Obituary of Annette van Oordt Geissel

On Wednesday, July 31, 2019, Annette Geissel (née van Oordt), widow of Frederic Geissel, passed away at her home in Riderwood Village, Silver Spring, MD, after a brief but difficult battle with cancer. Annette was born on April 5, 1937 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany to Dr. Albrecht van Oordt and Elisabeth (Meyer) van Oordt. She came to the United States in 1961. It was here that she met her husband, Fritz; they were married on April 27, 1963, in Washington DC where she lived until 2016. Annette worked as a histology technician at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology until 1966, shortly before the birth of her first child. She stayed at home to raise her daughters and then returned to work at the AFIP in 1983. She remained there until her retirement in 2004. She was a very active, long-time member of Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Bethesda, MD. She leaves her daughters, Christine Burkholder and Helen Geissel, her son-in-law Thomas Burkholder, her grandchildren Eric and Alan Burkholder, and Margaret and Willem Averill as well as her sisters, Renate Bechtoldt and Almut Wagner and their families. She was predeceased by her husband, her parents, her brother Eberhard van Oordt and her sister Christine van Oordt. A memorial service is planned for August 24, 2019 at 1:00 p.m. in the Chapel at Riderwood Village. A private burial will follow at a later time. Donations in lieu of flowers may be sent to the Riderwood Benevolent Care Fund, 3110 Gracefield Rd. Silver Spring, MD 20904 or the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, https://www.michaeljfox.org/