In honor of Women?s History Month, Wesley Homes is proud to highlight two amazing female residents, Jane Shafer and Nixie Van Selus. Both women are role models who have contributed, in very different ways, to the future of women.
Jane Shafer
Jane Shafer is a former president of local and state League of Women Voters and is an active member of the Washington State Historical Society for over 20 years. At age 78, Jane staffs the information desk at the History Museum in Tacoma, WA, on Saturday afternoons. In her spare time, she is documenting the history of her family.
?I am starting by writing the story of my husband and me,? she said.? She will record stories of her early childhood memories in Alaska, her father?s adventures building the first Narrows Bridge and her family roots in Washington State and Idaho.
One of Jane?s more memorable experiences as president of the League of Women Voters was in 1980 when the League lobbied the state to form a commission for redistricting. ?Redistricting is supposed to be done every 10 years,? explained Jane, ?but it didn?t always happen.?
Her position as League president required her to speak on the topic of redistricting to various groups and testify before committees at the state legislature.? ?It turned out to be an extremely hot issue,? recalled Jane.
When the commission?s first redistricting plan was done, Jane managed to get an early copy.? ?As I was in the lobby reading the plan, people were trying to buy it from me,? she said.
An accomplished speaker and subject expert, Jane last took the stage at an event commemorating March Women?s History Month in 2009.? She was asked to present an hour-long speech, titled ?Why I Vote?, before an audience of men and women correction facility workers.
Jane has been a resident of Wesley Homes Des Moines since 2004. ?I came here because I had so many family members here,? she said. ?My great uncle was one of the first wave of people to move into the Gardens Building. My mother lived here from ?73 to ?86.? And my husband?s cousin, the minister who married us, still lives here.?
Jane has always been a person you could count on to get things done. We owe much to women like Jane, who demonstrate the tenacity, courage and resiliency of women.
For more information on the history of women?s voting rights in WA State, attend Did women really get the right to vote in Washington State? This entertaining and lively?presentation by noted author and historian Kit Bakke is sponsored by Southwest King School Retirees? Association on Tuesday, May 1st at 10:00 a.m. at Wesley Homes Des Moines.
Nixie Van Selus
Nixie Van Selus devoted her time and energy for over 30 years to helping teenage parents in Auburn stay in school and learn how to take care of their children.
In the early ?90s, Nixie received a call from the principal of Off-campus High School (now known as West Auburn High School) imploring Nixie to volunteer in the classroom of Irene ?Pixie? Reiten, an educator selected to head up a new program to teach teenage parents how to take care of their children.
?The principal said to me, ?We need someone to be a mother figure to these kids raising kids?,? said Nixie, ?and so I did, for 30 plus years.?
?Many of these girls had babies out of wedlock and were struggling with their grades trying to make something of their lives,? said Nixie.
As a volunteer, Nixie worked alongside Reiten. There was an onsite day-care that provided an environment of supervised, hands-on training on how to care for young children, including proper nutrition.
?The parents were expected to go into the day-care and devote an hour or so to their own child and to help in the care of all the young children there. And so they were learning how to handle the babies,? she said.
When asked about the teenage parents, Nixie explained, ?At first it was just girls, mostly unwed mothers between the ages of 14 and 17, but then we started getting boys in the class, too: fathers and some married couples.
?The program was started with just a few girls, maybe 10, who were having trouble in the regular school system. They might drop out, or did drop out, and they were given a second chance to attend this off-campus school to work at their own level and graduate,? said Nixie.
?Most of them didn?t have any home life at all; they were from dysfunctional families,? recalled Nixie. ?So at Christmas, I started inviting them to my house for a Christmas party (because most of them had never been to a Christmas party).
?We?ve had as many as 50 kids in our home for these parties. We?d serve food (lasagna was their favorite), we?d have presents for the kids and they?d always take packages of cookies home with them.? It was a real fun thing.?
Nixie gave these teenage parents hope and help when the odds were against them.
?Thirty-six years later when Pixie retired, so did I,? said Nixie.
Nixie is a resident of Wesley Homes Lea Hill. She and her husband moved in when it first opened. ?Living up here is like living in a different world; everybody is friendly and cares for one another,? says Nixie. ?It?s wonderful here.?
Women like Nixie bring to mind the Van Buren Benny song ?Heart?: You?ve gotta have heart ? Miles ?n miles of heart.
?Ilene Little
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