Shirley Rae Dupree, who left Sheridan County, Wyoming, as a teenager to work as a staffer in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., died August 22, 2013, at her home in Silver Spring, Maryland. She was 73.
The cause was a combination of Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Shirley was born in 1940 in Sheridan, Wyoming. She lived on a number of ranches near that town, as the family followed her father, Ray Holmes, from job to job.
Soon after graduating from Big Horn High School as part of a class of twelve students in 1958, her life detoured to Capitol Hill in a most unusual way, when she met Wyoming Congressman Keith Thomson during a 4-H "Make it Yourself with Wool" contest at the Wyoming State Fair.
At first, Shirley rejected the idea of taking a job in Thomson's Capitol Hill office, but changed her mind a few months later and left Sheridan in January of 1959.
Shirley worked for Rep. Thomson through 1960, when the Wyoming Republican won election to the U.S. Senate. But before Thomson could be sworn in as a U.S. Senator, he died of a heart attack, leaving his staff members looking for work.
Instead of returning to Wyoming, Shirley latched on as a secretary in the office of Rep. Ed Finnegan (D-IL), who had just been elected to a U.S. House seat from the city of Chicago.
Shirley was hired for that job by her future husband, Jim Dupree; they were married in April of 1962.
She also worked for Rep. Jim Hanley (D-NY). When she left Hanley's office in 1969, a Syracuse newspaper report played it this way: "WASHINGTON - Rep. James M. Hanley of Syracuse is losing one of his more decorative office fixtures."
After family moves to Chicago, Detroit and back to Washington, D.C., Shirley took up needlepoint finishing and selling women's fashions as home businesses, and also enjoyed tennis.
In her later years, she became an avid golfer, even recording a hole-in-one on the 11th hole of Congressional Country Club's Gold course.
Shirley was preceded in death by her brother, Charles Holmes; her father, Ray Holmes; and her mother, Pauline Holmes.
Survivors include her husband of 51 years, Jim Dupree of Silver Spring, Maryland; her daughter Jacqueline of Washington, D.C.; her son Jamie of Bethesda, Maryland; and three grandchildren.
Services will be held September 7 at 10 am at Champion Ferries Funeral Home in Sheridan, Wyoming. A reception will follow at the Sheridan Elks Club.
In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to one of two groups: the Sheridan County 4-H Foundation, 224 South Main St. Suite B-10, Sheridan, WY 82801; or in memory of Shirley Dupree to Johns Hopkins Medicine in support of Dr. Chiadi Onyike and the Frontotemporal (FTD) and Young Onset Dementia Clinic. Please make checks payable to “Johns Hopkins University” and mail to: Mr. Michael DeVito, Fund for Johns Hopkins Medicine, 550 North Broadway, Suite 906, Baltimore, MD 21205.