MCNEELY, GENEVA "NEVA" LILLIAN (NÉE: MEHAFFEY) – age 93, a lifelong resident of Powell, passed away peacefully at her home on Tuesday, August 21, 2018 with family by her side. For more than thirty years, Geneva was a member of Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Born to Walter and Ocie Mehaffey on March 15, 1925, Geneva, whose smile could light up a room, was the youngest of three daughters and a sister to a younger brother. In the eighth grade at Claxton Elementary School, she played as a guard on the Claxton Blue Devils basketball team. Geneva learned to play the mandolin and how to sing in harmony with her two sisters. In the earlier years of Knoxville's WNOX Mid Day Merry-Go-Round radio program, the sister trio sang as The Mehaffey Sisters. When Roy Acuff left the radio program to pursue a musical career, he tried to recruit the sisters to accompany him to Nashville. Unfortunately, The Mehaffey Sisters' dreams of becoming country music stars were squelched because their parents deemed them as too young to go. However, the sisters still sang together at family gatherings throughout their lives. Geneva was the first in her family to graduate from Clinton High School where she was recognized as one of the top stenographers and typist in her class. Immediately after graduation, Geneva was employed with an insurance company in Oak Ridge. She worked there until she resigned to help her mother in the family store/diner and where she met her future husband, Ralph McNeely. They were married in 1946 and five years later, had their first child, a son followed by a daughter one year later. In 1952, the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio and while there, Geneva had to teach her neighbors how to make cornbread because, being Northerners, they had never tasted or heard of it. The McNeely clan returned to East Tennessee in 1958 where Geneva resumed her secretarial expertise first working for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and then for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as a top-ranked file clerk for the General Manager's Office until she retired from there. After retirement, she and her husband of sixty eight years traveled throughout the country in their RV. Geneva loved to sew, crochet and work crossword puzzles. She was an excellent cook and made the best tasting chocolate pies and banana puddings ever made. Most important, she was a loving mother and devoted wife who made many sacrifices by placing her family's needs and happiness above her own. While the Ides of March didn't work out so well for Julius Caesar, it was one of the best days ever for the McNeely family because it represents the day that one of the greatest wives and mothers was ever born on this earth. Alas, the world has lost someone very special – a truly amazing woman - a Southern lady with a generous heart and a caring soul. She will be greatly missed. While the family mourns the loss of their beloved mother and "Granny", Heaven has added a sweet member to its choir of angels.
Preceded in death by husband, Ralph McNeely; parents, Walter and Ocie Mehaffey; sisters, Lucille Flynn and Glenna Beals; brother, Charles Mehaffey.
She is survived by: son, Alan McNeely & wife Linda of Powell; daughter, Barbara McNeely & beau Samuel Foust; grandchildren, Alyssa Lopez & husband Steve of Mustang, OK, Karen Craven & husband Aaron of Winston-Salem, NC; great grandchildren: Vivian Craven & Sheridan Lopez; several nieces and nephews.
The family will receive friends at the Holley-Gamble Funeral Home on Saturday, August 25, 2018 from 6-7pm with the funeral service to follow at 7pm with the Rev. Thomas Sweet officiating. Family and friends wishing to attend her graveside service will meet at the Woodhaven Memorial Gardens on Sunday, August 26, 2018 at 2pm. www.holleygamble.com