Mary Jane Geiger (Murphy)

Mary Jane Geiger (Murphy)

July 5, 1957 - September 14, 2022

(Akron/Tallmadge)

The morning of September 14, 2022 while embraced by her family and best friend Mary J. Geiger, 65, left this life and has reunited with her husband, Stephen K. Geiger, and her parents Charles & K. Elizabeth Murphy in Heaven.

Although cancer suddenly cut Mary's life short... She lived it to the fullest.

Mary lived her life for others, nothing made her happier than to see joy on the faces of others. She not only dedicated her life to her children, grandchildren, *bonus* children, family and friends but also to her community.

She graduated from North High School in Akron, Ohio with the class of 1975. After a few odd jobs she enrolled in the police academy. In 1984 she became Officer Mary Murphy, one of the few female officers for the Akron Police Department, there she met and married her husband of 22 years, fellow officer, Stephen K. Geiger. She took great pride in serving the Akron Community. She loved talking to and getting to know members of the community and being the first officer at North High School to mentor the youth. She was known to "go above and beyond" for others whether it was taking food to those in need, opening the department's door overnight for the homeless to keep warm or even personally buying Christmas gifts (including a new gaming system) for kids in the community.

In her late 30s Mary moved to Tallmadge, Ohio and centered her life around family and friends. She opened an in-home daycare which lead to lifelong *bonus* children. This marked the beginning of her famous annual parties that grew each year from family and friends to dozens of people from the community. Her love for Red, White & Blue was on full display at her July 4th pool parties. After her son, Adam, brought home 2 chickens from school they both (along with her grandchildren Renea and Christian) joined the 4H Club. Mary fell in love with chickens and proudly called herself a "Crazy Chicken Lady" acquiring over 50 as her pets. She enjoyed sitting at the coop with her chickens as much as showing them at the Summit County Fair each year. Of course this lead to her Annual Easter Party with baby peeps, acres of eggs to hunt and even the Easter Bunny.

As her kids got older she re-entered the outside workforce and became a pharmacy technician at Kaiser for over a decade. Here she formed great friendships with coworkers and discovered her love for scrapbooking. It became a passion for her to memorialize life's moments- filling many bookshelves.

Mary had many lifelong interests and traditions. Along with her chickens she adored her other pets including her birds, cat and dog (recently passed). She enjoyed curling up to a good book or her journals. Her fandom for Elvis truly shined in her bathroom adorned with black and gold velvet wallpaper. She loved shopping and finding a bargain, she called thrift shopping her "therapy". She looked forward to taking trips with family and friends especially the yearly World's Longest Yard Sale, Florida and the ocean.

However, her favorite tradition was making her Christmas Cookies. Yearly she would take two weeks off from work to bake 40+ different types of cookies (5 dozen each). She, with helpers, would put on Christmas aprons and form an assembly line making dozens of trays and boxes for everyone she knew (and then some).

Those closest to her will remember the simple things like her poetry, her lead foot, bra burning, the funky chicken, the Village, her fudge, having a cup of coffee at the coop, petit fours, tea parties with Ali and Natalie, her high pitch "Hi Baby", and her infectious laugh.

Mary leaves behind so many who cherished her and will keep her memory alive. Her three children, Charles Murphy, Kimberly (James) Bertele, Adam Geiger; her grandchildren Renea, Christian, Cael, Ali, Natalie and Sylas; her sisters Kathy (Mike) Luthe, Bonnie (Larry) Shenise; her best friend of 55 years Phyllis; her dear friend and partner Cathy; her *bonus* child Julien; several cousins, nieces and nephews.

The family invites you to the Celebration of Life, to share fond memories to the online guestbook and Facebook posts.

*More details at www.facebook.com/mary.geiger.18 or call 330-459-2551