawaii on their travels back to the United States. They took vacations all over the world from Pula Putri, Bali, Canary Islands, Buenos Aires, Pattaya, Barbados and many other places.
She loved to bowl and took her kids bowling overseas and even joined a league in AZ with her older son.
When her husband retired from the State Department, he then worked in American Samoa for a year where they experienced a hurricane that took the roof off their house and then finally retired and moved to Ahwatukee Arizona.
Geraldine has 3 children (Karla, Kurt and Dane), 6 grandchildren (Seth, Brianna, Yuri, Aziel, Adriana and Brayden) and 6 great grandchildren (Nico, Leilani, Brenley, Liam, Ellis and Marian). Other family members are Steve Marshall (Karla’s husband), Becky Koski (Kurt’s wife), Sierra Patterson (Dane’s fiancé), Erik Hamill (Adriana’s husband) and Danielle Koski (Aziel’s wife).
A funeral service will be held from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM at Family of Christ Lutheran Church, 3501 E Chandler Blvd #1, Phoenix, AZ 85048. A graveside service for Geraldine will be held Saturday, March 25, 2023 from 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM at Valley of the Sun Mortuary & Cemetery, 10940 East Chandler Heights Rd, Chandler, AZ 85248.
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.valleyofthesunfuneralhome.com for the Koski family.
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