Obituaries
Laverne J. Atkinson
1930-2010
LaVerne June Atkinson passed away in Logan, Utah at the home of her daughter on July 7, 2010 with family members in attendance. She was born on March 28, 1930 to William and Erika Pohlman in Salt Lake City, Utah.
As a child she moved with her family to Southern California, and graduated from North Hollywood High School and later from UCLA. LaVerne, or ‘Pohly’ as she was known by her students, taught Physical Education for a year at Fresno High School prior to marrying Jerald D. Atkinson in 1955 and settling in the San Fernando Valley. They started their family in 1960, eventually having four children: three sons and a daughter. LaVerne and Jerry divorced in 1977 but remained the best of friends. In 1980 LaVerne moved to Santa Paula and lived there for nearly 20 years before moving to Utah.
LaVerne was a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and held many teaching positions, including early morning seminary instructor, MIA instructor, Gospel Doctrine teacher, and most recently Sunday school instructor at the Sunshine Terrace in Logan. She also enjoyed singing, and lent her voice to many church and community choirs including the Southern California Mormon Choir, the Maryann Mendenhall Chorale, the Cache Valley Easter Choir, and others.
LaVerne enjoyed people. That phrase is a little trite, but she really enjoyed people! She was never afraid to strike up a conversation with a stranger, and usually at the conclusion of those conversations the stranger and LaVerne had become friends. She had many favorite sayings (Onward, upward, and forward), and would often sprinkle her conversations with a word or two of German, (Sprechen sie deutsch?). Her enjoyment of people led her to volunteer at the library, hospital, and elementary schools, and to serve for a short period in the Logan Temple. LaVerne also had a great love for animals and still had three of her cats with her at her passing.
LaVerne is survived by Jerry; her children: David (Amber), Brian (Marie), Darren, Lynne (Ruben); and six grandchildren: Jenessa, Christopher, Galen, Tasha, Cameron, and Garrett. We wish to give a special thanks to the doctors, nurses, and assistants of Access Home Care and Hospice for their loving care of our mother. We love you Mom and we will miss you.
In honor of LaVerne’s request, no formal services will be held. Condolences may be sent to the family at www.allenmortuaries.net.
John Baldwin Shilton
John Baldwin Shilton, M.D. died on July 11, 2010 at his home in Santa Paula, a house that he and his wife Carol Jean built together in 1958 and where they raised their five children.
Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1922 to Earle Astor and Miriam Baldwin Shilton, Jack was a transplanted Midwesterner who loved California, but never ceased to relish his memories of growing up in Hyde Park, near the University of Chicago in a grand apartment building, The Cloisters, that his father built and managed.
Jack especially loved to reminisce about his childhood: selling magazines door-to-door and installing storm windows to earn pocket money, escorting his sister Mary to Shirley Temple movies, practicing the latest dance steps with his sister Virginia, and celebrating birthdays on the beach at Lake Michigan with friend “little Johnny Stevens,” who became a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Dr. Shilton’s lifelong love of wilderness was nurtured on ambitious canoe trips through Canada and Minnesota taken with summer camp counselors and friends beginning at age 12. His love of classical music, and especially opera, began at concerts he attended with his mother at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, and continued through concert series and opera festivals in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Santa Fe, New York, and around the world enjoyed with his wife for over 50 years.
In his college years, Jack hired dance bands for campus parties to help pay expenses, and worked on summer construction jobs in Indiana and Illinois building armament plants. In 1942, after his sophomore year at the University of Chicago, Jack, like many in his generation, joined the Army. After basic training in Arkansas he was sent to the University of Oklahoma A & M to study Engineering. When the Army needed doctors, Jack’s stellar test scores qualified him for a pre-med program at the University of Utah, where he completed his Bachelors of Science degree.
While attending the USC School of Medicine, in 1945, he met Carol Jean Brown of Santa Paula, who was pursuing her lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. The couple married in 1947 in Santa Paula.
Dr. Shilton completed his M.D. degree in 1949, and interned at Los Angeles County Hospital. Two months after starting a residency program in Bakersfield, the father of two young sons, Tom and David, was called to serve in Korea. He served for 16 months as Captain and Regimental Surgeon at the forward 110th Artillery Unit, supervising treatment of wounded men at the front and enduring the constant noise of artillery barrages, Chinese and American, an experience to which he attributed his loss of hearing later in life. His memories of the soldiers’ sacrifices shaped his passionate and lifelong opposition to war, and to subsequent American military action in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Back from Korea, Jack and Carol Jean settled in Santa Paula. He was a member of one of the first groups of doctors to complete a residency program at Ventura County Hospital, and opened his own medical practice in 1952. For 30 years Jack served generations of families from Santa Paula and the surrounding area, making house calls, delivering thousands of babies and participating in many surgeries, all the while using his tremendous memory to recall the individual concerns of each patient. He admired the hard-working, loving families he cared for and enjoyed occasionally being paid with fresh produce and, on one occasion, even a lamb. During these years, he served a term as chair of the Ventura County Medical Society.
Three more children were born in Santa Paula: Paula, John and Anne. Dr. Shilton served on the Santa Paula High School Board of Trustees during the years his children attended public schools. Jack often shared highlights from his medical practice (no names of course!) at the family dinner table and delighted his children at bedtime with ridiculous made-up stories.
He taught all five children to fish, and took the family camping in Wyoming, Montana, the Southwest and the Sierra Nevada. He often traveled with a group of fellow doctors on pack trips to remote Sierra lakes, and with them developed the recipe for “Evolution Valley Fried Trout.” He and Carol Jean hiked Ventura and Santa Barbara County trails together almost every week.
Throughout his life, Dr. Shilton was passionate about books and travel. Even during the busy years of his medical practice, when he was often called to the ER in the middle of the night, he had a book in progress by his bedside, frequently his beloved Henry James, a volume of Chekhov stories, or a Trollope or Conrad novel. Inveterate travelers, Jack and Carol Jean journeyed together to all seven continents.
After the Dodgers arrived in Los Angeles, Jack was an avid fan. Dr. Shilton’s greatest love, however, was his family, including his wife of 62 years, five children and eight grandchildren. He nurtured in all of them the love of books, education, wilderness, music, and travel. His generosity and support were unceasing.
After he retired in 1982, Jack couldn’t go to the grocery store without running into former patients who remembered his reassuring manner and medical skills with deep affection. It was not unusual for a person to throw their arms around him, exclaiming, “Dr. Shilton, you delivered me!”
Dr. Shilton is survived by his wife, Carol Jean, of Santa Paula. He also leaves son Tom (Diane) of Long Beach and grandchildren Adrienne and Christopher; son David (Mary) of Alexandria, VA and granddaughters Katie and Anne Claire; daughter Paula Shilton (Doug Anderson) of Athens, GA and grandchildren Gregory, David and Meredith; son John (Jeanie) of Cincinnati, OH; and daughter Anne Graumlich (Henry) of Santa Paula and granddaughter Eliza.
Dr. Shilton will be cremated and his ashes scattered along a favorite mountain trail as part of a family memorial celebration. To honor Dr. Shilton, donations may be made to the Santa Paula Boys & Girls Club, the Nature Conservancy, Santa Paula Art Museum or the Museum of Ventura County.
Doris Mae Smith
April 27, 1915-April 16, 2010
Doris Passed away in Gresham, Oregon on April 16 of natural causes. Born in Atlantic, Iowa, she was a resident of Santa Paula for 50 years before moving to Gresham, Oregon in 1997.
She is survived by a daughter, Barbara Redrup of Oregon and a son, Russell Smith of California, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Graveside services will be held on Friday, July 23 at 1 p.m. at Pierce Brothers Cemetery, Santa Paula, California.
