Geraldine Mayer was born on September 18, 1922 in Elkin, North Carolina to Lester Clay and Gladys Arnold Couch. “Gerry’s” family recognized her talents and quest for knowledge at an early age. Gerry never lost sight of the fact that it was her father that encouraged her to major in math because he believed in “women in the workplace.” Immediately upon graduation in 1943 with degrees in both mathematics and English from Meredith College, she began a landmark career with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), later known as NASA, at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. There she was referred to as “a human computer”.
With Mayer’s inquisitive nature and thirst for learning, “she didn’t just want to reiterate a formula, she wanted to know why.” When a position became available in the Impact Basin, Gerry advanced to work more closely with engineers to determine damage done to the airplanes that were forced to ditch in water.
In 1949, Gerry left Langley to attend graduate school at the University of Michigan where, as one of the few women enrolled, she studied advanced courses in differential equations and the theory of matrices.
On July 30, 1949 Gerry married John Prosper Mayer, an aeronautical engineer at NACA, and the two moved to Edwards Air Force Base in California where she worked in Flight Research determining stress levels of wingspans of malfunctioning airplanes. John was the chief analytical adviser for a project dealing with the speed of sound and while doing the calculations realized when the speed of sound was broken.
In 1952, Gerry and John returned to Langley and Gerry returned to her work in the flight research division. This time she was the head of the department.
When they began having children, Gerry left her job but she never stopped using her talents in math and English. While raising her children, she tutored students as well as substituted in the schools.
In the early 1960’s, John Mayer became a member of a special task group that was selected to study space flight, thus the birth of NASA. John and Gerry moved their family to Houston, Texas where this group was to be stationed
Gerry was proud of John and said he “was a brilliant man, a pioneer, who was always thinking ahead” and together they were quite a team. After their children were grown, the Mayers began another career in an exciting and innovative field. The microcomputer was just coming onto the horizon and the timing was perfect. Gerry and John, along with two other partners, opened the first Computerland and soon expanded to a total of five stores in which Gerry was Chief of Operations.
Later, Gerry worked passionately alongside her husband at the Ed White Youth Center researching and obtaining grants to fund vital programs that allowed young men and women less fortunate to gain further education and training for careers.
Gerry was a compassionate person who truly was a blessing to all who were privileged to cross her path.
. She was preceded in death by her husband, John, her parents, and two brothers – Coney C. Couch and Lester Clay Couch, Jr. She is survived by three children - Dale John Mayer, Cindy Mayer Peterson, Wendy Nazzal; A niece she helped raise-Jo Ellen Hillbrath; a sister - Genevieve Couch Bush; daughter-in-law - Lulu Mayer; son-in-law - Greg Nazzal; sisters-in-law -Jean Couch and Bobbie Couch; and seven grandchildren – Ruth, Sarah and Michael Mayer and Christina, Natalie, Alex and Eric Nazzal along with many loving friends and relatives.
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