In a quiet passing that defied the fierceness with which she lived her life, Geraldine (Gerry) Kruse (nee Crean) left this world on Friday, September 9, 2022. She was 82 years old. She leaves behind a hole we will never fill.

Known as "Oma" to her family, Gerry was born in Bronxville, NY in 1940, to Raymond and Mae Crean, and she spent her childhood in New York, Swarthmore, PA and Wilmette, IL. After graduating with honors from New Trier High School in Winnetka, she attended Duke University, from which she graduated in 1962, and then the University of Michigan where she earned a Masters of Business Administration. She met and married Bertram Charles Kruse on January 29, 1966 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. She taught accounting at Eastern Michigan University for 30 years, retiring in 1995.

Gerry is survived by her husband Bert, son Jon and daughter-in-law Karen, son Paul and daughter-in-law Ronia, daughter Katherine and son-in-law Mike, and grandchildren Ellie, Maura, Izabel, Sophie, Anise, Declan, and Caroline, as well as her niece Laurie, and nephews Ken and Chuck.

Oma was a competitor her entire life; she was driven by excellence, and she expected it of herself and everyone around her. At the age of 9, she was spotted on the playground playing basketball. She was not just better than the other girls, she was better than most of the boys, which earned her a spot on the boys' team – which in 1949 was not just unusual, it was groundbreaking.  Life Magazine visited her school and wrote a feature story on her basketball exploits, nearly 25 years before Title IX. She was an extraordinary athlete well beyond basketball.  She was also a terrific tennis player, and she taught her children and grandchildren the fundamentals of that sport. She spent hours playing catch in the backyard, and she coached her son's little league baseball team, where she was – of course – the only woman coaching in the entire league at that time. Her golf skills, too, were superb: she had a silky-smooth swing and continued to hit the ball as straight as a rope well into her retirement years.

Oma did not take kindly to today's "every kid gets a medal" approach to competition. In her world, you played to win, and if you didn't win, you didn't get a medal. Maybe next time, if you worked hard and played better, you'd get that medal. She believed in the important lessons of life, and working hard and reaping the rewards of your hard work was one of those lessons. She eagerly attended countless sporting competitions of her children and grandchildren, and she was an active spectator. On at least one occasion, however, the low level of play required that she leave the gym to walk the parking lot, where she drew a diagram of the court on a napkin for teaching purposes.

Gerry was a trailblazer in the classroom as well. She was one of four women in her graduating class at the University of Michigan, and she was the first woman faculty member in the business school at Eastern Michigan – where her salary was about half of her male colleagues. Gerry fought for equal pay for equal work her entire career, and she championed and supported the women she taught (although, yes, she helped the men, too). She was an amazing teacher, earning the Teacher of the Year award numerous times, along with other teaching accolades. She was instrumental in creating and growing the accounting department at EMU, and she helped create the Beta Alphi Psi Accounting Fraternity there as well. Hundreds of her students are now leaders in business, academia and government – and she remembered them all. A disciple of Pacioli (look it up), she inspired many of her students to pursue careers in accounting, and they remember her as a difficult but fair professor, who cared about them deeply as students and as people. She took pride in their successes and accomplishments.

Gerry was a good and faithful servant of God. She attended St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Ypsilanti for most of her adult life. The first question that Gerry would ask when her children called on Sunday was "Did you get to church?" She loved being part of the St. John's community, and she cherished the families she saw in church over the decades.

Oma was insatiably curious. She read voraciously, all sorts of books, but she particularly loved crime novels – and she never could pass up a trashy romance, which was delightfully at odds with her sensible, no-nonsense approach to life. She encouraged others to read, too – making a point to find out what people liked to read, and gifting them books by those authors or in those genres. She read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal cover to cover, every day (only in print – not online, thank you), and she sent us all clippings – or, later, links! – to articles she thought we should read or about which she had questions. She was the Grand Inquisitor, making a point to (nicely) interrogate her children, her children's friends, her students on any topic that came to mind. Gerry was that rare person who genuinely, truly wanted to know who you were, and why you thought what you did.

Gerry was a woman of contrasts. She lived simply, and without frills, but she loved art and art exhibits, visiting museums in cities all over the world to see Renoir (Two Sisters!), Van Gogh and Monet. She could sing, word for word, hundreds of Broadway tunes (Sondheim, Gershwin), and loved to sing her grandchildren off to school with "My name is McNamara, I'm the leader of the band…" as she marched them out the door. She also loved jazz and classical music, and was a supporter of the University Musical Society at the U of M her entire life. Mozart was a particular favorite; Mahler was not. She knew how to ballroom dance, which fork to use for which course, and what "black tie" meant (and did not mean). She toiled in the family garden, canning peaches and tomatoes and trying to find uses for the bushels and bushels of cabbage that Bert brought home. She used a broken hoe for years without complaint.

With her beloved Bert by her side, she travelled the world, visiting nearly every state in the U.S. and at least 35 countries. But as far and widely as she travelled, there was nowhere Oma loved to be as much as with her family – and she made sure that we knew that.

We will miss our Oma terribly. She brightened our lives with her questions, her perspective, her sense of humor, and most of all, with her tangible, palpable love for us. We'll try to remember to be good, to be careful, to wear a hat, and to put on sunscreen.

If you knew and loved Gerry as we did, then grab a can of Bud Light – or, if you prefer, a glass of Old Fitzgerald bourbon, with 2 or 3 ice cubes – her drinks of choice, along with some German Chocolate Cake or Key Lime Pie, and toast Gerry Kruse for a life well lived. And when you do that, please remember: debits on the left, credits on the right.

Visitation will be Wednesday, September 14, 2022 from 6 – 8 p.m. with a rosary prayed at 7:30 p.m. at Stark Funeral Professionals, 101 S. Washington St., Ypsilanti.  Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Thursday, September 15, 2022 at 11 a.m. at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, Ypsilanti.  Gerry will lie in state beginning at 10 a.m. until the time of Mass on Thursday. Gerry will be interred at a family cemetery in Almena Township, Michigan.  In lieu of flowers, Gerry requested donations to the Ann Arbor Food Gatherers , Catholic Relief Services or the Ypsilanti District Library .