Geneva Louise Felty Slaughter was born June 2, 1946 in San Antonio, TX to Morris Sanford Felty and Ruby Mae Peterson Felty. She was named after her Aunt Geneva Felty Temple and Aunt Louis Felty. She was a loving wife, mother, grandmother, and sister. She grew up in San Antonio and attended Woodrow Wilson Elementary, Whittier Junior High School, and Edison High School. After her high school graduation in 1964, she attended San Antonio College and then North Texas State University in Denton, TX. She transferred to Southwest Texas State University and graduated in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology. President Lyndon B. Johnson, a SWTSU alumni, spoke at her graduation while serving as President of the United States.
Geneva met Robert Lee Slaughter II in Portland, Oregon in 1969 while she was serving as a missionary, believe it or not, and they married in 1994. Together they traveled to Paris, Rome, Tahiti and many other places. Geneva and Bob had been together for 51 years at the time of his death in 2020. She and Bob celebrated with great happiness the birth of their only child, Robert Jaeger Slaughter in 1986 and later, their first grandchild, Dakarai Slaughter in 2008.
Geneva and her family lived in San Francisco where she worked in the technology department at the Bank of America headquarters until the earthquake of 1989. She hurriedly left work that day to pick up Jaeger from childcare. In 1990, the family moved across the bay to El Cerrito and Geneva worked as the Executive Secretary for the Board of Directors at Kaiser Permanente’s Oakland headquarters until her retirement. She rode to work from El Cerrito to San Francisco or Oakland daily on BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit.
Geneva loved reading books, especially books on mythology, ancient languages, or anything written by Agatha Christie. She particularly loved books about the feminine voice throughout history. She designed beautiful, colorful quilts, placemats, napkins, and table scarves and gifted them to friends and relatives. She raised herbs and vegetables in her garden patio and would often name the spiders living in the window. She loved to eat popcorn and ice cream and would sit for hours in her garden and solve crossword puzzles and smoke a cigarette. She was known for screaming “GET THAT MAN!!” if an opposing running back had the audacity to break into the 49ers secondary. She had her own unique way of calling Bob and Jaeger in a crowd. It was somewhere between a whistle and chirp and they always responded to it immediately.
She took piano lessons as a young girl and enjoyed playing throughout adulthood. When her mother Ruby passed away, Bob brought the family piano to California and she continued playing it for many years. Geneva played the clarinet in the Edison High School Marching Band, was the piano accompanist for the school choir, and took pipe organ lessons.
Geneva was preceded in death by her father and mother and husband Robert Slaughter. She is survived by her son Robert Jaeger Slaughter of Albany, California, and grandson Dakarai Slaughter, older sister Sara Lou Felty Leclerc of San Antonio, Texas and younger brother Scott Sanford Felty (Jennifer) of Seguin, Texas and sister-in-law Pat Dickerson (Earl) of Indianapolis, Indiana, Pat’s daughter Tamyka, and various cousins from Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
She passed away in Tara Hills, California on May 9th, 2023 from complications from a stroke.
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