The Shearer family history has been securely tucked into Maple Valley since 1954. They will now celebrate at a 100-year birthday party. Maple Valley residents and Tahoma graduates who remember Dorothy Shearer, her children, grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren can join the occasion. They are invited to send a birthday card filled with memories to Dorothy Shearer Cohen who currently resides at The Lodge, a Gencare facility at 1600 Eagle Ridge Drive G4, Renton, 98055. She turns age 100 on June 5, 2020
Dorothy May Banks was born in the notorious Roaring Twenties, thus the birthday theme chosen for the 100-year celebration is “Roaring 20’s Chicago”. As a young girl she lived in Chicago with her mom, Mary. Clear memories are of her neighbor’s backyard moonshine stills. Stills were the equipment used to create alcohol by processing waters (boil and then cool) to condense into vapor. Those were the days of prohibition, 1920-1933, when a nationwide ban on alcohol was in effect. One day the authorities arrived, busting the booze offenders and dumping out their stills. The vapors (or “foam” as Dorothy called it) rose above her head and above the fence as she watched from her own back yard. She remembers the men knocking on their front door. Her mom answered. Those gangsters would walk in and put a wad of cash on the kitchen table. It was called “hush money”. The neighbor’s home, it turned out, belonged to “Scarface” Al Capone, America’s most famous gangster and crime boss. He dominated the crime scene in Chicago from 1925 until 1931 when he was imprisoned.
Life in Seattle when the family moved from Chicago was definitely less exciting but more comfortable. Dorothy was employed at a large business and then at the Boeing Company, while her husband, Loyle Shearer, attended the U of W. Dorothy worked as a riveter at Boeing during the “Rosie the Riveter” era when women were hired for jobs previously held only by male workers; men had left their jobs to serve in World War II. The Rosie theme “We Can Do It” aptly applied to Dorothy’s skills.
Renton and then Maple Valley were obviously more sedate locations for the family. The Shearers bought a small, 11-acre farm in Maple Valley in 1954. An entrepreneur herself, Dorothy started a local business selling eggs. She also raised Airdales and established her business with the name, Maple Lane Kennel. She raised and showed championship dogs both nationally and in Canada for over 50 years. When she finally moved with Nate Cohen, her second husband, into the age 55+ community at Wilderness Village in Maple Valley, she relished her time with her grandchildren while taking them to a health spa that she had joined. Those grandchildren now share fond memories of “going with Grandma”.
Attending the 100th birthday party will be Shearer’s two sons Bob and Greg, her daughter Joan and son-in-law Bill Messenger; thirteen grandchildren, many of whom still live in Maple Valley, are Ross and Lisa Shearer, Allison Shearer Mackie and Shawn, Tim and Sarah Shearer, Joe and Heather Shearer, Stephanie (Shearer) Rhyner (THS class of 1995) and Steve Rhyner (THS 1990), Debbie Shearer, Travis and Eva Grant, Stephanie and Jason Weber, Dustin and Amy Grant, Holly and Nate Weddle, Laura and Ross Bottem, and Paul and Sarah Messenger; 27 great grandchildren, four of whom are Tahoma graduates, are Brianna Rhyner (2019), William Shearer (2017), Caitlin Lobdell (2008) and Trey Curran (2006). Dorothy has one great-great grandchild.
Well-wishers will soon party at the “big” birthday in more ways than one – in age, in family attendees, and in joy at witnessing a long life filled-like-the-still with frothy events. The party is Saturday, June 6 at The Lodge, at Eagle Ridge in Renton from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m.
