Frances Dean Wendland Geary

Deanie was born on September 27, 1933 in New London, Connecticut, and during her youth traveled with her parents to her father’s Coast Guard assignments in St. Clair, Michigan; Washington, D.C.; Mobile and New Orleans.

She attended Goucher College and was graduated from Sophie Newcomb College in 1955, where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. She later received a master’s degree in Special Education from Loyola University. She taught at Sacred Heart Academy and privately tutored children with learning disabilities.

During her senior year at Newcomb, she met her future husband Bill, and they celebrated each day of their 62 fantastic years together. In 1957, they moved to Ankara, Turkey, where Bill served a two-year tour in the Air Force. During that time, they traveled throughout the region, and had one of the most exciting periods of their lives.

They returned to New Orleans, where Deanie nurtured and raised their children. Her life was family centered, as she poured her heart and soul into the raising of their five children. Yet she found time to have an active volunteer life, as she served on the boards of the Junior League of New Orleans, the Maison Hospitaliere, and the Orleans Club, and taught and eventually was in charge of the Catechism program at the Tulane Catholic Center.

In the early years of raising her family, she enjoyed family fun at her parents’ home in Point Clear, Alabama, where her children swam and fished in Mobile Bay. In 1967, her family began a fifty-year tradition of spending summers in the mountains of Highlands, North Carolina. There, she loved and laughed, developed numerous close and lifelong friendships, fed hummingbirds, gardened, slid waterfalls, rafted rivers, played bridge and celebrated the beauty of God’s creations. She fed the birds until she had to remove her feeders because the bears refused to leave them alone, and when the bears left muddy paw marks on the picture window of the home, she refused to wash them off and chose to cherish the memory instead.

She had a deep and abiding faith and was always upbeat and happy, no matter the circumstance. Until her final illness, she lived a life of constant motion, with a love that had the force and energy of a locomotive train. All whom she encountered were touched by her love, friendship, affection and energy. She had an extraordinary gift for finding friendship in everyone she met, and she treated total strangers as though they were life-long friends.

She took great joy in celebrating time with her grandchildren, to whom she was affectionately known as “Dee-Dee.” As her grandchildren grew up, the family held its great annual gathering each year in Highlands, bringing all generations together.

Deanie is survived by her husband of 62 years, Dr. William Lawrence Geary, and by her four children and twelve grandchildren: William Lawrence Geary, Jr. of Chevy Chase, MD (Evie and Helen), Covert James Geary (Lisa) of Mandeville, LA (Claire, Caroline and Cove), Dr. Stephen Paul Geary (Keri) of Greenville, SC (Eliza, Paul, Marion and Diana), and Anne Elizabeth Geary Schmults (Ed) of Providence, RI (Sophie, Constance and Eddie), her sister Nancy Ann Wendland Miller, numerous cousins, and by her nieces and nephews who showered her with kindness. She was preceded in death by her parents, James Covert Wendland and Frances Dean Reynolds Wendland, and in 1965, by her daughter Helen Elizabeth Geary.

In her final years, she continued to teach lessons in good living. She never complained about her illness, and inspired others by squeezing as much life as possible out of each day that she was given. Deanie’s family extends a special thanks to Cerise Leonard, her loving caregivers with Home Care Solutions, and her caregivers in Highlands. They were her guardian angels in her later years.

Relatives and friends are invited to attend a funeral mass at Lake Lawn Funeral Home on Thursday, June 7. Visitation will be from 10 a.m. to noon, followed by a funeral mass at noon.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Tulane Catholic Center, 1037 Audubon Street, New Orleans, LA 70118.