Lisa Anne Shearer Cooper

Lisa Shearer was born on July 7th, 1962 in Denver to Carl and Anne (Theisen) Shearer. The youngest of 12 children, she grew up in Edgewater near Sloan Lake. As a young girl she attended school at Saint Mary Magdalene Catholic Church and then Jefferson High School where, among many other accomplishments, she played Auntie Em in the school production of the Wizard of Oz. Lisa attended the University of Colorado in Boulder, spending one semester sailing around the world as part of the Semester at Sea program. She received her BA in English in 1984 and an M.A. Ed. in Social, Multicultural & Bilingual Education in 1988. It was at CU where she met and fell in love with Chris Cooper. They were married on Jan. 24, 1987, with both Lisa and Chris taking the surname Shearer Cooper. She taught English and ESL (English as a Second Language) at Boulder, Fairview, and Centaurus High Schools. In 1988 they threw their meager belongings in a U-Haul and headed to Massachusetts on the first of their many adventures. Lisa taught ESL at Bunker Hill Community College, and it was in Massachusetts that their first child, Andrew, was born in 1990. In 1992 Chris' company offered him the chance to live and work in the Black Forest in Germany for a few years, and the small family jumped at the chance. While there, Lisa taught English at the local community college, co-authored a textbook "Introduction to Nursing Assisting: Building Language Skills", and spent every possible day with her family exploring western Europe. After the family returned to Massachusetts in 1995, Lisa taught English and ESL at Massasoit Community College. Their second child, Laura, was born in 1997. The family moved back to Boulder in 1998 where Lisa taught English and ESL at Fairview High School and the International English Center at the University of Colorado. She also led a Girl Scout troop for 4 years and volunteered at a local nonprofit Reading to End Racism, eventually becoming the chair of the organization and leading it skillfully during its transition from small local group to a program of the YWCA where it continues to thrive and grow to this day. Lisa and her family traveled extensively with trips to Scotland, Vancouver, Northern Ireland, Lesotho and South Africa, Japan, and Portugal. Lisa had a strong faith and found a church home in Boulder at the First Congregational Church. She sang in the choir, taught Sunday School, chaired the Board of Parish Life, sang and acted in church musicals, and was asked in 2016 to become moderator, a volunteer position which she threw herself into enthusiastically. A very creative woman, Lisa was a skilled cook, a talented artist working with watercolors and pastels, and a singer with Meadowlark, an a capella women's group. She was chosen to be one of the presenters at the Boulder presentation of Listen to Your Mother and had a story published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Miraculous Messages from Heaven. She had been working on an unfinished book tentatively titled "Finding Joy in the Alzheimer's Years" based on her experiences caring for her mother during her final years. In July of 2018 Lisa was diagnosed with lymphoma in her abdomen. The initial course of treatment seemed successful and she was declared to be in remission in October. However, in January of 2019 it was discovered that the cancer had metastasized into her brain and despite several different courses of chemo and radiation therapy, was unable to beat the disease. She passed away peacefully at home on August 8, 2019. A loving mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, niece, cousin, and friend, she will be missed tremendously. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society