Obituary: Sandre Carolyn Geyen 1945 - 2023

Monday, July 24, 2023

Sandre Carolyn Geyen
April 23, 1945 – May 6, 2023
Sandre Geyen was born in 1945 to Ruby (Patterson) Geyen and Clarence O. Geyen. She grew up in Shoreline at a time when few other families of color lived in the city and graduated from Shoreline High School in 1963. 

She attended the University of the Americas in Mexico City and graduated from Albion College in Michigan in 1967.

Sandre returned to the Pacific Northwest in 1987, and settled in Lynnwood, where she continued a career spanning more than 40 years in social work. 

She set up the first Alzheimer’s unit at a nursing home in Seattle in the 90’s. Sandre was proud to be a part of the Mayor’s Council on African American Elders with the City of Seattle Aging and Disability department for over 16 years till she retired in 2010.

She was active in three churches during that time: Ravenna UMC (since closed), Cedar Cross UM, where she was part of their Bells Choir, and Shoreline UMC, where she was an active member until her death. 

In addition to a creative approach in social work, Sandre regarded music as one of the two universal languages. Her motto, “Music, food, and a round table,” expressed the direction she wanted to take. 

Sandre revived the Shoreline Praise Team, which leads the congregation each Sunday in joyous music worship

In addition, Sandre developed a music workshop, designed for people “from 8 to 80” and requiring nothing but a desire to learn music. From the comments both during and after the four-week workshop, she hit her goal, and was planning another for this summer.

Sandre also spotted the unique talents of our church musician, Johnson and together they made an amazingly effective planning, instruction, and performance team. Before her death, she discovered that Johnson needed to sell his performance-grade piano and was working on ways to enable Shoreline to buy it to replace the current instrument which had outlived its usefulness. 

The piano for Shoreline was Sandre’s most recent project, and the Shoreline UMC congregation started a fund drive to purchase the piano as a memorial to her and Anita Proudfoot, our previous Praise Team Leader.

Sandre is survived by her daughters with their families; Katherine and Lisa; her grandchildren and great grandchildren; her brothers and sisters with their families; Barbara, Paula, Clarence, Donna, and Rick; and multiple generations of cousins.

A memorial service for Sandre will be held on Saturday July 29, 2023 at 1pm at Shoreline United Methodist Church, 14511 25th Ave. NE., Shoreline, WA 98155.


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