A loud thud. “Oh-h-h-h,” a high-pitched voice that dwindled down to a whisper. The creak of the door as it opened.
“What in the world has happened?” Jim and I both thought as we rushed through the crowded living room and dining room to the front door. We were having a Christmas season open house for friends and neighbors, but none had arrived in such a way till now.
There she was, my friend and colleague Shirlee, standing inside the foyer door holding her head. She had not seen that Jim had opened the paned front door so that only the single glass storm door was closed. She had walked—hard—right into that storm door, giving her forehead quite the crack.
We wanted to seat her somewhere, but there is only a small child’s chair in the foyer. She got as far as the stairway and collapsed on the third step. “I’ll get some ice,” I said and rushed to the kitchen and back in less than two minutes with a baggie of ice cubes wrapped in a kitchen towel.
“Don’t you have any peas?” Shirlee queried. I must have looked confused, because she explained that a bag of frozen peas works much better on a bump on the forehead. I raced back to the kitchen only to find that we, indeed, did not have a frozen bag of peas to ease her pain.
Both of us kept apologizing profusely, trying to minister to Shirlee’s needs while not ignoring our rooms-full of guests. After a few minutes, Shirlee was able to rise, take off her coat, and join in the festivities of the evening. And Jim and I were heaving sighs of relief that nothing worse than a bump occurred that evening.
The fact that Shirlee rose and joined the crowded space to chat with other friends in the room was a testament to her graciousness. She could have walked straight out the front door (she had been perturbed enough to do so), but, instead, she made us feel better by becoming “just another” guest in the crowded scene.
“Gracious,” then, is one word to describe Dr. Shirlee Ann McGuire, who passed away recently. But, oh, so many other words could be used to describe this wonderfully complex, talented individual. “Dramatic” is another word that described Shirlee: she had a master’s that included reader’s theater. When she was the sponsor of our chapter of the Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society, she coached all the officers on how to read their various parts of the induction ceremony. When she taught an upper division literature course on Charles Dickens, she made her students the detectives when they read the unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Notebooks and pencils, caps and fake pipes were used to spur the students into thinking what the ending might be.
“Scholarly” is another word which described Shirlee. Not only was she excellent teacher of her subject matter, which included English literature and folklore, but she was also a lover of the material, memorizing poems, prose passages, and the “Our Father” in the Old English which she then taught to students. And not only was she a scholar-teacher at Olivet, but also at a Japanese university for a semester.
Another word that fit Shirlee was “adventurous.” Some would probably disagree with such a description, because Shirlee was a person with a routine, a schedule, a discipline. But she also was adventurous in the sense that this woman, always single, would go anywhere to participate in something she felt was worthwhile and educational. Of course, she took in musical and theatrical events in Chicago all the time, but she also booked travels to far-flung places such as the tour that covered Paul’s missionary journeys and the one that took her to the original land of Anne of Green Gables fame.
“Kind” has to be another word included in the list of Shirlee’s descriptors. She was always so kind to my sons and me. She grew to know all three sons well enough to ask about them and to plan to visit when the two older ones were home for holidays. When my two oldest grandchildren were born, she gave them gifts and later brought her favorite children’s book to them: Pokey Little Puppy. It quickly became one of our favorites, too. My son Geoffrey always listed her as a reference on his resume because he knew she was willing to give an honest assessment of his character.
Besides my personal experiences of Shirlee’s kindness, I was privy to a kindness she did for a student. Now retired from his work in research, this former student of Shirlee’s came to an ONU homecoming reception for Phi Delta Lambda Honor Society members a few years ago. I happened to be substituting as host for the first hour of the event and, thus, happened to meet this gentleman. He almost immediately asked about Dr. McGuire. Upon learning of her retirement, he seemed to regret that he would not be seeing her at the reception; I became the recipient of a great story.
The man had been an adult student with a wife and a full-time job when he decided to pursue his college education. Shirlee—Dr. McGuire to him—was his general education literature professor. Gen ed lit is the bane of most undergraduates’ lives. It requires a massive amount of reading and the ability to retain details about those readings. Although he had tried to complete all the readings, even asking his wife to tape oral readings of the stories for him to listen to while going to and from his job, he fell woefully behind. When the second test was given, he had failed to complete the whole test. Instead of giving him a failing grade, Shirlee had called him into her office and asked him about his problem. Then she gave him a grace period before she allowed him to come in and finish the test. She did this with all the rest of the semester’s assignments. He was able to pass with a good grade, and, obviously, went on to get such remarkable grades in his major field that he had been inducted into the honor society whose members almost always have average GPAs of 3.75 or above. Shirlee’s kindness set him on the right path for the rest of his courses.
The last word that describes Shirlee McGuire to me is not an adjective, but a noun—the simple word “friend.” I treasured her friendship. Sometimes she would invite me to her home for teatime or a special lunch. The table was always set with her pretty blue and white china plates and her teapot was always hot under its cosy. We might take a walk through her yard to look at her flowers or we might sit and chat about Pendleton wool clothing, her favorite clothes to wear. She shared recipes of her delicious plain cake and her pecan miniature muffins, even giving me a tin in which to make mine. Sometimes we talked about family; other times, about spiritual things.
Just a few months before she became so ill that she had to give up her house, I had accompanied her to a women’s banquet at her church. She was to play the cello that evening, and I was able to get several snapshots of her playing. She introduced me to many of her church friends, all of whom seemed to appreciate her as much as I did. But what I remember most about that evening is that Shirlee showed me the Sunday School room where she taught a primary class of boys and girls. I could tell she loved the work—and the children. She named them by name and described their attendance in the class, which, for most of them, was a new kind of event in their lives.
Physically, Shirlee was a tall, thin woman with a ramrod straight back. I always envied her posture, whether she was standing or sitting. And she could sit so still when she was listening to a person: one knew that she was paying attention. Sometimes, when she was frustrated or thought something was silly, she would get a rather stern look on her face and say the single French word, “Bon,” as in “Good” or, more probably in this case, an exasperated, “Well!”
But when she was happy or pleased, her delight filled her face with joy. Her smile was sparkling to match her voice. I’ll miss that smile and that voice, portents of the warm welcome into her loving circle, one of which I was privileged to be a part. And we are never without a bag of peas in our freezer—Shirlee, master teacher, taught us that lesson!
A Myriad of Things 