Obituary of Shirley Beverley Lowry

Shirley B. Lowry Shirley B. Lowry was born to U.S. citizens John and Frances Cannon in Winnipeg, Canada on June 6,1927. She passed away peacefully on August 22, 2016 at the age of 89 in Vancouver, Washington of pneumonia complications. The family moved in the 1940s to Los Angeles briefly where she entered the banking profession, then settled in Portland, Oregon. She had dreams of becoming an airline flight attendant. She is survived by her husband Sidney, five children, David, Derele (Dee), Bradley, Karen and Scott as well as many grandchildren and great grandchildren. She lived mostly in Washington State (Vancouver, Battle Ground, Long Beach, Gig Harbor) but was a snow bird spending nearly 20 winters in Surprise, Arizona. She loved to sew, was an excellent cook, loved roses and traveling to the east and west coasts of the U.S., to Hawaii, Guam and Japan. She will be missed by many for her wit and sense of humor. Her Memorial Service will be at 11:00am, August 30, 2016 at Pleasant View Nazarene Church, 801 NE 194th St, Ridgefield, WA and she will be buried at Willamette National Cemetery in southeast Portland, Oregon. Eulogy for Shirley B. Lowry (Cannon) SID! RAYMOND! If you were around my Mom you heard those two words a lot, in that order—with increasing emphasis! And, you knew that it was time to come to order, time for something to happen! Good morning and welcome to each of you. For those I ha-ven’t met yet, I am David Lowry. I was chosen to say these words because I am Shirley’s first-born of five kids. This is a eulogy. Not having given one before, I looked up the word. I found that a eulogy should be: -a few words to honor a person’s memory, -to give comfort to others and to share positive memories. -Mom believed in the Bible. The Bible doesn’t say anything specific about eulogies. However, it has much to say about our speech. E.g. Ephesians says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building oth-ers up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who lis-ten.” Certainly, this is exactly how I heard my Mom’s speech throughout her entire life. I can not recall her speaking ill of anyone-as Dad told me a few days ago, “she didn’t want to hear it.” But instead she sought only to see the good in everyone she knew and to build them up by her speech. So, let us speak today as she did. And while we speak in praise of a person, we must remember that the highest praise goes to God, who created us all. Let me begin at her beginning. Mom was born to American citizens in Winnipeg, Canada on Monday, June 6,1927. Winnipeg happens to be the longitudi-nal center of North America, just as she was the center of many of the lives here today. How many here would not be alive but for her? She spent her first 17 summers there and in the winters be-came quite good at ice skating on nearby Lake Winnipeg, along with her sister Joyce, brother Jack and her friends. She learned to ride a toboggan. As a youngster, I would sit for hours at our kitchen table listening to her stories about that part of her life. She said that Lake Winnipeg was so big you couldn’t see across it. I checked, it’s the 10th largest lake in the world! Her family moved on to Los Angeles in the mid 1940s, where she decided that since her Dad was a career accountant that she would follow the money for a while also, and she entered banking; although, she used to tell all of her kids that what she really wanted to be was an airline stewardess! That’s why she later encouraged her young daughter not to do dangerous things so she wouldn’t scar her knees in case she also wanted to fly. Soon after, the family settled in Portland, Oregon. This is where Mom met this Army veteran who was a tall, dark, and slender kid from SE Portland who whooed her and finally, under a magnolia tree, convinced her to marry him. And then he took her off to Victoria, BC for their honeymoon. She knew her share of tragedy. As a teenager, she lost her oldest sister to polio and at age 26 lost her mother to cancer. But her love for her family and her faith in God somehow gave her the strength to not only go on but to love life without bitterness and to instill in all of us a gratitude for every day we have together. How incredibly strong was she? Did I know anyone stronger? She never gave up, she put her entire being into raising us five kids and providing for us a home, much of that time on a 40-acre farm, where we could learn, grow and stretch as far as we could stretch. She was so proud of her kids’ and grandkids’ achievements. From Cub and Boy Scout awards, to little league baseball home-runs, to school awards, to those who served in our military in harm’s way defending our country. She loved Chanel No. 5. In the 50s and 60s she loved to take us little kids to the beach so we could go razor clamming and fishing with her in-laws and so us kids could do what kids do at the beach, especially with our cousins. And then she enjoyed their beach cabin and later a fine condo overlooking the surf at Long Beach, Washington. At their Riverside Drive home in Vancouver, she could tell you the destination of every airplane that was taking off from the Portland Airport as she studied them across the Columbia River from the kitchen window. She delighted in being a snowbird living in both Washington State and in Arizona and watching the Mariners play from the stands near their Arizona home and at Safeco Field. She even bought a brick with her and Dad’s name on it-which you can all see on walkway to the first base side stands when you visit Safeco Field. She loved to sew and was an excellent cook. She loved ros-es, the ones you can smell and the ones on the English-style teacups she collected. She loved traveling, to the east and west coasts of the U.S., to Hawaii, Guam and to Japan where they lived for a year working with their church after retirement. And I know it may sound greedy to want more days with a person who lived so long, but the fact that my mother was 89 does not diminish, it only magnifies the enormity of the room whose doors have quietly shut. As I close, probably the most outstanding memory I have of my Mom is her wit and sense of humor. She constantly made all of us around her smile and laugh at her unexpected witticisms! I recall at a dinner in the Officer’s Club at Luke AFB, Dad whispered to us, “Hey, that’s an Air Force general sitting at the next table.” Mom said loudly and proudly, “A general, is he equal to a housewife?” The general pretended not to notice! In the last couple years as Mom’s short-term memory began to fade, if we talked about her in hushed tones from the next room, we could hear her call out in jest, “I heard that!” The caregivers at Mom’s adult care home echoed the same memory of her over the last few months. Mom was their only resident that the caregivers could joke around with. They say she really livened up the place! It hasn’t been the same since last week. In her last days, my mother occasionally became confused, and we tried to ground her by asking her simple questions, like “what day is it”, and “name your kids in order”. She couldn’t answer these completely. But when asked what her favorite hymn was, she immediately said, “Jesus Loves Me”. Us kids were the light of her life, and she let us know it ‘til the end. And that’s it. Thank you for listening. Now we can get to the important work going on with our lives, which is what she would want us to do. When I was leaving her seven days before her last, I leaned over and I said, “Mom, I love you, see you later” and she said with a smile “I love you too, see you later.” I can’t wait for that day! I miss you Mom.