Geraldine Theresa Prebis Olsen Hutton
Geraldine (Jerry) was the second child of ten and the oldest daughter. My siblings have told me that Jerry's life was hard. As the oldest daughter she had the most responsibility for helping our mother with the younger children. I remember a picture of all the kids on the back steps and Jerry was holding Mary Eleanor the baby at that time. Jerry had a problem with alcohol as a young person. We lived on the west side so that homemade Italian wine was always available. That's how she started drinking and she struggled with alcohol for the early part of her life. Jerry married Roy Olsen who was a big good-natured Swede. He also drank and died quite young. After his death Jerry stopped drinking moved to Niagara Falls to live with our aunt and went to work for Kimberly Clark. She joined Alcoholic Anonymous where she met John Hutton. He was her sponsor. They married in the mid-fifties and she moved into his house. He worked for DuPont, and they had twenty happy years together. They traveled around the world returning to India several times through people they knew from AA. She died after a long struggle with cancer. I respected Jerry's ability to stop drinking and her commitment to AA.
-- Written by Bobbi Prebis with Liz Kennedy