No surprise if you sense a streak of independence in Shirley Smalley, a lady who has formed attachments to people, dinosaur bones and to the “aha” moments of life – but not especially to places.  She’s moved around too much.

She was born in a small town in the southwest corner of South Dakota, near the Pine Ridge Reservation.  “That’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee country,” says Shirley.

It was during the Thirties, and her dad’s job forced the family to relocate repeatedly.  When she was in the third grade, her family began its 11^th move.  Shirley spent the morning in school in Minnesota and the afternoon in school in Iowa.  She had eaten lunch with her parents in a cafe in their new town, then walked by herself to school, following her parents’ directions.  (They also left her with directions for walking home from school.)

You might think that she would settle down.  She did -- long enough to begin nursing school (the obvious Fifties career choice for a girl interested in science and math), marry, and start a family. 

So much for settling down:  Shirley and her family moved east (New Jersey, Delaware and Ohio) with three children, and in 1969 returned to Iowa with six.  Her two boys and four girls had arrived in a period of 9 1/2 years. “There wasn’t a tame one in the bunch,” says Shirley.

In Iowa City, they opened their third blow molding plant, manufacturing black corrugated tubing.

Five miles from the University of Iowa, Shirley oversaw the remodeling of the house on a 200-acre farm. “The limestone quarry on the farm was a wonderful swimming hole,” says Shirley.  “It soon became the skinny-dipping capital of Iowa City.” 

During the Seventies, there was also service as President of the League of Women Voters and Chair of the County Zoning Commission. In the mid-Seventies, she returned to school, initially taking one class at a time.  She planned to go to law school, then discovered geology.  One course was fun, another was more fun, and a field trip was the most fun of all.  Divorced a year before finishing her undergrad work, she found herself attending classes, raising six kids and running a farm.  (Successful free spirits know how to focus on future freedom!)

She got her Masters’ in Geology in December, 1983, just as the bottom was falling out of the oil market.  With no one hiring locally, she decided Houston was her best chance.  It was, but it took a year to find a job.  Six months later, the day she closed on a house, she learned her job would take her to Jakarta, Indonesia, where she spent two years. 

That provided enough free time to scuba dive in the Java Sea and visit Bali.  Before returning home, she traveled in Australia, dove the Great Barrier Reef and snorkeled in Lake McCloud in an area connected to the ocean by an underground channel where she could feel the current from the tidal flow.

Her time in Jakarta also gave her many of those “aha” moments that make work worthwhile to a scientist.   One of the most tectonically active areas of the world, Indonesia introduced her to geologic wonders never seen in the stable mid-continent area where she had trained.

Back home and out of work, she entered the doctoral program at Texas A&M University.  She decided against continuing the PhD studies, but her year in College Station proved of value.  She was able to confirm to her own satisfaction some ideas she had developed while in Indonesia. 

With environmental geology her next goal, she went to Oklahoma State University to a hydrology summer school.  Here she met the person who introduced her to Allan.  They were married 15 years ago, on the day the new FCC organ was played during morning worship for the first time.

After a second bout with breast cancer, Shirley retired.  She especially enjoys two kinds of volunteer work:  singing with the Meeting House Choir and working as a docent at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  Her docent position also lets her participate in museum-sponsored digs in west Texas for Permian age reptile and amphibian bones and for shark cartilage.

Shirley and Allan have 15 grandchildren between them and one great grand.  Many are at the age to graduate and marry, sending the Smalleys on a number of trips around the country.