Schicker, born Sept. 29, 1954, in St. Louis to Norman and Dorothy Schicker, made it her mission to teach others about dementia and Alzheimer’s after reminiscence issues pressured her to retire early as a professor on the age of 59 and return to the St. Louis space to dwell along with her son.

She volunteered as an educator and board member with the Alzheimer’s Affiliation Better Missouri Chapter, spending numerous hours serving to with tasks and making calls. As an educator, she talked about dementia signs, shared her personal journey to analysis and offered tricks to caregivers.

Schicker made a number of journeys to Jefferson Metropolis and Washington, D.C., to satisfy with elected officers and ask them to assist laws that supported sufferers and members of the family dwelling with dementia.

Sarah Lovegreen, vice chairman of applications for the Alzheimer’s Affiliation Better Missouri Chapter, known as Schicker, a fierce and tireless advocate.

“Lonni overtly shared her story and experiences within the hope that by doing so, others would attain out for assist,” Lovegreen mentioned. “She was a warrior with a coronary heart of gold.”

Within the sequence “Stolen Future” that appeared within the Submit-Dispatch, Lonni Schicker and her son, Dan Schicker, shared about her irritating seek for a analysis and the distinctive monetary and emotional challenges when signs strike at a youthful age.

Her son mentioned whether or not it was caring for him as a single mom, serving to her college students as a professor or educating others whereas coping with personal medical points — his mother was a fighter.

“Irrespective of how unhealthy issues have been for her, she was involved with being advocate for different folks,” mentioned Dan Schicker, 36, of St. Peters.

After graduating from Fox Excessive College in Arnold, Lonni Schicker labored as a nurse’s aide earlier than finishing a two-year nursing diploma program at Missouri Baptist College in 1983.

Whereas working as a nurse and administrator, she earned a bachelor’s diploma in 2000 and grasp’s diploma in well being care administration in 2004 from the College of St. Francis in Joliet. Within the spring of 2011, she acquired her doctorate in training from Lindenwood College. She turned a professor at Minnesota State College that fall.

Because the tales within the Submit-Dispatch, she continued to volunteer with the Alzheimer’s Affiliation whereas her dementia was held in verify, Dan Schicker mentioned. She began co-authoring a e-book that offered sensible suggestions for dementia sufferers.

“Lonni Schicker was a pressure to be reckoned with,” Lovegreen mentioned. “She was passionate, decided and fought by means of any problem thrown her manner.”

A yr and a half in the past, Dan Schicker mentioned, his mother was recognized with leukemia. Whereas searching for remedy choices, she was out and in of the hospital with well being problems, which included a bacterial an infection in her coronary heart that finally unfold to her spleen.

She went into hospice care on the finish of August.

She is survived by her son; a sister, Mary Allen, of Las Vegas; and two brothers, Michael Schicker, of St. Louis, and Norman Schicker Jr. 

Lonni Schicker donated her physique to medical analysis, her son mentioned. A ceremony celebrating her life is being deliberate.

“She was unbelievable. She was sensible and selfless,” Dan Schicker mentioned, “and he or she at all times put everybody else above herself.”