Geraldine (Schafer) Friesen, 79, Fresno, CA formerly of Santa Barbara, CA and the Harvey, ND area, died Monday, May 18, 2015 in a Fresno hospital.

Funeral services will be at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 30 at Mennonite Brethren Church, Harvey, ND.

Visitation will be Friday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Hertz Funeral Home, Harvey, ND.

Burial will be in the Country Mennonite Brethren Cemetery, rural Harvey, ND.

Geraldine Mavis Schafer Friesen, known as Gerry to all who knew and loved her, was born on September 4, 1935 in Lodi, California to Herman and Mabel Schafer, their second child and second daughter. Months after her birth, Herman and Mabel and their children returned to Herman and Mabel's home in the area between McClusky and Harvey, North Dakota where Gerry grew up with her older sister Marilyn, younger sister Sandra and youngest of the family and only brother, Duane. The family farmed a number of different parcels of land in the Harvey area, had a sojourn to Reedley, California, and Gerry's formative years were spent on a farm just west of Fessenden, North Dakota where she went to high school. Her childhood was spent helping her father with the farm work, riding horses, tending to animals, and enjoying the close family relationships that developed both in their immediate family and with the surrounding families of her parents siblings and extended family. Gerry was baptized on August 31, 1949 at the age of 13 at Coal Mine Lake and joined the Harvey Mennonite Brethren Church.
After graduation from Fessenden High School, Gerry pursued work with the local Harvey State Bank, and higher education at both Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas and Pacific Bible Institute in Fresno, California. Here she met and made lifelong friends, strengthened her faith in Christ and she studied accounting and worked as the receptionist at Tabor College. Her sister Marilyn married Peter Friesen who was the nephew of Dietrich Friesen, the choir director at Pacific Bible Institute in which she sang, and at Marilyn and Peter's wedding in 1957 she met another of Mr. Friesen's nephew's and Peter's brother, Abe. After a five year courtship in which Gerry lived in Fresno, San Jose and back in North Dakota for a time, they married in Harvey on June 30, 1962 and started on a fifty three year journey of commitment, dedication, and deep love. They initially lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba as Abe was teaching at Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute and Gerry worked for Borger Brothers. After a year, Abe was accepted to study for his Ph.D. at Stanford University and they moved to Sunnyvale and then Menlo Park next to Palo Alto so Abe could be close to the university. Gerry supported Abe by working at Raytheon and for an accountant along with typing Abe's papers and helping him cope with the workload. After two years at Stanford, Gerry and Abe left for Mainz Germany where Abe studied to complete his Ph.D dissertation in Reformation History at the Institute for European History. In addition to learning about and adapting to a different society, Gerry typed Abe's dissertation and gave birth to their only child, Eric, on February 9, 1967. Within months after Eric's birth, Abe accepted a position at the University of California at Santa Barbara as professor of Renaissance and Reformation History, and Gerry and Abe lived in the Santa Barbara area for 37 years. Gerry spent their early years in the area as a stay-at-home mother to look after their son, but after a time worked as an accountant for a number of small businesses in the Santa Barbara area including the Santa Barbara YMCA, and private schools such as the Santa Barbara Christian School, and the Marymount School. Gerry made many friends in these positions and became a valued and respected member of their teams as these institutions grew. Gerry was also actively involved in the Faculty Women's Club at UCSB working to establish scholarships, she and Abe were Faculty Advisors to Intervarsity Christian Fellowship at UCSB, spent many hours volunteering at her sons school and was highly involved in Grace Church in Santa Barbara where she and her family attended for their years in Santa Barbara. She also established and hosted many get-togethers for Mennonites in the Santa Barbara area, giving a lot of people who were in the area to study or live a connection with their community.
Gerry's son Eric graduated from high school in 1985 and left for university that summer in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which led to immediate empty-nest syndrome, however never led to any diminished amount of love and care and concern for her son, in fact quite the opposite happened. Moreover, although her family had become widespread with her siblings located in the Midwest and the west coast and her parents continuing to live in Harvey, she was always proud of her family and spent as much time as possible with Abe visiting and corresponding with as many of its members as she could. This could pose a challenge at times as Abe came from a family of eleven children, so recently with the advent of email and especially Skype, Gerry spent a great deal of time communicating electronically with a vast amount of friends and family. Her main concern was for her parents and she spent many months in the last years of their lives traveling from Santa Barbara to Harvey to care for them and make sure their needs were met, coordinating activities with her siblings in an incredible team effort to make sure that her parents were treated with respect dignity and love.
In 2004, Abe retired from the University of California, and he and Gerry moved to Fresno California. They had been members of the College Community Church in nearby Clovis for over twenty years and Abe had long been involved professionally with a number of people from the Pacific College and Mennonite Brethren Seminary faculty, and Gerry was right at home amongst the community there and relished being a part of it. Gerry and Abe experienced a new amount of freedom that a new RV brought them, traveling all over North America to visit family and places they had both been to previously and explore new areas of the country they had not been before. Gerry was both navigator and chronicler of their journeys and would stay in touch with loved ones from the road. Soon after they moved to Fresno, their son Eric married Ruthanna Drysdale, which brought much joy and relief (!) to Gerry. Along with this marriage came three granddaughters and one great-granddaughter.
In the late winter of 2014, Gerry was having difficulty with pain in her abdomen. The pain was diagnosed as pancreatic cancer but was caught at an earlier stage than usual so this gave Gerry and her family cause for optimism that the cancer was treatable. She embarked on a course of chemotherapy that initially seemed to be effective however subsequent treatments proved to be ineffective, and the primary tumor metastasized and spread to her lungs. Shortly before she passed away, she was able to enter the San Jaoquin Gardens in full hospice care where the facility and staff went above and beyond the call of duty to care for her in her final days. We as a family will always be grateful to these people for their help and support. We would also like to express our gratitude to her oncologist and family doctors and their staffs, and all the health care providers for their care and support.
Gerry passed away on Monday, May 18, 2015. She is survived by her husband Abraham of Fresno, California; son Eric and wife Ruthanna of Airdrie, Alberta; granddaughters Akela McMullin, Amber McMullin (and boyfriend Alex Garand and daughter Carmen) and Amanda McMullin, all of Winnipeg, Manitoba; sister Marilyn and husband Peter Friesen of Winkler Manitoba; sister Sandra and husband Ron Flickinger of Wichita, Kansas; and brother Duane Schafer and wife Barbara of Las Vegas, Nevada. She is also survived by sister-in-law Eleanor Friesen, sister-in-law Martha Ede, brother and sister-in-law Jack and Marianne Friesen, brother and sister-in-law Henry and Dianna Friesen, and brother and sister-in-law Victor and Heidi Friesen, and many, many nieces and nephews, cousins, and especially her aunts Elsie Friesen, La Vaughn Fleming and Dolly Reimche; and her special cousin Judy Willems. Gerry was predeceased by her parents, Herman and Mabel Schafer, brother-in-law Don Heinrichs, and nephew Doug Friesen.
Gerry was known for her attention to detail, insistence on doing things correctly, keeping a clean and presentable household at all times, as well as her hospitality, generosity and her deep faith in the Lord, which was on special display towards the end of her journey in this life. Above all, it was her love for her husband, her son and his family, and her larger family and community that distinguished Gerry as the unique and special person that she was here in our world and as she continues to be in the presence of God. We thank the Lord that she was part of all of our lives, and look forward to the day when we can be reunited and join her and all our other loved one's who have gone before us in Heaven. To God be the glory, great things he has done.
2 Timothy 4:7New International Version (NIV)
7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.