July 17, 1921 – June 5, 2019 We called her wife, and mother, grandmother and great-grandmother; and teacher, doll lady and friend. Clarice, known as Rissy to many, died in the morning of June 5. She was almost 98. Her family gathered in ones and twos and tens and more during the days preceding her death. She was well loved and remembered by all who knew her. Married to Dr. Ridgway F. Shinn, Jr. for 62 years, they made a life on both coasts, met in the middle, and traveled and lived overseas extensively. Though preceded in death by her husband, Ridg, and her eldest daughter Jenifer (Shinn) Tait, she leaves behind an extensive family: two sisters, Marjorie Cress and Ann Dimock (Bruce Dimock); her children: Ridgway Shinn III, Craig Shinn, Jeremy Shinn, and Beth Shinn; eight grandchildren; and seventeen great-grandchildren.
Clarice Wagner Shinn, a native Californian, was born in San Jose. She grew up in Claremont, California, then a small agricultural and college town of about 3,500 people. She was a master teacher, earning a BA at Oberlin College in 1943 and a Master of Education at Rhode Island College in 1967. At Oberlin she met a fellow student, Ridgway F. Shinn, Jr., who became a teacher and historian. They married in 1944, started married life in Litchfield, Connecticut and then went as teachers with the U.S. War Department to Vienna, Austria to teach children of the occupation forces between 1946 and 1948, just after World War II. They returned to Reedley, California before moving to Connecticut, New York and then Johnston, Rhode Island.
Clarice and Ridg traveled widely and lived for several periods of time in Scotland, England and Vienna, Austria. Her travels took her through the United States, Europe, Iceland, Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Jordan, Greece, Egypt, Palestine, and Israel. Each place provided an opportunity to look at social customs, study ways of life and, especially, to acquire ethnic dolls. Her hobbies included building a Teaching and Learning Collection of International and Ethnic Dolls, a collection of over fourteen hundred dolls from around the world, with a supporting four hundred book library of research and reference materials. Clarice was a lifetime board member of the Ridgway F. Shinn, Jr. Study Abroad Fund at Rhode Island College which has enabled ninety-seven students to study in international settings. She enjoyed reading, knitting, indoor gardening and family. Clarice moved to Willamette View in Oregon in 2012 from Rhode Island, her home for over fifty years. She was well loved by all.
Memorial gifts can be made to the Shinn Study Abroad Fund (RIC Foundation) or charities supporting children. For more details: https://www.stehnfuneralhomes.com/notices/Clarice-Shinn