Geotta Whitney ’48
Born in St. Ignatius, Montana, to George and Henrietta Stendal, Geotta was raised in Portland, where her mother was a seamstress at Jantzen and her father worked as a paymaster at a logging camp. She graduated from Grant High School during World War II and stayed in touch with her grammar school friends for the rest of her life. She attended Reed before moving to San Francisco in the 1950s, where she met and married William Whitney. They later moved to Oregon and raised four sons. After a divorce in 1965, Geotta moved to Medford, Oregon, and raised her boys as a single parent working in a bookstore. She often said, “I did not raise four boys, they raised me.”
Eventually, she moved to Salem to be closer to family and friends, working for the City of Salem Community Development Office until she retired. Geotta’s passions included cooking, canning, gardening, and reading. Predeceased by her son George, she is survived by her sons Doug, Fred, and Beau.
Appeared in Reed magazine: December 2017
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