Shupe, Verna Irene

SHUPE

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/23/2021 at 13:42:24

Source: History of Warren County, Iowa, by Gerard Schultz and Don L. Berry, The Record and Tribune Co., Indianola, Iowa, 1953, p.343

VERNA IRENE SHUPE
Verna Irene Shupe, teacher, was born at Lacona June 13, 1889, the daughter of Arthur David and Mary E. (Morris) Shupe.
Miss Shupe attended high school, the State University of Idaho, State University of Iowa, Columbia university and Oxford university at Oxford, England.
During both World War I and II, Miss Shupe spent eight weeks as a student nurse at the State Sanatorium for Tuberculosis at Oakdale, Iowa. While she was employed as high school superintendent of Patterson, she was enrolling officer of the boys working reserve in 1918. In 1947 Miss Shupe was appointed by the Institute of International Education as a good-will representative to Oxford university, England, Lady Margaret Hall.
The maternal ancestry of Miss Shupe connects with Lew Wetzel, who was a famous Indian fighter, and a cousin of her great-grandmother, Catherine Wetzel. Catherine Wetzel was born June 6, 1792, at Valley Forge, Pa., which could be called the birthplace of our nation. She was baptized by Bishop White, the first Episcopal bishop to be ordained in North America. Catherine Wetzel is the mother of Miss Shupe's grandmother, Elizabeth Taylor, who was born Sept. 6, 1825, and Married Mercer Morris, whose ancestry dates back to Thomas Morris of Norfolk, Va., who came to America in 1683. He was a descendant of the ancient Gauls who conquered the Celts in England. His grandson, the Rev. William Morris, went to Kentucky in 1802 from Virginia, to preach as a Baptist minister. Miss Shupe's grandfather, Mercer Morris, was a grandson of William Morris. Mercer Morris came to Iowa in a prairie schooner in 1854 and lived in the log house he built near Cool until his death in 1884. The Jacob J. Shupe family came to White Breast township sometime between 1847-58. The Shupe cemetery, three miles northwest of Lacona, has the graves of the early settlers of the Shupe family, marked with monuments of early dates. Verna Shupe is affiliated with the Prohibition party, and is a Methodist in her religious beliefs. She is a member of the National Education association and the American Legion.