Shirley Ladene Thorpe

Shirley L. Thorpe, age 97, passed away of natural causes on Saturday, June 20, 2026, at The Terraces of Boise, with her daughter Shelley by her side.

Shirley was born on January 5, 1929, in Seattle, Washington, to Roma Ladene Reeves and Frederick Warren Shaw. The second of three children, she was raised in Seattle alongside her older sister Mary Lou and younger brother Fred. The family later moved to Kirkland, Washington.

At 14 years old, she began working summers at Frederick & Nelson department store. One of her jobs was in the sub-basement tube room, where all money transactions were handled. Salesclerks would send cash and customer receipts down the tube, and Shirley would send back the correct change. Working in a fancy department store, she always had something on layaway – usually a cashmere sweater! Shirley learned to ski at Snoqualmie Pass in leather boots and on long wooden skis with cable bindings. She and her friends often took the Snow Train from Seattle, as winter roads were almost impossible to navigate by car. In those days, there were no groomed runs, only natural snow and the terrain was challenging. She loved it and returned time and again with her friends, even after breaking her leg twice!

Shirley graduated from Garfield High School in Seattle in 1947 and went to work as a clerk typist for Prudential Mortgage and Loan. It was through a friend who followed hockey that Shirley met Bob Thorpe in 1949, when he came through town to play an exhibition game. Their courtship was largely by phone and mail while Bob traveled throughout the country with the American Hockey League. He proposed over the telephone and sent her an engagement ring through the mail. They married on February 17, 1950, in Louisville, Kentucky, and that spring drove cross country to his hometown of Port Dalhousie, Ontario, Canada, where she met his family for the first time. They lived in Peterborough and Toronto before settling in St. Catharines, Ontario, in 1958.

Shirley was a devoted homemaker whose days were filled with caring for her five children, her home, and her garden. Money was tight, and she stretched every dollar. Every summer she canned quarts of fruits and vegetables and made countless jams and jellies, filling basement shelves and using them to prepare dinners for seven each night. She was famous for her caramels. No Christmas was complete without each of her children and close relatives getting a small bag of homemade, hand wrapped caramels!

Family vacations were fun simple camping trips in a no-frills pop-up tent trailer. She was only able to visit her parents twice after moving to Canada. In the summer of 1958, she flew with her two children back home to Seattle, where they got to spend the entire summer with all her relatives. The second time was in 1963, when she made the cross country journey by train on her own, bringing all four of her young children, ages three to seven, for a family vacation in Ketchum, Idaho, after her parents had relocated there from Washington.

In February 1971, Shirley moved to Ketchum, with her daughters. Her son stayed in Canada with his father. She and Bob divorced in 1972. She worked a series of jobs to support her girls; at Warm Springs Ranch golf shop owned by her sister’s family, in accounts receivable at the Sun Valley Lodge, and as a dental assistant in Dr. Richard’s office in Hailey. She later received training to be a medical transcriptionist at the hospital in Sun Valley, the beginning of a career she continued for many years.

In 1978, Shirley moved the family to Boise to be near her oldest daughter and her first grandchild. She spent the next seventeen years as a medical transcriptionist for Orthopedic Associates, taking pride in improving the dictation of the doctors she worked for. She retired in 1995 but later returned part-time to the Women’s Clinic, finally retiring in 2003, just before her seventy-fifth birthday.

A lifelong gardener, Shirley completed the University of Idaho Master Gardener program in 1995. Her flower beds were the envy of her family and her neighbors. She loved bringing struggling plants back to life. She was a member of the Assistance League of Boise, where she worked in the backroom sorting and pricing donations. She was also a Red Hatter. She was a regular at Silver Sneakers at Meridian’s Axiom, proudly taking the stairs up to class rather than the elevator well into her early nineties.

Shirley made the occasional trip to Bogus to ski with her grandkids. On one visit while loading the Bitterroot chair, she caught her tips and tumbled off into the netting! She laughed about that for years. She enjoyed playing cards, especially Hand and Foot and Yahtzee, board games, jigsaw puzzles and playing solitaire on her iPad. She loved watching BSU football games, sipping an occasional Keystone Light beer at her own pace (often well past it being cold), watching Fox News and was always on the hunt for a good bargain. She never quite made peace with her cell phone. For many years she attended the Sun Valley Jazz Festival each fall with friends. She also enjoyed traveling, including a special trip to Scotland to visit her daughter and family and made several visits to California to see another daughter. Her favorite place of all though was Redfish Lake in Stanley, where she made a lifetime of camping memories with her family both good and bad, depending on the weather!

She adored her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and rarely missed the chance to be there for their many school events, performances, sports activities and especially their milestones, including graduations and weddings. Shirley was driving up until this past November and lived independently in her home in Nampa until this spring, when she moved into assisted living in Boise for additional support.

Shirley is survived by her five children: Pamela (Steve) Carson, James (Jimmy) Thorpe of Ontario, Canada; Tracy Thorpe, Shelley (Mark) Jones, and Patricia Thorpe; her grandchildren Matthew (Anahiss) Ivie, Justin (Leah) Ivie, Brianne (Derek) Baird, Braden (Chris) Jones, Bryce Jones (Oussama), Taylor Thorpe, Emily Carson, Brett Jones, and Maddison Thorpe; her great-grandchildren Joseph (Kalista) Ivie, Carson (Zaidah) Ivie, Jacob Ivie; Parker, Beckett, Juniper Baird; Jack Jones with another great-grandson on the way; great-great-grandson, Justin Ivie, with another on the way as well; her brother Fred, four nieces and their families and one nephew. She was preceded in death by her parents and her sister, Mary Lou Simpson of Ketchum and one nephew.

Shirley will be remembered with love and gratitude for her strength, independence, and devotion to her family. We miss her deeply, and her absence leaves a quiet void in our hearts and lives.

A celebration of life reception is being held on Thursday, July 9 from 1:00 pm- 3:00 pm at Crane Creek Country Club, 500 W Curling Dr, Boise, ID 83702. There will be a private burial at Dry Creek Cemetery in Boise later.

Whenever we left her house, Shirley would stand at her door, wave goodbye, and say, “Bye-bye for now.” It is how we will always remember her. Bye-bye for now, Mom, until we meet again.

Arrangements are under the direction of Bowman Funeral Parlor of Garden City.