Marian R. O'Brien (nee Geiger)

Marian Rose (Geiger) O’Brien died on April 10th in 2026 at the age of 96 years. She was born on May 29th in 1929 to Lawrence Henry and Freda Marie (Joerg) Geiger in their family home on Atwood Avenue, College Hill in Cincinnati, Ohio. Marian was the second daughter and the fourth and last child in the Geiger family and was often teased because her birth roughly coincided with the events of the great market crash, blaming her for the depression that followed it. In fact, she brought endless joy and great happiness to all the family and to everyone she came to know throughout the years of her life. Some of infant Marian’s young Cleveland cousins had trouble pronouncing her name and shortened it to “Mern” which became a cherished name used by the family all her life.

When she was five, the family moved from Atwood to Wittlou Avenue. She was baptized and confirmed and attended St. Clare’s School (Franciscan Sisters of Oldenburg). She continued at Our Lady of the Angels High School, graduating in the class of 1947. There she was an able student, exceled in music and was the drum majorette for the O.L.A. marching band during her junior and senior years. Marian had a remarkable gift of making close and lifelong friends and outlived so many of them. She was part of a loyal group of high school companions (the Club) that remained very close and gathered regularly all their lives. After graduation, she attended classes at the University of Cincinnati before beginning work downtown at Proctor & Gamble.

Marian married her kindergarten classmate and high school sweetheart Robert L. (Bob) O’Brien on April 14th in 1951 at St. Clare’s Church, just as Bob was drafted and taken into the Army. She followed him to his basic training at Fort Rucker, living in Dothan, Alabama. After basic, they moved to Baltimore where Bob continued training for the intelligence corps at Fort Holabird. There Marian was able to continue working for Proctor & Gamble in their Baltimore office. After Bob’s discharge they returned to Cincinnati and Marian continued working downtown at P&G. In 1955 Bob accepted civilian work with the department of the Army (R.I.T.S.) and they went to live in Munich, Germany, where their son David was born. After their contract was concluded they moved, first briefly, to Dayton, Ohio, and then just off Galbraith Road near St. Ann’s parish in Groesbeck, Cincinnati.

In 1961 Bob again accepted government work (State Department, USAID) in Taipei, Taiwan where shortly after their arrival, their daughter Mary was born. They attended the Cathedral Parish in Taipei and became very involved with the local American and diplomatic community where she became a popular hostess, bowled, and played bridge and mahjong. While in Taipei Marian began a long association with the work of the Maryknoll Sisters and Fathers (including some elder confessors who had been imprisoned and then expelled from the mainland). Marian supported the work of the Maryknoll missionaries in the city of Taipei and in the mountain missions “down island”. All her life she treasured her small part in their good work.

In 1963, after their time in Taipei, Marian and her family came to live in Northern Virginia and she made Virginia her “home” for 27 years. Bob continued government work, transferring from the Department of State to the Department of Agriculture (Office of the Inspector General). During these years together they grew and raised their family. Eileen was born in 1965, Diane and Deborah in 1967 and Daniel in 1970. Living first in Edsall Park, Springfield, they were members of Saint Michael’s parish, then from 1968 living in Wakefield Chapel, Annandale, joining St. Ambrose parish (where they were building a church). Marian created a welcoming home, and together with Bob, she enjoyed hosting gatherings of friends and bowling and playing bridge and mahjong.

When the youngest of the children went to school, Marian took computer classes and resumed clerical work at the local junior college until she joined the staff at St. Ambrose Church (Diocese of Arlington) supporting the parish’s Religious Education program. She labored with joy there for many years, until in 1989, Marian and Bob began their move to Ocean Pines, Maryland. After Bob’s sudden death (1990) Marian began working as a ‘secretary for special projects’ in the parish of St. Luke and St. Andrews in Ocean City, Maryland (Diocese of Wilmington). She was a key figure in the parish’s fund-raising endeavors, and she became involved in the early foundation of the new parish of St. John Neumann, in Berlin, Maryland. Marian and her husband Bob observed that all their lives it had been their special privilege to move to a parish just as it was time to build a new church! Asking, “Could we ever, just once, move to a parish where the church was already built and paid for?”

While attending a church event in Ocean City she was enrolled as a member of the Carmelite Third Order, and at the invitation of a visiting mission priest, she was instrumental in founding a new chapter of the Third Order of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and served as its first leader. She enjoyed the company of a large circle of friends and was well known locally through her work in the parishes and her Carmelite group.

After she retired from the office at St. Luke, St. Andrew and St. John’s in 2006, Marian remained active in the local Third Order and as a Eucharistic minister. She began to bring communion to the sick in their homes, becoming very fond of this beautiful ministry and spent much time visiting and praying with the dying. She enjoyed cycling around her Ocean Pines neighborhood, walking the Boardwalk after morning Mass (no matter the weather), also cherishing quiet time walking on Assateague Island whenever she could.

She loved hosting family and friends. When she herself was not welcoming guests she was ready to “hit the road” visiting friends, relatives, and her children and grandchildren wherever they were living. Marian loved to plan a trip and seemed to always have a suitcase packed and ready. One of Marian’s children was working for a time in Europe, and another served around the U.S.A. with the Coast Guard; she was always ready to visit them in any new posting. Once asked, “do you mind that some of your children have moved so far away from you, even as far as Alaska or Europe?” she answered, “not at all, it gives me new places to visit!” She never minded long drives and loaded the car on her own for a “road trip” when she had the desire (which was often!). She was everyone’s favorite traveling companion. After Bob’s death, her favorite traveling companion was her sister Ruth.

However, after her eyesight and her health began to fail, she moved to Culpeper, Virginia in 2012 to be near her daughter, who provided much needed support. Still, Marian continued to travel whenever she could. All her life, she remained faithful to her prayers, to daily Mass and Communion, to the Rosary, to her Third Order office, to witnessing the faith, sharing her love, and “building Church” while her strength lasted.

In 2019, at the age of 90, she moved north to Washington D.C. to live at the Jeanne Jugan Residence and to experience the beautiful community life with the Little Sisters of the Poor. In this loving environment she has been blessed in so many ways!

She will complete her earthly pilgrimage with a visitation at St. Clare Church on Cedar Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio at noon on Friday April 17th. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 1 pm followed by a procession to Arlington Memorial Gardens on Compton Road where she will be buried beside her husband Robert, his parents and his three sisters.

Marian is predeceased by her husband Robert L. O’Brien, her dear grandson Brien Robert Quetsch, U.S.M.C., her parents Lawrence and Freda (Joerg) Geiger, her grandparents, Philip and Mary (Hirz) Geiger [of Cleveland, Ohio], Simon and Sophia (Kuelber) Joerg; her siblings Robert (and Dorothy) Geiger, Ruth (Geiger) and Robert Koehler, Lawrence (and Helen) Geiger, also beloved niece and nephews: Thomas Geiger, Mark Geiger, Kenneth Koehler, Robert Koehler and Patricia (Koehler) Borchardt, aunts and uncles, John, Harry and Ella Joerg and Henrietta “Mutz” (Joerg) Bruekner; Abbie (Geiger) Feldz, Celia (Geiger) Ryan, and others.

She was very close to her husband’s parents, his sisters and their husbands who also predecease her; Robert and Margaret (Dewan) O’Brien, Patricia (O’Brien) and William Skeen, Mary Ann (O’Brien) and George Ahlert, and Shirley (O’Brien) and Richard Reckner, and her nephews Jeff Ahlert and Steven Reckner.

She is survived by her six children and their spouses; David (Elias) O'Brien, O.Carm., Mary (O’Brien) and Joseph Klausner, Eileen (O’Brien) and Coy Clark (U.S.C.G., Ret.), Diane (O’Brien) and Kevin Hamilton, Deborah (O’Brien) and Joseph Quetsch, and Daniel and Kellie O'Brien.

11 grandchildren and their spouses; Peter and Melanie Klausner, Harold Klausner, Christopher (U.S.C.G.) and Kayla Clark, Casey and Holly Clark, Megan (Clark) and John Holt, Adam Hamilton, Anne (Quetsch) and Austin Rice, Aubrey (Holcomb) Quetsch (spouse of Brien Quetsch), and Michael (and fiancé Abigail Dunahoo) Quetsch, Katherine O’Brien, Margaret (O’Brien) and Steven LaBella, and Daniel O’Brien.

12 great grandchildren; Harold and Arthur Klausner, Hudson, Elizabeth and Miles Clark, Connor and Claire Clark, Madison, Anneliese, Louis and Haylen Holt, and Ayla Rice.

Also, countless beloved godchildren, cousins, nieces and nephews of the Geiger and O’Brien families in many generations.

In lieu of flowers, a memorial gift can be made to the Little Sisters of the Poor, at 4200 Harewood Road., N.E. Washington, D.C., 20017.

https://littlesistersofthepoorwashingtondc.org/donate/

Glory be to God for all things!

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us!