Jeanne Louise Shull was born on November 4,1921. She was a lovely, headstrong person who unhesitatingly followed her own path even when the world around her did not quite approve.

Her first husband was from Mississippi and in preparation for moving to the country, she contacted a dairy in Northern California to learn how to milk a cow.

When her second husband returned from the merchant marines after WWII, he demanded that she quit college and become a housewife. Jeanne Louise stayed in college and she took her toddler son and left.

She at that point decided that she should move to Sweden where it would be easier to be a single mom (her father’s parents were Swedish emigrants) but while working on her degree at U.C. Berkeley, she began dating her chemistry TA. He proposed and she gave him a conditional “yes” but only if he promised to take her to Sweden when he got his first sabbatical.

Her husband got a Fulbright in 1954 and, as promised took her and their children off to Sweden for a year. They returned to Indiana which she disliked profoundly and when he a few years later got another sabbatical, the family moved back to Sweden. When it came time to return to the States, Jeanne had enrolled in an intensive weaving school and chose to remain in Sweden to complete the program. She finally returned to the states decades later and in her 60s went back to school to get a master’s in sociology, completing her thesis on Public Policy and Pay/Pension Equity for Women when she was 65.

In 1978, she came to visit her oldest son then living in Kent, WA. He took her on a day trip to Vashon Island, which she instantly took to, and that day found a house she decided to buy to live in when she retired. In 1988, she drove her 1951 Oldsmobile to her Vashon house and became deeply rooted on the island. Jeanne at various times volunteered for Friends of the Library, VIPP, and the Heron Arts center. She participated in the Garden club, the Unitarian Church among other groups and did a lot of water walking at the Athletic Club. Her passion was the cats she adopted throughout her life.

Jeanne spent her latter years more quietly surrounded by family, and on November 4, 2021 celebrated her 100th birthday. She died at home on the morning of January 25, 2021. She is predeceased by her sons, Cliff Shull and George Shull, and is now missed by her two daughters, Holly Shull Vogel and Kathy Abascal, her grandchildren Nicholas Vogel, Katrina Jeanne Shull & Andrew Nutzhorn, Chelsea & Ryan Carter, Penny Sanford, Gracie Shull, Angelina Shull and her cat Romeo, adopted from VIPP not too long ago.

The family requests that any remembrances be made by donation to VIPP.org (Vashon Island Pet Protectors).