WILMINGTON — Geneva Reid died Monday, 13 July, after a long illness.
Born in Dadeville, Alabama, on 6 September 1936, Geneva grew up on her grandparents’ farm until she was eight, when her mother moved her into town. She was adopted by her mother’s husband, J.D. Bryant, father of her three younger sisters, Barbara, Sue, and Martha.
She graduated from Dadeville High School at 16, and attended Alabama College, State College for Women (now the University of Montevallo). She earned her M.A. in English from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where she began teaching college English, and where she met her husband, Frank.
Geneva and Frank married in 1960 and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where they lived until 2005 and raised their two children, Phillip (b. 1967) and Diane (b. 1969), and helped raise their grandson, Benjamin (b. 1995). Geneva taught at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) until receiving her Ed.D. from the University in 1986, after which she began a second career at Federal Express Corp., first as a technical writer and editor, later as an Advisor at the Leadership Institute, FedEx’s in-house training program for management and international partners. In the latter position, she conducted management training worldwide.
After retiring, Geneva and Frank followed their children and grandson to Wilmington in 2005, where Geneva volunteered for the Cape Fear Literacy Council, the Dance Cooperative, Domestic Violence Shelter and Services, WHQR, Adult Scholars at UNCW, and the Osher Institute for Lifelong Learning (OLLI) at UNCW.
Her husband, Frank (b. 1932) preceded her in death in 2023. She is survived by her children, her grandson, and her sisters Barbara and Sue.
