John Shearer: Remembering Father On What Would Have Been 100th Birthday

One hundred years ago this Aug. 13, my father, Dr. C. Wayne Shearer, was born in Chattanooga.

Maybe last year or even early this year, I and others envisioned some kind of small celebration for him as is certainly worthy of anyone turning 100, especially someone like him who was still blessed with a sharp mind. But as many who knew him know, he died on May 18 after really just a month or six weeks of declining physical health.

As a result, a 100^th birthday party unfortunately did not take place.

But my out-of-town nephew, Logan Julian, and his family had several months ago already tied in a possible birthday visit with another trip. So, since everyone was in town this past weekend, we decided to at least get a group picture of all his descendants in front of the home where he lived for nearly six decades.

With the help of a kind daughter of a neighbor across the street, all 17 of us smiled for a picture or two in recent days. That included two children (including my sister, Cathy Morris), three grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and three in-laws!

I had actually planned to write a personal reminiscence of him right after he died, as is often common. But several people had kindly complimented his obituary and him so much that I really felt no need to add anything.

It was much different after my mother, Velma Shearer, died in 2012 after 10 years or so of declining cognitive health and after many of her contemporaries had already died. I felt a strong need to retell her whole life’s story as I saw it.

But for my sake, I wanted to at least briefly honor again my father’s life on his milestone anniversary of his birth, just as I hope all of you feel inclined to do on such occasions for your loved ones.

I also wanted to point out that state Rep. Greg Martin – who knew my father well -- had kindly gotten the ball rolling on a House Joint Resolution honoring him for “his honorable and astute service to the state of Tennessee.” It was put together several weeks earlier with the additional help of Reps. Patsy Hazlewood, Esther Helton-Haynes, and Greg Vital, and Sen. Bo Watson and before anyone knew his days were numbered, even though he was, of course, 99.

I was able to at least tell my father of the kind gesture, and Rep. Martin delivered to me a formal couple of copies of the resolution on nice paper shortly after the death.

My father had come into the world in 1924 in East Chattanooga and was named, he said, for Dr. Wayne Hysinger, a respected and liked East Chattanooga physician. He was also the person for whom the former Boone-Hysinger public housing facility was named.

His mother, Eva Mathis Shearer, was not long out of high school, while his father, C.C. Shearer, was nearing 30 and had already fought in the trenches of World War I and was enjoying a blossoming bank clerking career. At the time he was working at the Bank of East Chattanooga in a still-standing building at the intersection of Glass Street and North Chamberlain Avenue. It later became the East Chattanooga branch of Hamilton National Bank, and then First Tennessee.

According to the old city directories at the Chattanooga Public Library, the family was at some point in 1924 living at 2704 Glass St. in an apparently still-standing home. That home was in probably very much a middle-class suburb in an area considered far from downtown, but it is now in an area trying to redevelop and renew itself in different realms.

Right before that they had lived at 2900 Noa St., another East Chattanooga structure that is also still standing, or at least was until recently.

My grandfather later saw an opportunity for banking advancement in Cordele, Ga., and that is where my father grew up. Unfortunately, they hit a financial bump in the road during the Great Depression, as many bankers and others did, but they survived.

My father would go on to serve as president of his high school class, as a pilot in World War II and then go on to the University of Georgia and optometry school in Memphis. Always enjoying the return visits to Chattanooga to visit relatives while growing up – saying his mother always preferred Chattanooga over the flatter and smaller Cordele -- he decided to open an optometry office in Red Bank beginning in 1955. He would remain in Chattanooga – the place of his birth – for the rest of his life.

A small number of people told me after he died that they were impressed with how engaged he was in the community, including with the Methodist church, military veterans, the Republican Party and civic clubs. I told them he usually only had a couple of main focuses at any given time the last six or seven decades, so he still always left plenty of time for family.

And he never seemed overly busy during non-working hours. He knew how to get work done efficiently.

While easily approachable as we mentioned in the obituary, he also knew how to keep his eye intuitively and sometimes intently on the horizon, whether in his automobile or in dealing with people. That practicality as much as a good heart in more ways than one helped him reach nearly 100 years old, I believe.

And for that we are all thankful as we remember him on this landmark anniversary.

Besides a small party, Laura and I would have likely taken him to his favorite place of Clumpie’s ice cream to let him enjoy a vanilla waffle cone, just as he said he used to enjoy the Southern Dairies ice cream during visits to the Scenic City as a young man long ago.

Happy 100^th, Daddy. We miss you!

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net