Geraldine Strock

Geraldine M. (Jerry) Shauver Strock was born January 22, 1920, in Noble Township, Jay County, Indiana, the daughter of Ezra Dewey and Hazel Agatha Kimble Shauver.    When she was 2 years old her family moved to nearby Salamonia, Indiana, where she spent her childhood. 

She left home and moved to Portland in early 1936.   It was while working at a restaurant that she met her future husband, Merle R. Strock.   They were married August 31, 1940, in Portland, Indiana.   Three daughters were born to them.     Phyllis K. (Jay) Franklin,  Sharon A. (Joseph) Brewer, and Barbara L (David) Swaim.

They lived in Portland until 1949 when they moved to Knox, Stark County, Indiana.   The family moved back to Portland in 1955, and then in January of 1960 to Warsaw, Indiana, where she lived for 58 years.  During the time her daughters were in college she worked as a nursing assistant at Murphy Medical Center.  She moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 2018.

Jerry was a person who could do many of the tasks that people of that time identified as men’s work.   When she and Merle bought heavily wooded land on old road 30  on the east edge of Warsaw, they cleared the land for the house and  grubbed and cut down trees.   Then they had built the ranch house that served as her home until she sold the house and moved to Grace Village in 2012.  She did much of the inside finishing work on the house.

After Merle retired and she learned to ride a bicycle at the age of 60, they rode almost daily.  They took several trips that lasted 3-5 days in Indiana and Ohio, riding 50 or more miles a day on their bicycles. 

 She and Merle wintered in Green Valley, Arizona from the early 1980’s until Merle’s death which occurred on September 29, 1997 in Warsaw. 

Her hands were always busy.  As a child, she had much responsibility in helping care for her siblings.   Jerry attended grade school in Salamonia, in a  one room brick school house.  She attended high school at the Madison Township High School.  During her school years she earned 8 perfect attendance awards. 

When she was sixteen a friend paid for her to ride in an open cockpit, biplane at the Jay County fair.    She baked cookies for her grandchildren creating her own recipes.   She never forgot a birthday and was a letter writer that preferred that method of communication.  She was a crafter; knitting, crocheting, quilting, embroidering.   She learned to drive and got her drivers license  when she was 35 years old.   She cooked, baked, canned, gardened, and tailored her own clothes and those for her daughters.   Her grandchildren spent many summer vacations for a week or two in Warsaw.  She bought her last car, a red Buick at the age of 85.    One time she changed the brakes on the family car, a job that Merle usually did.  He had been ill and the job needed to be done.   He read her the instructions from a chair seated in the garage while she changed the brakes.

 She did all of her own yard work including mowing the grass and raking the acre wooded yard of her home where the leaves would become knee deep several times a year.   After Merle died she continued to do the things he had done to maintain the house even at the age of 90 .    Climbing a ladder in the winter to shovel or sweep snow off the roof or to crawl under the house into the crawl space to remove the protection from the vents in the crawl space so air could circulate in the summer.      

March of 2018 she moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to the Golden Years Homestead where she celebrated her 100th birthday on January 22, 2020.

She passed to God’s heaven peacefully on May 9, 2020 at Golden Years Homestead where she was cared for with gentle hands and understanding hearts by the staff.  The family will be forever grateful for their loving care.

In addition to her daughters, Phyllis, Sharon, and Barbara and son-in-law Joseph Brewer, she is survived by a brother, Howard Paul Shauver, of Gulf Breeze, Florida, Ramona J. Shauver Lee of Anderson, and Gloria A. Shauver Pfeiffer of Salamonia.

  She was a loving grandmother to her 8 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren and 8 great great grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her husband, her parents, and the following siblings, Marion E. Shauver, Harold “Buss” Shauver, Maxine Marie Shauver, Madonna J Shauver Betz, James R. Shauver, and Richard L Shauver

Visitation will be held on Sunday, June 14, from 1-1:30 p.m. at Salamonia Church of Christ in Salamonia.  An abbreviated service will follow at 1:30 p.m. with graveside services to follow at Salamonia Cemetery at 2:00 p.m.

To send flowers to the family, please visit our floral store.