Geraldine May Christoff

Geraldine May Christoff (nee, Hamilton) passed away peacefully on April 24, 2020 at the age of ninety-four. She was preceded in death by her parents, Edward Carl Hamilton and Marie Margaret Hamilton (nee, Rudek) in 1981 and 1982 respectively, while they were living with her sister Arlene in Houston, Texas. Her husband of thirty four years, Verne Lloyd Christoff, as well as her brothers, William and Robert Hamilton, all passed away in 1986. Her last sibling, younger sister Arlene Eloise Utt (nee, Hamilton) passed in 2001.
Geraldine was born September 20, 1925 in Decatur, Illinois, and graduated from Decatur High School in 1943. A bright and articulate young woman, she continued her schooling at the University of Illinois, Champagne, graduating in 1947, earning a degree in journalism. She met and married Verne during her last year of college and soon moved to Springfield, Illinois for his work and to raise a family. Verne and Gerry relocated for the last time in Richfield, Minnesota in 1957 and there they lived together in the same home until Verne's passing in 1986. After the death of her husband, she returned to her love of education and worked with elementary students in the Richfield Public Schools until the age of seventy, when she fully retired. Gerry continued to live in her home in Richfield for another nineteen years after Verne's death until she was eighty-eight.

Always thinking first of the care of others, she is remembered as a loving and attentive wife, mother and grandmother, with a dry, quick wit and kind heart. She enjoyed her later years reading, doing crossword puzzles, gardening, meeting her close friends for dinner, and taking care of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Gerry is survived by her three children, Laura Christoff-Doyle, David Christoff, and Steven Christoff, six grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.