1932 to Johann and Maria Atzesberger in Theben, Czeckloslavakia. She was the second of four
children, John, Margarete, Maedy, and Walter. She had a survival instinct that was honed during
World War 2. She experienced her father and older brother head off to war and as the oldest
child left in the household was responsible to help her mother care for her younger sister,
Maedy and baby brother, Walter. Their home was used as a headquarters for the Russians for a
year until one night they were awakened and told they had to leave and take only what they
could carry. They were taken to the Danube river and dropped off not knowing if they would
ever be reunited with their father and brother again. After crossing in a boat, they lived with
other displaced families in a cave, going out to gather food when they could. My mom remembers
running down a road with planes overhead strafing them with machine guns as they ran.
Eventually making it into Vienna, my grandmother, having no money, resources, or knowing
whether her husband would ever return, she made a difficult decision. She was going to throw
her children off the bridge and jump in herself. At that moment, a miracle occurred. A relative
happened to walk over the bridge and stopped her, brought her home and the family survived.
When the war was over, my grandparents were reunited and built a life for their family in Vienna.
Those experiences forged a life long steel bond between my mother and her family. She married
in Vienna and gave birth to a daughter - Sylvia Marie in November of 1950. The marriage did not
last and in 1955, she met Jack Ray Geise and they married in June of 1956. She relocated to the
United States and taught herself English by reading the comics every Sunday. She was a
beautiful woman and started modeling and became a United States citizen. She gave birth to
another daughter in March of 1965 and they named her Tara Lynn. They moved many times
during their marriage with many of those moves being overseas to Germany so that she could be
close to her family. She returned to work in 1983 working in the Protocol office at Kleber Kaserne
as a Liason with the German community. After moving to Warner Robins, Georgia in 1993, she
continued work in the protocol office at Robins Air Force Base until her retirement in the
mid-2000s. She was blessed with five grandchildren - Frances Bauccio-Wieber, Michele
Bauccio- Bertini, Laura Bauccio, Sarah Widener, and Meredith Widener. Four greatgrandchildren
- Ashley and Tommy Bertini, Vincent Bauccio, and Alexis Bauccio.
In her final years, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and her family is so thankful for the loving community of Sunrise of Buckhead, who always treated her with dignity, kindness, and respect. Those
years were filled with lots of laughter, dancing and love. The walls that were created during World
War 2 had finally come down and we all are left with and blessed with the sound of her joyful
laughter. May she be laughing and dancing, reunited with her husband, sister, mother and father
in heaven.
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