Top Banner for Mary Louise Kulsick Obituary
Mary Louise Kulsick Obituary

Brought to you by Regency Mortuary & Crematory

Mary Louise Kulsick

Sun City, AZ

January 22, 1941 - February 17, 2017

Mary Louise Kulsick Obituary

Mary Lou Kulsick was born on January 22, 1941, and passed away on February 17, 2017. Mary Lou was born in Berea, Ohio (a suburb of Cleveland), the middle child of Frank J. and Louise C. (Wuerthele) Morscher. Her father called her Lulu. From her childhood, her interest in education was evident. She and the neighborhood children would play school (she was the teacher, of course). A friend said that Mary Lou “came out of the womb with a piece of chalk in one hand and an eraser in the other”. After graduating from St. John’s College in Cleveland, she began a teaching career that took her from inner city Chicago to the small town of Salida, CO and, on three occasions, to different schools in the area of Stamford, CT. Sandwiched in between those Connecticut years, Mary Lou taught two years at the Anglo-American School in Moscow USSR (during the Brezhnev era) and one year at Colegio Internacional de Caracas in Venezuela. Is it any surprise that her family started referring to her as “Tumbleweed”? It was in Caracas that she met Ed Kulsick…little did he suspect how she would turn his life upside down…and all for the better! After they returned to the States, they began dating long-distance: she was in Connecticut, he was in the Washington, D.C. area. They married in June, 1979. Mary Lou began a career with the Fairfax County (VA) Public School system, first as a classroom teacher, then a reading specialist, then an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher, and finally as an ESL Resource teacher, developing materials for the classroom and supporting other ESL teachers. After Mary Lou took early retirement, Ed accepted a promotion which took them to Salt Lake City, UT. Mary Lou spent many happy and productive hours researching genealogy at the Family History Library and volunteering at a local school and with the Adopt-a-Native-Elder program, which helps support the Elders on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and Utah. She also served as a Team Leader at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. After Ed retired, they relocated to Sun City West, AZ. Mary Lou continued her volunteer work, serving as an usher at the Phoenix Symphony and at events within Sun City West. She supported the New Life Center, a shelter for victims of abuse, was an avid reader and a life-long stamp collector. Mary Lou’s teaching career not only took her all around the world, it almost got her to leave the earth, too. She entered NASA’s Teacher in Space competition and was selected as the alternate from Virginia. As things turned out, that was one competition that she was fortunate not to win. Mary Lou is survived by her husband of 37 years, Edmund M. Kulsick, her brother John (Mary Ann) Morscher of Columbus, OH, sister Suzanne (Peter) Loyd of Medina, OH, sisters-in law Cecilia Kulsick and Ann Marie Kulsick, and numerous nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews. A Memorial service will be held Friday, March 17, 2017 at 10 a.m. in the Powell Room of the Sun City West Foundation, 14465 R. H. Johnson Blvd., Sun City West. Donations in her memory to any of the following organizations that were special to her (listed alphabetically) would be welcomed: Adopt-a-Native-Elder Program, 328 West Gregson Ave., Salt Lake City, UT 84115 Hospice of the Valley, 1510 E. Flower St., Phoenix, AZ 85014 New Life Center, P.O. Box 5005, Goodyear, AZ 85338 Southern Poverty Law Center, 300 Washington Ave., Montgomery, AL 36104

To share a memory or send a condolence gift, please visit the Official Obituary of Mary Louise Kulsick hosted by Regency Mortuary & Crematory.

Events

Event information can be found on the Official Obituary of Mary Louise Kulsick.