Genie Marie Ford

She was born in Ardmore, Oklahoma on May 23, 1955 to Harold Glen Stafford (d. 10/06/2010) and Roy Gene Mahan (d. 10/03/1962). She is survived by her husband, Steele Ford, and her son, Alexander Ford.

Genie got her bachelors of science in nursing in December of 1992 from the University of Southwestern Louisiana. She was an honors program alumni.

Genie started out taking care of adults, but it wasn’t long before the Lord called her to take care of children.

She got her Masters of Science in Nursing from the University of Phoenix Online in 2005 in order to be a clinical instructor. For the rest of her career she taught hands-on clinical nursing to the students in her care.

In 2013, Genie attended the Foundations of Faith Community Nursing course in Oklahoma City University to become a faith community nurse.

Genie was a member of many local quilting guilds: Oklahoma Quilting Guild, Edmond Quilting Guild, the Crazy Quilters, and many others.

Wherever she went, it wasn’t long before she was in leadership. She would come home and say, “Well, I’m on the board now and I don’t know how that happened.” She could be in any organization and rise to the top just by her suggestions, organizational skills, people skills, and that smile.

The most important thing to Genie was her spiritual life. Raised Southern Baptist, she attended church regularly and read her Bible many times over. She led her husband to Christ. From the beginning they went to many different protestant churches. They were involved in the charismatic movement. While overseas with the US Navy, they attended a missionary Baptist Church and went to the only non-denominational Cursillo in the world in the Republic of Panama. She was also excited because it was held at the Baptist Encampment on the Pacific side of Panama, which was supported by the annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. She finally saw where some of the Lottie Moon money went that she’d been giving to the Baptist Church all her life. It was a great experience where they saw spontaneous healing.

Back in the states, they were involved in the charismatic movement until moving to Oklahoma City and back to the Baptist Church, but something was missing. Then it happened. While she was not feeling well for a couple of weeks, she watched EWTN every day and that led her to the Catholic Church. She told her husband about it. They did research and converted.

She became immersed as usual and was working her way through several classes. Her love for Jesus was only increased by the presence of Mary and Joseph. Becoming Catholic was her spiritual freedom and a pathway to express God's love.