Shirley E. Wucher

Living in the small community of Cele, Texas she attended school in a one-room schoolhouse, helped pick her parent’s cotton crop with her younger sister, Deanie, survived a tornado, and went to Cele Store with her parents on weekend nights where the kids played near the glass gasoline pumps and the farmers swapped stories from the week. She lived in Cele until her father’s untimely death when she was 10 years old. To support her and Deanie, her mom moved the small family to Austin where her mother worked as a nurse at the Texas State Hospital.

In Austin the family shared a one-bedroom house with another single mother and her daughter, Patsy. For the remainder of her life, Deanie and Patsy were her closest friends.

In junior high Shirley loved the freedom of playing on the Texas State Capitol grounds including climbing the trees until they were chased out. Shirley graduated from Austin High in 1954 and met the good-looking gentleman with a great sense of humor, Dick Wucher whom she married on November 1, 1954.

She and Dick shared child rearing responsibilities of their two fiercely loved and protected children, Glenn and Gay. For years she worked nights at Montgomery Wards then switched to days at Texas DPS until retirement in 2000. In retirement she had a wonderful schedule; she could be found bowling at Dart Bowl, playing bridge or dominoes and spending time with her granddaughters.

Shirley and Dick instilled in their children the love of singing four-part harmony, taught them not only how to play various card games and 84 but more importantly the mantra “there are no friends in a card game”, happily camped at Inks Lake every summer (where she would make homemade chicken and dumplings over a Coleman stove). And a never wavering commitment to serving in the church.

She was very smart and diligent. She could assemble anything without reading instructions and was a self-proclaimed shopaholic (who refused to leave a store without buying something). She attended every concert (choir, band, and orchestra), piano recital, musicals, and taekwondo test her kids or grandkids participated in. She loved spending time with the two grandchildren, Jessica and Stephanie, on those special Monday nights.

Looking back on her life we realized she seemed to do everything for at least 30 years including teaching first grade Sunday school, playing 84 with the same group of friends, attending Lady Longhorn basketball games, and working Travis County elections.

Shirley is preceded in death by her good-natured husband, Dick Wucher and infant daughter Brenda Gail. She is survived by her son Glenn (Shellynne), daughter Gay (Natalie Vaughn), grand-daughters Jessica Cardenas (Steven) and Stephanie Huggins (Tyler), great-granddaughter Isabella Cardenas, sister, Deanie Martinets, sisters-in-laws Bonnie Anderson and Ginny Mann, and many beloved nieces and nephews.

You are invited to join the family for the graveside service at Austin Memorial Park Cemetery (2800 Hancock Dr. Austin TX 78721) immediately following this service.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.cookwaldenfuneralhome.com for the Wucher family.