Page 126 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2018- Online Magazine

HONORING SENIORS
Bobbye Bockman Shaw
This is the last article in our series entitled “Daughters of the Pioneers”. See the previous three
issues online for the others.
he energetic and
vivacious Bobbye
TShaw admits to
being 92 years of age. But
she is definitely not old.
In her words, “Age is just
a number. It’s actually
irrelevant - it is what we do
with our lives that counts.”
When Mrs. Shaw recounts her
life, she is much more interested
in sharing all the things she has
learned from her experiences, rather
than describing the details of her
story.
She was born in the home of her
grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. John
E. Lawler, in Lamesa, Texas and
126 Lubbock Senior Link
was an only child for
seven years until her
brother arrived. When
he was two months
old, their mother died
of pneumonia. It was in
the middle of the Great
Depression. But “God
provided ‘guardian
angels’ to care for
us in the form of an
aunt and uncle who
had no children. We grew up on a
farm south of Lamesa - everybody
was dirt poor. We had a garden
with plenty to share and were
able to barter for other needs. We
experienced the Dust Bowl, Black
Sunday and other hardships, but
we had a wonderful childhood in
the Five Mile Community, ten miles
south of Lamesa.”
Bobbye Bockman attended a
three-room country school until
6th grade, when they moved to
town. She graduated from Lamesa
High School at age 16, then
went straight to Texas Tech.
It was “a whole new world!
I lived with two different
aunts during those four
years, walked to Tech twice
a day and worked two jobs
while enjoying the collegiate
experience. It was the WWII
period, and all the men were
off at war. There were 4,000
students at Texas Tech and
90% were female. I joined the
dance group, The Hubbettes at
AND SO MUCH MORE
AS TOLD TO JANE BROMLEY
the USO, wore out several pairs of
shoes and now, as a result, have one
broken down arch, but it was great
fun!”
The young coed spent a lot of time
at the Wesley Foundation - a new
Methodist program for college
students led by Cecil and Faye
Matthews. “One Sunday evening,
I was helping with refreshments
when Faye handed me a tray with a
cup of hot chocolate and said, ‘Take
this over to Rod Shaw.’”
“Who is Rod Shaw?” I asked. She
pointed to a man in a Naval Air
Corps uniform. “As I got closer, I
stumbled on his foot and poured the
hot chocolate on his lap. Years later,
he always concluded that story with
the line, “It wasn’t my heart that
was strangely warmed!’”
Bobbye graduated with a degree
in Spanish from Texas Tech and
then obtained a graduate degree
(including
thesis) from
the University
of Iowa in nine
months. She
was on full
scholarship and
worked in the
dorm for room
and board. Her
first teaching
job was at SMU
where Rod was
finishing law
school. They