Karen Geoffrey Ennis Karen was a beloved mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend and librarian who beamed with kindness, serenity, warmth and wit. She possessed an independent spirit and contagious zeal for learning and living. A slender beauty with radiant blue-grey eyes, she exuded the strong spirit of a warrior until the very end. She died on October 9 at the age of 64. Karen was born on November 2, 1951 in Brooklyn to Esther Geoffrey, a ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer, and Paul Geoffrey, who helped servicemen recuperate at the USO following his own service with the Seabees in the Navy during WWII. After Brooklyn, Karen's family moved around, from Biloxi, Mississippi to Alexandria, Virginia to Portland, Maine before the family settled at the foot of Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs in 1959. As a child she displayed a vivid imagination and huge heart. Her love for animals was already apparent when she and her brother Russ adopted the family of 17 cats that came to their house in Biloxi. She loved books, and being swept away in rich characters and worlds. As a teenager she was shy but friendly, with a charming soft-spoken demeanor that drew people to her. In the early 1970s, she moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan to receive her master's degree in library science. Spurred by love and a sense of adventure, she embarked on a cross-country road trip to California for her honeymoon, where she had never been, but settled for the remainder of her life. She worked first at the San Rafael, and then the San Francisco Public Libraries for nearly 30 years. Karen was the personification of kindness and empathy, listening calmly to all people, and offering sage advice when asked. She knew not to sweat the small stuff. She sparked creativity in children, from helping her daughter Rachel staple together and write her own picture books as a child, to telling animated stories to groups of children at the Sunset Branch Library, through which she amassed a collection of animal puppets. She always had a stack of donation letters to animal right's group ready to be mailed, and loved her own cats dearly, setting individual holiday stockings out for them filled with treats every year. Filled with ambition, idealism and independence, she successfully passed a difficult test late in her career to become a librarian administrator. Intellectually curious, she traveled many places around the world, including Israel, Greece and Costa Rica but was also at bliss in the nature that surrounded her, walking weekly through a local bird sanctuary, closing her eyes and listening to their chirps. In 2012, she visited the Grand Canyon with Rachel, and despite her unpredictable condition was always smiling and calm, admiring the many views and slowly savoring food: she cherished moments and could be at peace in the present. Karen survived breast cancer in 1998 and again fell ill with the bone marrow disorder Polycythemia vera in 2011. Even when she was hospitalized for a bone marrow transplant, she possessed the same joy for life and indefatigable spirit, pushing herself down hospital halls with her walker at the Seattle Cancer Care Center, even when she felt too tired to get out of bed. As soon as she was discharged, she donned a wig to enjoy trips to the movies, with an oxygen tank by her side. On a last doctor's visit in San Francisco, she said, "I look around and feel like all of these people are in a different world than me. They're in paradise and don't even realize it." Paradise for her was the simple pleasures so many people take for granted, including walking and breathing freely, which she longed to do again. Karen is survived by her daughter Rachel Stern, husband Sam Ennis, and brother Russell Geoffrey.