LORRETTA JEAN (Griffith) SHUCK

AUGUST 13, 1938 - OCTOBER 31, 2009

Lorretta J. Shuck, 71, Belle Fourche, died Saturday, October 31, 2009 at the David M. Dorsett Regional Senior Care Center in Spearfish.

Funeral services will be 11:30 a.m. Friday, November 6, 2009 at the Kinkade Funeral Chapel in Sturgis with Pastor Jean Helmer officiating. Burial follows at the Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis.

In lieu of flowers the family suggests memorial to the Hospice of the Northern Hills or the David M. Dorsett Regional Senior Care Center.

Lorretta Griffith was born August 13, 1938 in Red Elm, South Dakota, the third of 11 children to Alvin and Rose Griffith. She was raised on her parents' farm near Dupree, South Dakota. She attended school in Dupree while helping her mother with housework and helping to raise her younger siblings. Lorretta graduated from Dupree High School on May 16, 1956 and moved to San Diego, California to work as a nanny for the children of her uncle. After a year, she returned to South Dakota and worked as a schoolteacher in the rural school districts in one-room schoolhouses where she taught students in all grades that often included her younger brothers and sisters.

Lorretta married Melvin Shuck, a neighboring farm boy from Lantry on October 15, 1960. Even after almost 50 years of marriage, she still has the first letter he wrote her in which he asked her for their first date. They started their married life in a small one-bedroom trailer on his parents' farm in Lantry, South Dakota where their four children were born.

In 1970, they moved to Philomath, Oregon. In 1974, they moved to Pierre, South where Lorretta worked at the South Dakota State Library until they returned to Philomath in 1976. Back in Oregon, Lorretta worked as a bookkeeper for Starker Forests and then finally as an acquisitions manager for Oregon State University's Kerr Library until her retirement in 1997. Then it was back to South Dakota where she and Melvin settled in for their retirement in Belle Fourche, South Dakota.

Lorretta was preceded in death by her parents, Alvin and Rose, and one sister, Teresa. She is survived by her husband, Melvin; her children, Nancy Shuck of Belle Fourche, South Dakota, Harley and Rhonda Shuck of Dayton, Wyoming, Lyle Shuck of Corvallis, Oregon, Judy and Skip Hallett of Albany, Oregon; her grandchildren, Josh Shuck of Portland, Oregon, Tim and Jenn Shuck of New London, Ohio, Amy Shuck of Sheridan, Wyoming, Travis Shuck of Dayton, Wyoming, and Cody Shuck of Corvallis, Oregon. She is also survived by her siblings Mercedes (Carl) Pritzkau, Lantry, SD, Alva (Joe) Till, Ekalaka, MT, Janet Vermilyea, Newark, DE, Carl Griffith (Amy Minor), Rapid City, Maude (John) Flahaven, Sundance, WY, Thomas (Karen) Griffith, Rapid City, Dorothy (Bernie) Tibbs, Ridgeview, SD, Gay (Gary) Ruzicka, Belle Fourche, SD, and Rollis Griffith, Piedmont; and numerous nieces and nephews.