Miss Patsy Ann

Miss Patsy Ann Geiger lived an idyllic childhood in a small town on Lake Okeechobee in the early 1900s. When she was a child, her closest friends were the Black housekeepers and field hands. The young man who loved her was White but from the wrong side of the lake. Pat took life as it came, often without a clear understanding of why or how. Her lifelong desire to serve God was good company for the man she married; he was a Bible scholar who read and studied numerous resources with an unmatched passion. As dementia progressed in her seventies and eighties, Pat's fiercely independent personality gave way to an inability to function well in her current reality. In contrast, the recollection of the details of her early life remained sharp. The development of this ironic contrast is captured as she reminisces about her life with humor and often bittersweet memories. Hopefully, readers will be encouraged to face the hurdles that are all along the path of dementia with compassion and to enjoy the memories that may still be within.