From Dr Philip Morgan

I first met Shona at CU Boulder when I held a visiting Fulbright post there and, to make up some of her requirements, she did a course with me on the medieval English gentry. She was a very scary student. She certainly scared me from the start since it was patently obvious that I couldn't teach her a thing. What made it worse was that she never let on how little she gained from me. She designed her own mini-project on gentry wills, produced a flawless paper (which I still have and use) and employed the time to teach herself more of the trade. She exemplified the difference between those who work as historians and those who have the minds of historians, interested in everything, always looking for connections, and desperate to visit the places about which they write because it is vital. A decade later I was in Missouri and she generously drove from Kansas City to Fulton and back in the day to give a student class on the Black Death. I did the same for her to Kansas City. She couldn't offer much of a dinner in the evening, she explained, since she had the children that night, and they were keen to go to the then newly fashionable Rainforest Cafe. So, we chatted happily about the middle ages for two or three hours, the children glowing with excitement and me with a smile on my face only slightly less broad. You never turned down the chance to be in her company. I saw her last at Leeds - on a staircase when she turned and waved since she was off to visit one of the sites of medieval Yorkshire. It was one I had been to lots and I didn't go, but I had never been in Shona's company, and I wish I had.

From Ruth O'Brien

Shona's life (DU, NY)

Like everyone who knew Shona, I am shocked by her sudden and premature death, and I am greatly saddened for Alina, Shane, and Randy. There is no good time to lose a parent, but having lost one myself as a child, I know this opens a hole in your heart that can never be filled, no matter how many great friends, family members, and surrogates you find. Compound that truism exponentially with Shona, the mother, and the hole becomes even bigger, a black hole perhaps, for her two children. I know that Randy, as a loving father and Shona’s life partner, will step up and provide for all his children’s emotional needs, needs that get so complex in adolescence, when they are so close to being independent.

Shona and I shared a couple of worlds, along with their attendant anxieties, since we moved from Denver to New York at the same time, even though we didn’t work at the same university. Together we learned to cope with dual academic career difficulties in Denver and New York; mixing research and publishing while raising babies and young children; and not compromising, even if it means taking the uphill path the whole way. Shona put such a happy face on everything that it never mattered what lay in her path.

I have a snapshot of each one of these moments to share.

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