Tehachapi News

Pharmacist, educator, author

larger view larger view larger view

Someone once said “For every Jack there's a Jill.” Sometimes that “Jill” fills multiple shoes: wife, mother, career woman, teacher, musician, volunteer, board member for more than one organization, and even a writer of mysteries that educate while they entertain. One such woman is Tehachapi's Evelyn Geisler — Eve to her friends and neighbors.

She was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, and even as a child she loved writing almost as much as she loved music. Short stories and poems were her genre then. She wouldn't tackle books until much later.

Her husband, Bob, was a friend of her older brother's.

“I had my eye on him since I was about 13,” Eve confesses.

But, as fate would have it, for a time they went different directions for school and careers, etc. Bob became a rocket scientist and moved to the West Coast while Eve, several years his junior, stayed in Ohio pursuing her education.
“I love being able to say 'I don't have to be a rocket scientist — I married one!'” she said laughing.

But in her senior year at high school, Eve was faced with a problem.
“Here I was, in June of my senior year, applying for college and didn't know what I wanted to do!” she laughed. But fate once again stepped in and helped her out when she was asked to work on a special pharmacy project. “I suddenly knew that I just had to do this!” she recalled.

And, when visiting with the Dean at the University of Cincinnati where she eventually got her degree, she was greeted with yet another surprise when he handed her a year's scholarship that had been earned by another student who had decided to take a year of Liberal Arts before pursuing his pharmacy education.
“Pharmacy really picked me,” she said with a smile.

Of course, Eve hadn't taken her eye off Bob during the intervening years.
“I knew where he was, and when I was asked to take part in a wedding, I contacted him to see if he wanted to come back for the wedding.”

Little did Eve know when she made that phone call, Bob was tired of being a bachelor. Romance blossomed. They were married and later Bob brought his wife to California.

They have three children: Son Bill and his wife are both oral surgeons in Oregon; daughter Anne and her husband live in Chile with their two children, Helen and Lucas; and daughter Helen presently lives in Venice, Calif., and is working for a professional photographer.

In 1973, Eve and Bob moved to Tehachapi from Lancaster.
“Bob worked at Edwards AFB so it really didn't make a lot of difference where we lived.”

And it was about this time that Eve began researching the development of a “niche market” for diabetes care. She worked for the pharmacy in Old Town from 1979 to 1988 and with further education she became the only resource for specialized diabetes information in the area. Subsequently, in 1988, she purchased the pharmacy in which she had been working.

“People still talk about it,” she said reminiscently. “It was a real privilege to be a small town pharmacist.” Eve eventually sold the pharmacy to Rite Aid in 1997.

During all of this time Eve hadn't neglected her writing skills, although she did adjust the subject to educating people who live with diabetes. “It's such a pervasive disease,” Eve said as she talked about the health columns she has written and other published articles in Grit magazine.

Eve confesses her addiction to court TV shows and the CSI and NCIS series. She especially likes the House series. “I'd really like to meet their researchers,” she said referring to the House series. “They have such done such a good job that some medical schools now require their students to watch the show for educational purposes!”

She also loves mysteries and already had a main character developed in her mind: Claire Burton, a fictional woman who suffers from severe diabetes. Claire, forced to leave her job as a law enforcement officer because of the disease, becomes a private investigator who controls her diabetes by means of an insulin pump. Claire's character was complete and she would serve as a great role model for non-fictional people living with diabetes because she recognizes and deals with the health limitations dictated by diabetes, while still living an exciting and fulfilling life.

There was only one problem: Eve didn't have a crime for Claire to solve.
While in Indianapolis at a convention with her husband, however, the literary muse descended.

“I was simply walking by the canal when the crime came to me,” she said. “I rushed back to our hotel room and within a few hours had the entire story fleshed out,” Eve declared.

Her first novel, The Canal Murder took about six months to complete, and originally was to be serialized in a diabetes health magazine. After the first couple of issues, however, Eve decided to self-publish it, in order to get her diabetes educational messages out to the masses. She also self-published the second in the Claire Burton series, Local Boy Makes Dead. She currently is working on Sweet Talks with God, a devotional for individuals living with diabetes and also is working on the third Claire Burton sequel.

In addition to her more “mundane” pursuits, Eve is a certified insulin pump trainer working from Ridgecrest to Tehachapi, Shafter, Wasco, Taft and Bakersfield. She also works as a consultant for the Tehachapi Hospital, teaching classes on diabetes and other chronic diseases.