Recipes for Living Shirley Woods

Although Shirley died in 1999, tributes are still being paid her. In the current renovation of the church building, a brick was bought in her name by youth she worked with in the mid - to late - 1970s. On July 1, 2005 Shirley's cousin Susan McNeil of Mesa, Arizona sent a letter to Diane Ogbourne, sponsorship chairperson of the July Fourth Committee, enclosing a donation made in Shirley's name. She wrote, "She loved rounding up as many family members as she could get from near and far to gather with her to watch the parade, enjoy good food on the square, and 'ooh!' and 'aah!' at the terrific fireworks." And this very day, a letter from a former pastor telling about an exceptional youth director in his church, remarked, "Reminds me of Shirley Woods."

There was an article about her ministries in the 2004 booklet, The First 150 Years of the Osceola United Methodist Church, and her obituary and eulogy were in the 1999 book of Recipes for Living, but these seem inadequate. She had told her life story for Recipes, but chose not to have it used. However, her close friend and executrix of her estate, Debbie Sullivan, and I, editor of the stories, believe a further tribute should be paid. The point: What was there about the ministry of Shirley Woods that lives on long after she is deceased? Might someone be inspired to do as she has done?

Shirley's account of her life: An interesting aspect of my birth was that Dr. Dean was the attending physician. I suppose he would have been nearly 90 when I was born in 1940. I was born in my Grandmother Lingle's home in the east part of Osceola. I grew up on the farm and went to country school through 8th grade. I had lots of cousins who liked to come to the farm primarily Sharon and Norma Miller, Merle and Myrna Patterson, and Bill Woods. As we grew older, my cousins and I grew apart as we all went in separate directions. Now, in my traveling, we have become reacquainted and I have stayed overnight with Sharon in St. Louis on occasion.

Life pretty much revolved around home. I didn't go anywhere except on Saturday nights when the family went to town to shop. Therefore I was terribly shy and lacked any shred of self confidence. After eighth grade, I came to town to high school, where my main activity was playing the saxophone in marching and concert bands and small groups. I enjoyed many years of playing in the municipal band that performed in the courtyard every Wednesday night.

Aunt Mary Woods brought me to town for Sunday school during my high school years. Eventually my church activities included teaching Sunday school and a 12-year leadership of the youth group, which included Denise Holt, Ed Wallace, Rick Hutchins, Bill Eddy, Jeff, Mary, and Susan Brown, Bob Ellsworth, Phil Curtis, Jan Deemer, Kevin Dorland, Abbie Allen, Laurie Squires, Jane Havard, Kellee and Susan Thorpe, John Kastler, Lori Short, Mario Melnik, Harry and Gary Barr, Joni Mueller, Janice Randol, Beth and Patti Lingle, Laura Lewis, Bruce Kentner, Lillian and Paul Henrich, Mark Ogan, Faith and Jeff Reynolds, Dave Hobbs, Kathy Thornton, Julie, Lori, and Mike Gunderson, Merrill Snell, Bob Turner, Ann Ware, Becky Watson, Ron Hammel, Juan Flavia, John and Suzanne Friday, and Bonnie Rubendall. We did some exciting things like overnight camping, trips to Silver Dollar City and Worlds of Fun, and baseball games. The group became a close-knit fellowship that continues to keep in touch. In their reunions, they have sometimes taken part in Sunday morning worship services, but I benefitted as much or more than they did.

After graduation, I went to work for Carlson-Friday Insurance. Fred Carlson had retired but the name stayed the same for a few years. While I was there, the travel-bug really bit me as a result of unusual circumstances. A pastor planned a youth tour of the New York City World's Fair then wasn't able to follow through. I had planned to go as a chaperone and C.D. Friday urged me to take this over with his help. Through his encouragement, we had a successful trip and I found my true love of traveling. I continued to do a bus tour every year for 18 years, primarily for adults, before going into tour business full-time. Until then I hadn't done any traveling except going to visit Uncle Ross and family every year after they moved to Arizona in 1961.

In the early 1980s, we moved into Osceola, and in August 1983, after 25 years, I left Friday Insurance. It was not a simple decision. By that time I had become an agent, and a close friend of some of our clients. Some of them depended on me regarding insurance issues. Debbie Sullivan and I worked together there for seven years. She, her husband John, became my close friends, and I was the "adopted" aunt of their children, Jamie and Jared.

I had no definite plan when I quit, but had become acquainted with Laura Brown, who came to work at KJJC radio station. She and I had a mutual desire to do some type of mission work. On checking, we discovered the Osceola United Methodist Church was willing to pay our travel expenses as a mission outreach. After months of studying various mission projects our church was involved with, we selected six where we would offer short-time volunteer services.

The first was Heifer Project International in Perryville, Arkansas, followed by Henderson Settlement in Kentucky, Mountain TOP in Tennessee, Tucson Metropolitan Ministry, Tampa United Methodist Center, and Appalachia Service Project in Virginia. Most of these were rural areas where poverty, beyond anything I had ever imagined, is a way of life. But the real eye opener was the experience in Tampa where we lived above a day care center in the ghetto. The compound housed the day care center, transitional housing, and a food pantry. It was surrounded by a fence complete with barbed wire and gates that were locked from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. That was when the last children left at night and the time the first children arrived the next morning. We learned in a hurry that a lot of people live in very different circumstances than those in southern Iowa. The hopelessness was so very evident on the faces of people who roamed the streets for lack of any purpose in their lives. I had always been given the idea that there was a job for everybody if they only had the gumption to look for and take it, but I know now that there are circumstances which make this not always true.

After about 1 ½ years, Laura decided to leave this type of work and find paying jobs. I continued as a full-time mission volunteer for another four years, still getting some support from the church and drawing on my savings to supplement the cost.

My main involvement over the years has been with Heifer Project International, but this has led to others. I became acquainted with the Rev. Mel West who was on the Board of HPI and Habitat for Humanity. He lived in Columbia, Missouri and attended a church meeting where dignitaries were planning a special event with an outstanding speaker. Mel got up and said, "This is fine. I'm sure we can all have a nice time but will anybody benefit from that? Will the poor be helped?" The Bishop's response was, "O.K., Mel, you plan something." He and Barbara, his wife, came up with the Festival of Sharing, which is forerunner to our Ingathering that last year in Iowa raised over a million dollars in cash and in-kind gifts for missions throughout the world.

I met Mel through HPI but he is the one who really got me involved with Habitat for Humanity, where I became acquainted with Millard Fuller and his wife, Linda, who founded the project. Millard's idea is that everyone should have a decent place to live. His book No More Shacks is in our church library. These houses are built with volunteer labor and some donated materials, creating simple, inexpensive houses for selected recipients who also put many hours of their own labor into the building of what will become their home. They pay on the basis of what they can afford. The program differs from a government program in that people have to participate in its creation.

I have played a small role in the networking of HPI and Habitat programs. I spent time with the Nashville Habitat for Humanity office and worked on some of their new homes. On one project I worked side-by-side for awhile with former President Jimmy Carter. One of the assignments I had with HPI was representing them at the annual Mission Day in Hendersonville Chapel in Tennessee. On these occasions, I met people such as Tony Campola, whose books are in our church library.

Heifer Project International was founded by Dan West, a Church of the Brethren Relief Worker in Spain, following their civil war in the late 30s. His daily contact with starving refugee children made him think there must be a better way to help them than giving them a cup of powdered milk. His idea, "not a cup but a cow," led to the first shipment of dairy heifers in 1944. I'm honored and gratified to be a part of his organization which in 50 years has placed animals in 33 states and 110 countries. The recipients pass an offspring of their animals on to someone else in need, thus making them givers as well as receivers. We include various types of animals depending on the circumstance of the family in need - cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits, poultry, fish, draft animals, and honeybees.

Usually I have spent only two or three months at a time on one of these mission projects; however, I did spend 1 ½ years from early 1989 to mid-1990 at the HPI Learning and Livestock Center in Arkansas. My assignment during that time was livestock chores and gardening, but also giving tours of the facility. I was the principal airport shuttle person. This was a great experience as we had interesting visitors from all over the world coming into Little Rock and I had the opportunity to get acquainted with them as we traveled from the airport to the ranch and back again.

When I returned to Iowa in 1990, it became necessary for me to have more income than I had had for several years. I decided to see if I could make a living from the tour business and increased that from one or two a year to ten or fifteen. I have had the pleasure of leading tour groups into all 50 states, Canada, and Mexico. We are getting ready for our first overseas trip to the British Isles this fall (1996) with the help of Janelle Murrane.

An interesting side-effect of all this has been the collection and dispersal of used clothing and various other items. Over the past six years we have been able to take with us on the bus hundreds of pounds of clothing for delivery to an area on our itinerary. On one occasion I was at North Elementary to load up books they were no longer using to take to Tennessee, when Ronni Bell, the principal, asked if I had a use for band uniforms. I said I would take one and ask. We found a school in east Tennessee that was thrilled to receive the 50-60 uniforms, and the first time they wore them was in the Inaugural Parade for Governor McWerter in 1986.

As a young child, I developed a real liking for country music and listened to the grand Ole Opry on the radio, little thinking there would come a day when I would be able to count some of Opry members as friends and would occasionally be invited back stage. This friendship enabled me to get the Whites to perform in Osceola on two occasions. I also organized concerts which they have done for HPI’s benefit.

Over the years, I have had some involvement with the Osceola Chamber of Commerce, July 4th Committee, and spent two years as Parish Visitor for the church. In November 1974, at the encouragement of our pastor Rev. Ivan Bys, I made a trip to the Holy Land to attend the International Convocation on Evangelism. I hope to be able to return there at some time for a more extended tour and in-depth study.

In March 1992, I made my first visit to Dr. Lower in regard to a rather large lump which I had a definite feeling would be malignant and would require surgery. This was true. I had a modified radical mastectomy on March 9, but was fortunate to need no chemo or radiation. This type of cancer is treated by a drug called Tamoxilen, which I take daily. In appreciation for being allowed to remain on the earth, I plan to enjoy life to the fullest, to continue traveling both with tour groups and on my own to visit friends and cousins who are scattered all over the country.

Also, with the encouragement of Ross Frahm, I have blown the dust out of my saxophone and have been playing with Celebration Brass as well as doing a solo. It has been great fun to pick this up again and I hope to spend more time with it and with the dulcimer that I bought in the Ozarks. There are so many things I want to do, among them getting back into a deeper involvement with HPI and Habitat. I love the State Fair, and it has been great fun to coordinate the staffing of the HPI booth. I hope to resume my biking. I used to ride as many as 500 miles in the summer, and I haven't picked up the tennis racket in awhile.

Many of Shirley's friends responded to her needs in the last while. One day, when she was depressed, and several local pastor friends were not available, Rev. Cliff Haider came from Des Moines to have lunch. Close neighbor and friend Donna McDaniel cared for both Shirley and her father. Vicky Mateer from Murray and others transported her to Des Moines for doctors' appointments and chemotherapy treatments, all doing so happily because of their love for Shirley. She and Vicky made several trips to Carter County, Kentucky, to deliver clothing. Vicky and Darrell sent seeds, which they continued to do in Shirley's name after her death.

Vicky remembers those trips when they talked all the way, sharing many confidences. Shirley often asked Vicky to pray with her. Their last trip was in March 1998. "It was very hard," Vicky remembers. They had to find motels with a recliner in which Shirley could sleep because she was no longer able to lie in bed, and the realization that it would be their last trip hung around the edges of their thought. Vicky does not believe Shirley feared death, but she had many things she wanted to do before then.

Shirley died suddenly on July 5, 1999. She was beginning her second round of chemotherapy. When traces were found in her liver, the prognosis was not good, but she continued to do all and perhaps more than she felt like doing. She had the care of her father until it became too much for her and he went into the Long Term wing of Clarke County Hospital.

For Shirley, the end was not predictable. July 4th was on Sunday that year, so there were festivities on the night of July 3 and a service in the courtyard on 4th. She attended both of those but didn't feel strong enough to see the parade on Monday. About 7:00 that evening, Donna McDaniel, went to check on her. She found Shirley sitting on the floor, apparently planning to sort through magazines in a window seat. Donna alerted the neighbors, and even though they called 911, neighbor Dr. George Lewis determined she had died. The ambulance took her to the hospital.

Obituaries typically conclude with the listing of relatives who mourn the passing, in her case her father, uncles, aunts, cousins, a host of friends, and her dog Rocky. Shirley always had a dog, and she loved them. First was ''Doc," followed by ''B.J." named for the country music singer, B.J. Thomas; and last, Rocky.

No one would dispute the "host of friends," for everyone who toured with her considered her a personal friend and those were her feelings toward them. On her tours, there were many who were widowed, who would probably not have traveled alone, but who were introduced to places they would never otherwise have seen. Those who take similar tours still mention her as they travel. A tour was planned when she died. Debbie Sullivan found notes and deposits in the files when she carried out her duties as executrix of Shirley's will.

When she had the church responsibility as Parish Visitor, she became close friends with many of the shut-ins, whom she continued to call on regularly. When she became a member of the Cancer Support Group, she not only faithfully attended meetings, but called regularly on those newly afflicted. Obviously, the youth afore listed have never forgotten her.

Shirley did not only "like" country music but was on first-name basis with many of the stars. She also became a fan of the Homeland Singers of Indianola, and attended as many of their concerts as was feasible. She occasionally sponsored a "Thursday Night in the Park" event in Osceola, and featured them for entertainment. Summarizing what she did for H.P.I.., the office manager said, "Shirley was willing to do whatever needed to be done."

This is what became of the shy little girl as she attempted to and did make the world a better place for many people. Would we desire to be remembered when we are gone? "Go and do likewise." She has set an example.