Shirley Alder Daiss

Dec. 12, 1923 – Sept. 19, 2018

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TORRINGTON – Longtime Torrington resident, Shirley Alder Daiss, 94, passed away Sept. 19, 2018, at Life Care Center of Cheyenne. 

She was born Dec. 12, 1923, to her parents, attorney Theodore Alder and Dorothy Alder (Kniess) in Casper. During the Depression, she grew up in Gillette, living in an apartment behind her mother’s “Quality Market” grocery store. She graduated from Campbell County High School in 1941. That fall, she enrolled at the University of Wyoming, becoming a Phi Gamma Nu member plus working as Secretary to the Registrar, Ralph McWhinnie. 

She married Donald Ivan Daiss in October 1942 and they shared a traveling officer’s career in the Army Air Corps. At the end of WWII, in 1946, they purchased a farm in Lingle on the adjoining family homestead where they lived until they built a home in Torrington in 1958. 

Divorced in 1969, Shirley returned to Eastern Wyoming College and the University of Wyoming to complete her Bachelor of Arts in English and Library Science, unique for a woman in her mid-forties. Upon graduation, she taught in Pine Bluffs, Neb., for one year before becoming the district Librarian in Mitchell, Neb., until her retirement in 1991. She held many leadership positions in the district, including Lead Negotiator for the Mitchell Educator’s Association. Now embracing an entrepreneurial role, she opened Auntie Q’s, a local antique shop, serving the community for 14 years until closing in 2008.

Shirley was a woman of many interests, including books, gardening, 4-H leadership, genealogy, family heirlooms, writing poetry, stamp collecting and community activism. 

She is survived by her daughter, Sharon Daiss Kenyon and three grandchildren, Brooke Kenyon Brogle of South Carolina; Heather and Kenny Daiss of Arizona, two great-granddaughters, Avery and Kendall Brogle, and her cat, Tommy.

She was preceded in death by her son, David Eugene Daiss.

Following cremation, burial will be at Valley View Cemetery in Torrington. Memorial donations are requested to the Mitchell Memorial Scholarship Fund or the Wyoming 4-H organization.