Madeline Elizabeth Shaffer

Madeline Elizabeth Shaffer Mar. 27, 1921 - Jan. 30, 2010 Madeline Shaffer passed away at home on January 30, 2010. She was 88-- but wouldn't want us to print that. She regularly refused to present her driver's license when asked for identification to write a check, offering a withering, "none of your business" to any hapless clerk who dared ask. Two of the people who knew "Meem" the best were her 9-year-old twin great-granddaughters: Elizabeth and Madeline. As our family pondered how best to describe her in the paper today, Elizabeth observed, "I have one word to describe Meem: clever." Then they rattled off stories of crafts and cooking; of painstakingly constructed duct tape bags, handmade cards, computer tricks, "a coin purse with jewels" and of course, not one, but TWO batches of homemade toffee when Little Madeline was convalescing from whooping cough this summer. They enthused, "She knew how to do a ton of stuff!" Indeed she did-- and clever she was. A woman who ran for York, Nebraska County Clerk in the '50s. A woman who was an early pioneer in real estate, working at Amelia Bullock Realtors in Austin, when the office was just Amelia, Barbara, a small band of others and... Meem. As one friend noted, she was "accomplished." More recently, she embraced technology with great enthusiasm and imagination-- communicating with her friends across the world by email, with her daughters by cell phone, with her granddaughters on Facebook, and with her great-granddaughters by text message. But she could be traditional too. She designed and hand-painted holiday sweatshirts for everyone in the family and always sent handmade, personalized cards to celebrate birthdays and holidays. Her most recent card (to the father of her great-granddaughters) included practical advice on how to talk to them about the "mysteries of adolescence." She was tall and beautiful, timeless and formidable-- a polite (mostly) and elegant (always) woman who also knew her way around the F-bomb-- deploying it with aplomb and particular effect towards dinner table chauvinism or public pretense of any kind. In the wake of one particularly effective lambaste to a preening, inappropriate wedding guest, she was christened: "The Meeminator." Madeline was born in Polk, Nebraska, one of eight siblings, each of whom was treated to ice cream by their father as their mother brought a new child into the world. It makes one wonder what the birds and bees letter to the twins might say about ice cream's role in reproduction... She grew up in Gresham, Nebraska, then moved to York where she met her husband Jay. They married in Las Vegas after he was drafted into World War II, then moved to California where he shipped out and Madeline worked as a telephone operator, routing calls from Pearl Harbor. Whenever she told stories of those times, The Meeminator's eyes would fill with tears even after all these years, remembering her frightened kinship with the young women who lived with her in a boarding house in Ojai, CA, and how her Jay was the only husband who made it home alive. Madeline and Jay (who we called Dadoo) had two daughters: Jeanne and Jayne. Meem and Dadoo left Husker country and moved to Austin in the 1960s where Meem became a "devoted" (codeword: rabid) UT football fan, swapping her Husker gear for Saturdays in burnt orange. But she still maintained roots in Nebraska, sending countless emails this past season, extorting the exploits of Ndamukong Suh. On the days when Nebraska played Texas, she made extra queso and smiled, "Well, I just can't lose today." Our last family gathering together was an impromptu lunch at the Waco Elite Café a couple of days before Christmas. Our most recent photo is our favorite: Madeline, Elizabeth, the Meeminator-- and Elvis. Legends, all. She is survived by brother, Joe Davis; daughters, Jeanne White and Jayne Buchanan; granddaughters, Stefanie and Jaye; great-granddaughters, Madeline and Elizabeth and their father, David; and an extended family of spouses, partners, in-laws, outlaws, step-grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, friends, groupies and her "village" at the Towers of Town Lake. There will be a small, private ceremony at the gravesite for close friends and family at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday at Austin Memorial Park at 2800 Hancock Dr. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Melanie Gillan Young Athenians Fund at www.lisdef.com or to Easter Seals of Austin.