Mary Jane Sikes, adventurer, animal rescuer, optometrist, photographer and occasional tap dancer, took her leave from this world to explore others on April 12, 2015. She was born March 23, 1929 to Anastasia (Virgie) Schuttenberg Kryshak and Val Kryshak. Her father opened a watch and jewelry business in Wausau, which her mother successfully took over after both Mary Jane's father and brother perished in a car accident. Mary Jane inherited her mother's independent spirit and hearty constitution (she missed not a single day of school from elementary through high school) becoming one of the first two women to graduate from Portland University Optometric School in 1951. There she met returning veteran, Rex Sikes, they married and together launched a private practice in Wausau at the corner of Washington and Fourth Streets. She was the first female optometrist in the area and Drs. Sikes and Sikes served the community for 40 years.Mary and Rex travelled the world from Antarctica to Africa. When Rex decided to stay home, Mary ventured forth on her own: She was once stranded briefly on the Galapagos Islands, bitten on the cheek by an iguana in Costa Rica, and chased by Soviet police for snapping photos in a restricted area. Such calamities, however, didn't deter her. Her ever-present camera captured blue-footed boobies, Peruvian pyramids and gargantuan ice floes, and she shared all that she saw in public talks at the library, Metro Club or Everest Inn. She lived with creative flare. Rex had served as a pilot in the Navy, and Mary Jane got her pilot's license to share his passion for their small plane. She sight read classical piano and organ and took belly dancing and line dancing (on the rare occasions when she drank too much she would tap dance "Tea for Two"). Both she and her husband encouraged and supported their children's every imaginative endeavor from marionette theater to elaborate magic shows.Mary Jane was also an animal lover who saved countless injured birds, ducks and cats. Alas, a sickly baby alligator she tried to nurse in a bowl of chicken noodle soup didn't make it. Her spirit is carried on by her daughter Gini and son, Rex Steven, her grandchildren, Sydney and Jordon, and her brother and sister-in-law, Guy Bruce and Elaine Kryshak, and sister, Christine McKinley. Her husband Rex Sikes died in 2006.

Wausau Daily Herald May 2 2015