Bio, 2014: Geraldine Adler Smith
Seems like almost 50 years since some of us have visited. I have enjoyed reading your stories and am happy for your successes and sorry for your losses. Life is full of peaks and valleys and what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, someone once said. So here goes my story.
After attending a year at OSU, it was the summer of ‘65 and my mother sent this new Sears manager trainee, fresh from Colorado, to my door to meet me. I wasn’t crazy about him but later agreed to go out with him. Four months to the day, we were married and we began a life I couldn’t even imagine. Jack became the youngest Sears catalog store manager and we moved many times. In ‘68, while in ElDorado, KS, our first son Sean was born. Then in ‘70 we were in Boulder, CO, our son Stacy was born. Both were three pound babies but both have grown to be very healthy men, for that I’ll always thank God. I know many think Boulder is a lovely place, but we just didn’t think it was a good place to raise our family so we pulled up stakes and we headed back home, sort of, and Jack started to work with Ditch Witch in Perry. Yes, it was the Carter era and after 9 months, he was the last one hired and the first one fired...another blessing. Within 4 hours he was working in the oil and gas industry and that is where he remains to this day. I was honored to be a homemaker and mother and totally supporting him at every move.
In ‘78 the company moved to Tulsa and we lived in Broken Arrow for 11 years. A neighbor (teacher) encouraged me to work as an elementary school teacher’s aide so I could be home with the boys. I applied and got the job, the following year I became the principal’s secretary. I loved it and loved the staff that was like family. Our boys became very involved with the Union HS marching band and Jack and I were sponsors on almost all of their band trips, what memories. After Sean graduated he went to TJC for two years. Then when Stacy graduated he earned a four year scholarship to Kansas State. Jack was traveling the Midwest and the day after Stacy graduated HS, we all moved to KS, Jack and I to McPherson, because it was in the middle of his territory, and the boys to Manhattan. Well, talk about your empty nest syndrome, I knew not a soul...but that little town of 12,000 became a wonderful home. The high school opened a brand new job for an athletic/activities director’s secretary and I got it! Wow, what a wonderful experience, another family was born for me. There isn’t a day go by that I don’t hear from someone in KS.
The boys both graduated from K-State and we all bleed Purple. Oh yes, we still cheer for the Pokes unless they are playing the Cats. My mother and I used to have some great rivalries. The boys moved to McPherson upon their college graduation to go into business with their dad. Sean met and married a sweet girl from OKC. The boys had an opportunity to move to Houston to take over a business ten years ago, a year before I was able to retire. Susan immediately got a job at the local hospital near Pearland as a PTA. Yep, you guessed it, after 28 years in the schools in OK and KS, the following year I retired and Jack was able to have his office anywhere he wanted it. So we moved to Pearland where we reside today. Jack has since retired (doing some consulting) and God blessed us with a wonderful grandson, Clayton, 3 1/2 years ago. Boy was he worth the wait. Maybe we had to wait that long so we could help care for him, he keeps us going. Sean has since built his own business as a financial advisor, Stacy is the head of inside sales for Network International (liquidation services) and Susan remains working at the hospital.
Just last week Jack had his 3rd spinal surgery. We hope and pray this will be the answer to his pains and we can get him back to the active life he is used to living. His name is so appropriate, Jack of all trades, there isn’t anything he won’t attempt and he is trying to teach Clayton all of it. Jack and I have walked many a mile since 1978, and during those walks solved the problems of the world. Those walks have kept us healthy, connected and eager to continue that path once he is well. I couldn’t have ask for a better life this past 50 years. Sure, there have been ups and downs, but through it all, I always had my boys, big and small, and Susan, and still do...talk about blessings.
Enjoy the reunion and I’ll be thinking about you.
(See my family below)
The years have been good to me.
My life today... The Smiths
Sean, Susan, Stacy 
Jack, Geraldine, and . . . Clayton
©2009 Stillwater High School Class of 1964