Jacqueline Ruth (Jackie) Johnson Shafer, aged 91, Arkansas City, Kansas, died June 14, 2021, at South Central Kansas Medical Center.

Born November 13, 1929, in Maple City, she was the eldest of four children born to Roy and Fay (Kincheloe) Johnson. She was married to Jack Shafer, Dexter, on June 23,1950. They were the parents of Anita Shafer Aaron, San Francisco, CA, Carol Shafer, Lawrence, KS, and Robert Shafer, San Francisco, CA. She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, her brother, Phillip Johnson, and sister, Harriet Locke. She and Jack resided in Dexter, Wellington, and Arkansas City throughout their lives.

A graveside service will be held at Dexter Cemetery on Saturday, June 19, 2021, at 1:00 pm, with Pastor Norman Reeves officiating. Miles Funeral Service in Winfield is in charge of arrangements. Due to the heat, the family asks attendees please dress informal and comfortably.

In lieu of flowers, memorials have been established in Jackie’s name for Lighthouse For The Blind and Visually Impaired and for German Shepherd Rescue of Northern California. Contributions may be made through the funeral home.

Survivors include her three children, two granddaughters, Sara Harrison, Emeryville, CA, and Alane Thomas, Lawrence, and grandchildren Emily and Bryce Harrison, her sister Barbara Shirley of Tulsa, OK, brother-in-law Wesley Locke, Arkansas City, and numerous beloved nieces and nephews.

Jackie’s roots were in Cowley County, with the Johnson family coming from Missouri in the 1870s. Her grandparents Will Johnson and Harriet Sparkman met on a ranch north of Pawhuska in what was then Red Axe, Indian Territory, becoming Oklahoma in 1907. Will was the ranch foreman and Harriet, the cook, when they married and raised five boys and two girls to adulthood. The ranch was sold, and the children all married when they moved to the Maple City area about 1928. The boys, Elmore, George, Roy, Dee, and Leo, all resided in the Maple City area, and, with their dad, who played the banjo, Elmore, on fiddle, George as caller, and Roy on piano were known for providing music for barn dancing in the area. The family later moved to Dexter where they farmed until the death of Will in 1935. With the eldest, Elmore, staying in Dexter to farm, the younger boys all signed up with List and Clark, the company building roads throughout rural America. During this time Jackie remembered attending eight schools in six years as roads were built from Dexter to Burden, Minneapolis and westward finally to Dodge City, where George and Roy returned to Dexter. From that experience Jackie became an out-going young woman with a ready smile who made friends everywhere she went. She was a beloved daughter, sister, wife and mother and an active member of the Baptist Church in Dexter, Wellington, and Arkansas City. Jackie worked at Bailey’s Farm Supply and the high school cafeteria. Following retirement in 2005, she was an active volunteer for the Arkansas City Hospital Auxiliary until 2019.

She also proudly followed her children in their careers: Anita, whose work has included policy development and leadership roles in the disability rights and justice arena, is founder of AaronWorks - a disability inclusion strategies consultancy headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. Carol, a gifted elementary teacher, spent several years in the Kansas City schools, before traveling the world first to Mexico, then joined Department of Defense schools, where she retired after 29 years of assignments that included Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Germany, the Netherlands, Okinawa and England. Robert, also in the Bay Area, is currently R&D Lab Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific, which is heavily involved in Covid 19 research.

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