{"id":16183,"date":"2020-03-06T15:57:15","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T21:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perryokalumni.com\/?page_id=16183"},"modified":"2020-03-06T16:00:12","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T22:00:12","slug":"obituary-skinner-geneva-pearl-gene-smith","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/perryokalumni.com\/?page_id=16183","title":{"rendered":"Obituary – Skinner, Geneva Pearl “Gene” (Smith)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Class of 1944<\/h2>\n

1944 Graduation Edition<\/br>Perry Daily Journal
Geneva Smith<\/h2>\n

– will attend Draughon’s business college following commencement exercises.<\/p>\n

She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Riley Smith, Jr., 413 Ivanhoe.<\/p>\n

The 15 year old girl was born here in Perry and attended Lone Elm grade school. She went to high school at Morrison before coming to Perry. She has been a member of the band since 1942.<\/p>\n

Geneva is the youngest girl in the 1944 class, not being 17 years old until October 4 this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Geneva Pearl “Gene” (Smith) Skinner<\/h1>\n

October 14, 1927 \u2013 January 16, 2013<\/h3>\n

Geneva P. Skinner of Oklahoma City was welcomed home by her loving Savior on Wednesday, January 16, 2013 after a final battle with pneumonia. Gene approached life with passion, tenacity, and perseverance. Whether volunteering to be a little league coordinator, driving a station wagon full of kids to baseball games, helping a young intern become a lawyer, or simply cutting the lawn on \u201cGene\u2019s mean green mowing machine,\u201d she met life head on with zest and enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

Born and raised in Guthrie, she began a career as a legal secretary that would span 50 years, taking a sabbatical to raise son Michael. Married to Leon for over 50 years, her greatest joys were that first Christmas as a Skinner, giving presents to a much larger family, helping brother in law Don through college and nephew Nub in his early career, scrimping to put a son through college, welcoming daughter in law Susan to the family and being a grandmother that loved to be on the floor playing with grandkids John and Cynthia.<\/p>\n

Loyalty was important and allegiances were not easily changed. But love was stronger. A lifelong OU fan until the time Michael went to OSU, she quickly formed a bond with \u201call things Cowboy\u201d and an outlook that her two favorite teams were \u201cOSU and whoever was playing OU.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overcoming a battle with lung cancer in 1996 that left her with one lung, she refused oxygen assistance. Walking a treadmill six nights a week, she surpassed a personal goal of seeing her grandchildren graduate college. Her wit led to interesting sessions with medical techs as they searched for a lung that just wasn\u2019t there. \u201cI\u2019d just look a little harder\u201d was the typical comment that often led to shock, surprise and a heartfelt laugh.<\/p>\n

She was preceded in death by husband Leon, parents Riley Sr. and Gladys Smith, brothers Riley Jr. (Junior) and William (Buddy) Smith, who knew her as \u201cSister.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gene is survived by son Mike Skinner and wife Susan of Oklahoma City as well as her grandchildren, John Skinner of Tulsa and Cynthia Skinner of Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n

A graveside service will be 2 p.m., Saturday, January 19, 2013, at Memorial Park Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be sent to Hospice of Oklahoma County.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-FullWidth.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perryokalumni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perryokalumni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perryokalumni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perryokalumni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perryokalumni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16183"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/perryokalumni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16185,"href":"https:\/\/perryokalumni.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16183\/revisions\/16185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perryokalumni.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}