PETER GEERY
By TODD C. FRANKEL
Of the Post-Dispatch
01/26/2004
Lewis and Clark re-enactor
 |
Peter Geery,
a St. Charles innkeeper and leader of a St.
Charles-based
Lewis and Clark re-enactment group, died of
natural
causes Friday (Jan. 23, 2004) while vacationing with
his wife
at Isla Mujeres, an island near Cancun, according to
family
members. He was 62.
He was
well-known in the historic district of St. Charles for
his involvement
with groups related to the Lewis and Clark
expedition.
Mr. Geery was a board member of the St. Charles
Bicentennial
Commission and the Discovery Expedition of St.
Charles,
which is a nonprofit group of expedition re-enactors.
He participated
as group commander and portrayed Sgt. John
Ordway.
He also handled many of the group's logistics and
helped
recruit many of its members.
"Nobody
in the organization worked harder than he did," said
Scott
Mandrell, a re-enactor who portrays Meriwether Lewis.
In August,
Mr. Geery joined other re-enactors in tracing the
expedition's
journey from Elizabeth, Pa., to Camp DuBois near
Wood
River, just as Lewis and Clark had done 200 years
before.
In late September, Mr. Geery was forced to drop out
of the
expedition because doctors feared that a severe cut on
his hand
would be infected by the polluted Ohio River water.
He was
one of only a few who planned to make the entire trip
- scheduled
to take three years and 16 days, just as it did the
first
time. He was in charge of scheduling the 260 volunteers
who planned
to travel on the boat part of the way.
The journey's
second leg begins in May, when the
re-enactors
leave St. Charles and head west, and Mr. Geery
had intended
to rejoin the group then. Mandrell said Mr.
Geery's
name would be added to a special plaque on the
expedition's
keelboat "so he can make the journey with us."
Flags
at the re-enactors' settlement at Camp DuBois were
ordered
lowered to half-staff on Friday, Mandrell said.
Mr. Geery
spoke frequently on the historical expedition and
taught
area schoolchildren the Native American sign language
that
Sacajawea used to communicate with the explorers.
Mr. Geery
and his wife, Marilyn, also ran Geery's Bed and
Breakfast
in a turn-of-the-century house at 720 North Fifth
Street
in St. Charles. They opened it in 1999 as a second
career
after both retired from Lucent Technologies.
The couple
ran their establishment with a Scottish and
Victorian
theme. They sometimes dressed in traditional
Scottish
garb for bed and breakfast tours.
Mr. Geery
was on the board of directors for the Lewis and
Clark
Boat House and Nature Center in St. Charles. He also
served
on the St. Charles Lewis and Clark Bicentennial
Commission
and the Historic Landmarks Preservation Board in
St. Charles.
He is
a past officer of the World War II Historical
Re-Enactment
Society and past board member of the St.
Andrews
Society of Greater St. Louis. He was a member of
several
groups, including the Sons of the American
Revolution,
the Telephone Pioneers of America, the American
Legion
and an honorary member of the Kentucky Colonels. He
was also
an auxiliary police officer in Ballwin.
This poem was found among Peter Geery's personal possessions
he always carried with him.
I AM
"I AM a Child of the Original ONE,
I AM a Ray of the Original Sun,
I AM Wholeness,
I AM Love.
I AM the Truth that Spand the Sands of Time,
I AM the Rainbow of the Very First Shine,
I AM Music,
I AM Light.
Let the Light Descend Upon Me,
Guide the Way with Golden Light,
No Other God will Stand Before Me...
As I Embrace the One True Life I was Born to Live...
By the Will of the Original ONE.
I AM a Face of the Original God,
I AM a Voice of the Original ONE,
I AM a Wave Upon the Ocean of Eternal Light.
I Reach My Arms Up to the Heavens,
Sing I AM THIS I AM.
The Presence of the ancient one Springs Forth at My Command.
I AM One with God,
I AM THIS I AM
And, as I Decree It, So it is."
________
Author Unknown
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