Shirley Elaine Ehn

Shirley Elaine Ehn, nee Koontz

December 22, 1930 - August 13, 2023

After a long life in service to people marginalized by society and as an advocate for the theater arts, Shirley Elaine Ehn, nee Koontz, of Sapulpa, Okla., died Sunday evening, Aug. 13, 2023, peacefully and of natural causes, with family members by her bedside. She was 92. She was tended to warmly and capably by doctors, nurses and staffers of the Villages at Southern Hills in Tulsa and by Live Well Hospice.

 

She is survived by her daughter, Kristin Judd and husband, Steve of Sapulpa; son, Erik Ehn and wife, Pat of Albuquerque; son, Jack Ehn and wife, Pat of Albuquerque; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren, with another one on the way.

 

She was born Dec. 22, 1930, in Oklahoma City and grew up during the Depression and Dust Bowl years. She graduated from Classen High School in 1948 with awards in English and citizenship and attended the University of Oklahoma in Norman and eventually Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., and St. Mary's College in Moraga, Calif., and graduated from Tulsa Junior College as a registered nurse.

 

In 1958, she moved to New York, where she was influenced by the perspectives and works of people such as Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Pierre Tielhard de Chardin and others from the progressive wing of the Roman Catholic church. She was even more directly influenced by Fr. John Powis of St. James Pro-Cathedral in Brooklyn, a poor parish she belonged to, and she converted to Catholicism as a result. She consistently backed up her convictions with work in support of social justice, which included educating people in reading and theater as means to improve lives and heal afflictions.

 

In Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., she was active in community affairs. Among other things, she was a member of the local Shakespeare Festival Board and co-founder of the Children's Theater there. She taught reading to adults with developmental disabilities at BOCES in Westchester County.

 

In 1975 she returned to Oklahoma, moving to Tulsa, where she was employed by the Tulsa Indian Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse as a counselor. She designed and wrote the grant that funded the use of theater as a drug-abuse prevention program, which led to the founding of the American Indian Theater Company. In connection with that, she produced the play, "The Ecstasy of Rita Joe."

 

She later worked as a counselor, grant writer and director of human resources in the low-income projects of the Tulsa Housing Authority, most notably Comanche Park, where she enjoyed working as a counselor alongside Franciscan Sister Goberta Uhlen.

 

She was an active member of the Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry Housing Task Force, the Mayor's Commission on Alcoholism, the Performing Arts Round Table, the Arts and Humanities Advisory Board, the Tulsa Housing Authority Drug Task Force, the Oklahoma Health Systems Agency SAC 1 and the Domestic Violence Task Force. She chaired the Women's Task Force on Alcoholism.

 

As a nurse, she worked with troubled adolescents and children in the psychiatric units of Children's Medical Center, Hillcrest Medical Center and Tulsa Regional Medical Center. She retired from nursing in 1995.

 

Politically, she was a liberal Democrat with a particular interest in programs for minority communities and people with mental illnesses. Her post-retirement interests centered on family, love of books, working in her yard and politics.

 

The family asks that in her memory you drink a cup of good coffee and read a good book -- things she loved to do.