Genevieve M. Wheetley

Genevieve Wheetley was born on July 22, 1982.  She lost her mother, Elaine Wheetley (nee Ready) at the age of two and was raised by her father, C. Richard Wheetley, assisted by her grandparents, Olga and Forest Ready and Aunt Mary Beth Ready. When Mary Beth moved to Houston with her mother in 2003, Gen and Mary talked on the phone every night at 7 PM.  They were great friends. Gen attended St. Stephen the Martyr school in Merrillville, Indiana in the early grades and then attended St. Mary’s Catholic School in Griffith, Indiana from the 3rd to through the 8th grade.  She then went to Calumet High School in Calumet Township and attended Indiana University Northwest, graduating with a degree in History. 

Gen always wanted to be a writer and she especially loved Medieval History. She loved poetry, especially Edgar Allen Poe.  Fantasy was her favorite literature, including the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling and many others.

She “tolerated” playing games with her family growing up such as Yahtzee, Rummy, Uno and especially Scrabble but her true loves were games like Dungeons and Dragons.

She grew up with music, especially Rock and Country & Western.  Her father played electric guitar and bass in a band for most of his life and Gen spent most of her weekends with her father as rook (set up person) for the band.  She enjoyed this and was very good at it. They played gigs every weekend all over the Calumet region.  She also loved madrigal and other music related to medieval history.

Gen lived with epilepsy, and this limited her ability to work but she did a lot of volunteer work at her church after her father passed away in 2015. She became active in marching and demonstrating for social causes.  She worked hard at making a life for herself after her father passed. She was involved at the First Unitarian Church in Hobart, making many friends there, especially Sandi Watters. She was very excited about a new part-time job at Ivy Tech. Gen also faithfully worked out at the YMCA every week where she also made a lot of friends, including her coach of seven years, Kathy Greenewald

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