Gunesh Guran Gery

Gunesh Guran Gery, 1926-2026

Gunesh Guran Gery, age 100, died on September 12, 2026, at her daughter's home in Tucson, Arizona.

She was born February 15, 1926, in Istanbul, Turkey, to Nihat Sezai Guran and Eugénie Mihailovna Samoylenko.

In 1936, Gunesh and her mother left Turkey to be with her grandmother in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother remarried in 1940 to Earnest Albert Lux, and the family of three lived in both Boston and Truro, Massachusetts. In 1942, Gunesh graduated from St. Anne’s school for girls established in Arlington Heights by the Episcopalian Order of St. Anne.

She attended American University then transferred to the College of William and Mary and graduated in 1946. Later that year she married Malcolm Richard Dougherty and lived in Germany and Toronto while he worked with the U.S. Foreign Service. They had four children together. After their divorce in 1955, Gunesh met and married Addison H. Gery Jr. in Reading, Pennsylvania, where Addison worked for the Glen-Gery Shale Brick Corporation.

Between 1956 and 1983, Gunesh and Addison lived in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Gunesh devoted herself to the care of her seven children. Proficient in 4+ foreign languages, she was a teacher at the Wyomissing Institute in Reading. She also volunteered and was an active member of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lancaster. Among other activities, Gunesh was a Girl Scout leader in Brunnerville for Troop 246 for many years.

In the early 1970s, Gunesh and Addison built a summer home in Bethany Beach, Delaware, where the family had spent summer vacation for years. In 1983 they moved to Lancaster. Addison was treated for cancer there in 1985 and died that year in Bethany Beach. Subsequently Gunesh lived in Annapolis then Kent Island, Maryland, until moving in 2004 to Philadelphia, near her daughter Elise and family. There she played an active role in the lives of her grandchildren and volunteered at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Lankenau Medical Center, where she was honored for the significant hours she served there. In 2020 Gunesh accompanied Elise to Tucson where they settled in the Catalina Foothills.

Throughout her life she cared for many in failing health or as their lives ended, most notably her husband Addison who died in 1985 and her oldest daughter Guner who died in 2007, both of cancer. Gunesh devoted herself to many other family members, college friends, and children of friends, both in personal care and extensive correspondence. Staying in touch was a full-time job in her later years.

Gunesh’s remaining immediate family: Michael in Fearrington, North Carolina (wife Susan Cates); Madeleine in Istanbul (husband Ibrahim Buyukyuksel, son Nedim); John in New Orleans (wife Biljana Obradovic, son Petar); Nina in Cambridge, Massachusetts (daughters Amanda, Cassandra, and Annabelle); Aline in Watertown, Massachusetts (husband Mark Lindberg, their sons James and Jackson, with Mark’s Matt and Kate); Elise in Tucson (husband Alan Cotler in Philadelphia, their sons Paul and Douglas, daughter Alexa, with Alan’s Megan); and son-in-law Albert Rauchut in Falls Church, Virginia. There are 11 great-grandchildren.

An illustrated account of her life, “Gunesh Guran Gery,” published in 2025 is available from Amazon. Memorial donations to the Friends of Pima County Libraries can be directed to Pima County Public Library (“PCPL”), 101 N. Stone Ave., Tucson, AZ 85701 or online at https://pimafriends.com/donate-now/