Mary Shelton, a native of Princeton, Indiana, well-known performer, leader in the arts community, and long-time resident of Memphis, Tennessee, died of natural causes at the age of 85 on October 17, 2012, in Pensacola, Florida.
Born September 14, 1927, she was the youngest daughter of Bert George and Isabel Wagner Hadfield. She was married for 47 years to the late William Edward (Bill) Shelton III, a native of Mayfield, Kentucky, whom she met while attending the University of Illinois.
She grew up in a musical family, singing God Bless America at age ten at the Indiana State Fair. She began her professional singing career at age 16 with Ted Weems and his Orchestra, playing such famed venues as the ‘Top of the Mark' at San Francisco's illustrious Mark Hopkins Hotel. Later, while earning her bachelor's degree magna cum laude from the University of Illinois, she joined Bill Shelton and his Orchestra, as his lead vocalist (for life). Voted the 'Best College Dance Band in America' in the mid-1940's, they recorded for Universal, and once played for a senior prom at her alma mater, Princeton High School.
Mary and Bill moved to Memphis in 1963 when he became Executive Director of the Downtown Association. She was immediately recruited for the lead as Mama Rose in Front Street Theatre's production of Gypsy. Originally scheduled for a two-week run, the show ran a total of fifty-two sold-out weeks. She became known affectionately as ‘Mama Rose' to the arts community and her family. She played the leads in Mame and The Most Happy Fella, and appeared in Daughter of the Regiment with Beverly Sills.
As a musician-singer-composer she performed one-woman shows around the country featuring her own original material, for the American Medical Association and other national organizations, and in Memphis at Maid of Cotton luncheons and Memphis Symphony Pops Concerts. She wrote and performed The Ballad of Eighty Brave Men, a moving musical story adopted by General James Doolittle as the theme song for annual Doolittle Raiders reunions.
Her final Memphis performance before moving to Pensacola in 2005 was for the Opera Memphis Gala, where she reprised I Love the Opera, a song she had written years earlier for the final-night party of a Metropolitan Opera tour stop in Memphis, with Kurt Adler conducting.
She voiced the character of Miranda on nine children's albums as part of Columbia Recording Company's Reading Records, and was spokesperson for "Catherine's" Shoppes, a national women's clothing chain, which featured her in television ads, newspaper interviews and fashion shows set to her own music.
In the 1970's and ‘80s she and her husband, by then a retired bank executive, were partners in The Shelton Company, Realtors©. She specialized in residential sales, earning Graduate Realtor Institute designation and life member status in the Million Dollar Club.
She was active in the Memphis arts scene, serving on the boards of the Memphis Symphony, Opera Theatre, and the Arts Council. Her home's chinoiserie and antiques were featured on the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art home tour, and she was a founding member, President, Secretary and Historian of the Brooks Decorative Arts Trust. She was a faithful member of the Methodist Church.
She is survived by two daughters, a son, three grandsons, and a brother.
She was buried next to her husband at Maplewood Cemetery, Mayfield, KY. The family suggests that memorials take the form of donations to Brooks Decorative Arts Trust, 1934 Cooper Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104, or to Covenant Hospice, 5041 N. 12th Avenue, Pensacola, FL 32504.
Born September 14, 1927, she was the youngest daughter of Bert George and Isabel Wagner Hadfield. She was married for 47 years to the late William Edward (Bill) Shelton III, a native of Mayfield, Kentucky, whom she met while attending the University of Illinois.
She grew up in a musical family, singing God Bless America at age ten at the Indiana State Fair. She began her professional singing career at age 16 with Ted Weems and his Orchestra, playing such famed venues as the ‘Top of the Mark' at San Francisco's illustrious Mark Hopkins Hotel. Later, while earning her bachelor's degree magna cum laude from the University of Illinois, she joined Bill Shelton and his Orchestra, as his lead vocalist (for life). Voted the 'Best College Dance Band in America' in the mid-1940's, they recorded for Universal, and once played for a senior prom at her alma mater, Princeton High School.
Mary and Bill moved to Memphis in 1963 when he became Executive Director of the Downtown Association. She was immediately recruited for the lead as Mama Rose in Front Street Theatre's production of Gypsy. Originally scheduled for a two-week run, the show ran a total of fifty-two sold-out weeks. She became known affectionately as ‘Mama Rose' to the arts community and her family. She played the leads in Mame and The Most Happy Fella, and appeared in Daughter of the Regiment with Beverly Sills.
As a musician-singer-composer she performed one-woman shows around the country featuring her own original material, for the American Medical Association and other national organizations, and in Memphis at Maid of Cotton luncheons and Memphis Symphony Pops Concerts. She wrote and performed The Ballad of Eighty Brave Men, a moving musical story adopted by General James Doolittle as the theme song for annual Doolittle Raiders reunions.
Her final Memphis performance before moving to Pensacola in 2005 was for the Opera Memphis Gala, where she reprised I Love the Opera, a song she had written years earlier for the final-night party of a Metropolitan Opera tour stop in Memphis, with Kurt Adler conducting.
She voiced the character of Miranda on nine children's albums as part of Columbia Recording Company's Reading Records, and was spokesperson for "Catherine's" Shoppes, a national women's clothing chain, which featured her in television ads, newspaper interviews and fashion shows set to her own music.
In the 1970's and ‘80s she and her husband, by then a retired bank executive, were partners in The Shelton Company, Realtors©. She specialized in residential sales, earning Graduate Realtor Institute designation and life member status in the Million Dollar Club.
She was active in the Memphis arts scene, serving on the boards of the Memphis Symphony, Opera Theatre, and the Arts Council. Her home's chinoiserie and antiques were featured on the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art home tour, and she was a founding member, President, Secretary and Historian of the Brooks Decorative Arts Trust. She was a faithful member of the Methodist Church.
She is survived by two daughters, a son, three grandsons, and a brother.
She was buried next to her husband at Maplewood Cemetery, Mayfield, KY. The family suggests that memorials take the form of donations to Brooks Decorative Arts Trust, 1934 Cooper Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104, or to Covenant Hospice, 5041 N. 12th Avenue, Pensacola, FL 32504.
Mary Shelton, a native of Princeton, Indiana, well-known performer, leader in the arts community, and long-time resident of Memphis, Tennessee, died of natural causes at the age of 85 on October 17, 2012, in Pensacola, Florida.
Born September 14, 1927, she was the youngest daughter of Bert George and Isabel Wagner Hadfield. She was married for 47 years to the late William Edward (Bill) Shelton III, a native of Mayfield, Kentucky, whom she met while attending the University of Illinois.
She grew up in a musical family, singing God Bless America at age ten at the Indiana State Fair. She began her professional singing career at age 16 with Ted Weems and his Orchestra, playing such famed venues as the ‘Top of the Mark' at San Francisco's illustrious Mark Hopkins Hotel. Later, while earning her bachelor's degree magna cum laude from the University of Illinois, she joined Bill Shelton and his Orchestra, as his lead vocalist (for life). Voted the 'Best College Dance Band in America' in the mid-1940's, they recorded for Universal, and once played for a senior prom at her alma mater, Princeton High School.
Mary and Bill moved to Memphis in 1963 when he became Executive Director of the Downtown Association. She was immediately recruited for the lead as Mama Rose in Front Street Theatre's production of Gypsy. Originally scheduled for a two-week run, the show ran a total of fifty-two sold-out weeks. She became known affectionately as ‘Mama Rose' to the arts community and her family. She played the leads in Mame and The Most Happy Fella, and appeared in Daughter of the Regiment with Beverly Sills.
As a musician-singer-composer she performed one-woman shows around the country featuring her own original material, for the American Medical Association and other national organizations, and in Memphis at Maid of Cotton luncheons and Memphis Symphony Pops Concerts. She wrote and performed The Ballad of Eighty Brave Men, a moving musical story adopted by General James Doolittle as the theme song for annual Doolittle Raiders reunions.
Her final Memphis performance before moving to Pensacola in 2005 was for the Opera Memphis Gala, where she reprised I Love the Opera, a song she had written years earlier for the final-night party of a Metropolitan Opera tour stop in Memphis, with Kurt Adler conducting.
She voiced the character of Miranda on nine children's albums as part of Columbia Recording Company's Reading Records, and was spokesperson for "Catherine's" Shoppes, a national women's clothing chain, which featured her in television ads, newspaper interviews and fashion shows set to her own music.
In the 1970's and ‘80s she and her husband, by then a retired bank executive, were partners in The Shelton Company, Realtors©. She specialized in residential sales, earning Graduate Realtor Institute designation and life member status in the Million Dollar Club.
She was active in the Memphis arts scene, serving on the boards of the Memphis Symphony, Opera Theatre, and the Arts Council. Her home's chinoiserie and antiques were featured on the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art home tour, and she was a founding member, President, Secretary and Historian of the Brooks Decorative Arts Trust. She was a faithful member of the Methodist Church.
She is survived by two daughters, a son, three grandsons, and a brother.
She was buried next to her husband at Maplewood Cemetery, Mayfield, KY. The family suggests that memorials take the form of donations to Brooks Decorative Arts Trust, 1934 Cooper Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104, or to Covenant Hospice, 5041 N. 12th Avenue, Pensacola, FL 32504.
Born September 14, 1927, she was the youngest daughter of Bert George and Isabel Wagner Hadfield. She was married for 47 years to the late William Edward (Bill) Shelton III, a native of Mayfield, Kentucky, whom she met while attending the University of Illinois.
She grew up in a musical family, singing God Bless America at age ten at the Indiana State Fair. She began her professional singing career at age 16 with Ted Weems and his Orchestra, playing such famed venues as the ‘Top of the Mark' at San Francisco's illustrious Mark Hopkins Hotel. Later, while earning her bachelor's degree magna cum laude from the University of Illinois, she joined Bill Shelton and his Orchestra, as his lead vocalist (for life). Voted the 'Best College Dance Band in America' in the mid-1940's, they recorded for Universal, and once played for a senior prom at her alma mater, Princeton High School.
Mary and Bill moved to Memphis in 1963 when he became Executive Director of the Downtown Association. She was immediately recruited for the lead as Mama Rose in Front Street Theatre's production of Gypsy. Originally scheduled for a two-week run, the show ran a total of fifty-two sold-out weeks. She became known affectionately as ‘Mama Rose' to the arts community and her family. She played the leads in Mame and The Most Happy Fella, and appeared in Daughter of the Regiment with Beverly Sills.
As a musician-singer-composer she performed one-woman shows around the country featuring her own original material, for the American Medical Association and other national organizations, and in Memphis at Maid of Cotton luncheons and Memphis Symphony Pops Concerts. She wrote and performed The Ballad of Eighty Brave Men, a moving musical story adopted by General James Doolittle as the theme song for annual Doolittle Raiders reunions.
Her final Memphis performance before moving to Pensacola in 2005 was for the Opera Memphis Gala, where she reprised I Love the Opera, a song she had written years earlier for the final-night party of a Metropolitan Opera tour stop in Memphis, with Kurt Adler conducting.
She voiced the character of Miranda on nine children's albums as part of Columbia Recording Company's Reading Records, and was spokesperson for "Catherine's" Shoppes, a national women's clothing chain, which featured her in television ads, newspaper interviews and fashion shows set to her own music.
In the 1970's and ‘80s she and her husband, by then a retired bank executive, were partners in The Shelton Company, Realtors©. She specialized in residential sales, earning Graduate Realtor Institute designation and life member status in the Million Dollar Club.
She was active in the Memphis arts scene, serving on the boards of the Memphis Symphony, Opera Theatre, and the Arts Council. Her home's chinoiserie and antiques were featured on the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art home tour, and she was a founding member, President, Secretary and Historian of the Brooks Decorative Arts Trust. She was a faithful member of the Methodist Church.
She is survived by two daughters, a son, three grandsons, and a brother.
She was buried next to her husband at Maplewood Cemetery, Mayfield, KY. The family suggests that memorials take the form of donations to Brooks Decorative Arts Trust, 1934 Cooper Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104, or to Covenant Hospice, 5041 N. 12th Avenue, Pensacola, FL 32504.
Gravesite Details
Interred October 29, 2012
