Diane Easterly

Diane Carol Easterly, 62, after a brief illness, left this world to help her husband find his reading glasses and wallet in the next on May 11, 2019.
She leaves her son, Adam Easterly and her daughter-in-law, Jennifer Easterly; her daughter, Erin Easterly; her brother, Larry Entzian; her sister, Susan Gonzalez; one grandchild, many nieces and nephews, and two kitty-cats.
Born February 6, 1957 (“that's Ronald Reagan's birthday”) in Cheverly, Maryland to Ernest and Aline Entzian, Diane lived with her husband and children in New Carrollton, Maryland before moving to Walkersville, Maryland in 1999.
Diane was born the youngest-and best, “if I do say so myself”--of three children. She grew up on her parents' tobacco farm in Mitchellville where she cultivated an unshakable belief that cows are the highest evolved and most perfect of God's creations. She never drove past a dairy farm without remarking how clean, happy, or tired “the girls” looked that day. Chickens and snakes, on the other hand, were entirely unacceptable.
She graduated from Largo High School in 1975, and several years later started her first job in banking as a teller. In 2017, she retired from from Bank of America as a senior loan underwriter and a true master of figuring out how to split large bills at restaurants on the spot.
Despite her husband's grandmother's best attempts to run her off, Diane married Michael Paul Easterly at First Lutheran Church of Bowie in 1983. Prior to their marriage, she endured five years of exclusively being called “That Jane” and never being addressed directly to her face (nobody was good enough for Mike to Mike's grandmother). Because of this, though Diane and Mike were married 33 years, she directed her children to always say 38. Because “I deserve credit for all of that.”
Diane welcomed her son, Adam, in 1984 and her daughter, Erin, in 1987. Over the years she became a self-taught professor (figured out all their homework), an experienced literary critic (also their book reports), a decorated scientist (not one of their science fair project ideas wasn't her idea), and a visionary fashion designer (the word for her Halloween '91 interpretation of Swamp Thing via bed sheet: transcendent).
In her spare time, Diane was a phenomenal gardener and cross-stitcher, and a prolific reader. She regularly pored over bookstore new release lists so she could put new books on reserve at Walkersville Public Library before they even hit the shelf. When she opened a book the first time and heard that spine adhesive crack: “ah, virgin book.” Her reading addiction made her a merciless adversary at all History Channel History Quizzes.
She loved going on camping trips with her family every year. For a time, she was even pretty into playing video games, though after a fateful day in which her husband pulled an all-nighter just to beat her high score at Berzerk on Atari, she officially rage-quit from everything but Gameboy Tetris. She never forgave him for his betrayal.
During retirement, her favorite thing was going on road trips with her brother and sister across the country-provided Larry wasn't driving ("he 'geezes'.") Diane was amazing at planning trips and finding activities, and her almost freakish sense of navigation made her the ultimate road trip buddy. Her son vehemently believes his mother was the inspiration for all consumer GPS products.
At home, when not “digging in the dirt” in her yard, Diane was assuredly watching the 110 hours of ID Channel shows she routinely saved on her DVR. If there is one piece of advice she'd like to pass along from the other side, it's “don't trust anyone who offers you a blue Gatorade-that's what they always use to poison you.”
Diane was a lot of wonderful things, but above all, she was the most patient, hard-working, and selfless person her family ever had the pleasure of knowing. After years of her ingrate kids and husband stealing all of her forks, attempting to run her into bankruptcy by using up her paper towels and toilet paper at record-breaking speeds, and begging her for pets they never really helped her take care of, Diane returned the favor by always being there to take care of everything and never once complaining.
Diane was a loving wife, the best mother anyone could ever have, her siblings' partner-in-crime, and a great friend who always had a funny one-liner in her back pocket. Everyone who knew her well is going to miss her every single day.
A memorial service in Diane's honor will be held at 11 a.m. Monday, May 20, 2019 at Stauffer Funeral Home in Frederick, MD.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you write your Congressmen to ask for their support in banning the sale of skim milk as it's an insult to all hard-working “girls.” Apologies to the lactose-intolerant, but wrong is wrong. And skim milk is definitely wrong.