T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Karen Shipley-Cooper holds a photo of herself and her late daughter Teresa “Teri” Shipley, who passed away at the age of 16 in 1983 after suffering an aneurysm. In the 41 years since, Shipley-Cooper has become an advocate for the grieving and launched the local chapter of The Compassionate Friends in 1985.

Karen Shipley-Cooper will never forget the balmy July day in 1983 when the unthinkable happened.

Her teenage daughter and only child, Teresa Shipley, suffered an aneurysm at church — first, it was a bad headache, and then her legs stopped working. She slipped out of her mother’s arms and was eventually transported by ambulance to the Marshalltown hospital before being life flighted to Des Moines. Teresa spent 24 hours on life support before she was officially pronounced dead.

“She was very, very good in school. She was an A student. She played mellophone, French horn, and trumpet. She was first chair on two of those,” her mother said. “She could’ve graduated. She had enough points because she went to summer school. Being a divorced mom, she went to school and tried to fill that time when I was having to work.”

The tragedy has shaped Shipley-Cooper, who had just turned 40 when it occurred, in numerous ways and ultimately became the defining event of her own life. But it’s also provided her with a unique sense of purpose and a desire to ensure that no one in the area grieves alone.

Shipley-Cooper, a lifelong local resident and Fisher Controls retiree, recently received the Chapter Leadership Award from The Compassionate Friends (TCF), a nonprofit organization composed entirely of volunteers and dedicated to providing peer support for individuals struggling with the loss of a child, sibling or grandchild, during their national conference in New Orleans from July 12-14. She traveled to the Crescent City to receive the award in front of over 1,000 members from across the country, many of whom were attending the conference for the first time.

Reflecting on the early challenges she endured, Shipley-Cooper recalled coming home to an empty house and quickly deciding that joining some sort of group was exactly what she should do. The closest one she could find, however, was in Des Moines, a 130 mile round trip that often required her to pull over on the side of the road while driving home because she was crying so profusely.

Around that time, Shipley-Cooper did happen to meet Linda Temple, another Marshalltonian who traveled with her to the gatherings after losing her son, and they soon set out to establish a chapter in their home community. On April 1, 1985, the first local monthly meeting was held with six attendees at the First Friends Church.

It only grew from there, with as many as 30 attendees gathering each month and an annual candlelight service attracting about 75 people. The numbers have declined since the COVID-19 pandemic, but the mission lives on and the need undoubtedly remains. Additionally, there are now several other grief support groups established in Marshalltown, so those looking for a place to go do have more options than they did four decades ago.

‘There’s always that missing chair’

Returning to work and going on with everyday life felt like a herculean task for Shipley-Cooper, who eventually remarried to the late former Marshalltown City Councilor John Cooper until his passing in 2016. One particularly callous Fisher colleague, only about six weeks after Teresa’s death, told Karen she was “tired of her moods” and that she simply needed to “get over it.”

“Before your child died, you process things normally, and after you lose a child, it’s kind of like a reverse. It’s like everything processes through your child and it’s hard to concentrate, hard to think,” she said. “And the value of The Compassionate Friends is (that) it’s a safe place where you can tell your story because your child will always be in your heart and thoughts.”

Thankfully, another coworker called Shipley-Cooper, who went home after the incident, to tell her she didn’t feel the same way, and that reassurance pulled her from a self-described “rock bottom” moment.

“That’s just how hurtful some people can be,” she said.

Resources for the grieving through TCF include speaking engagements, presentations, books and the opportunity to share stories and heal in a supportive environment. The group’s members and leaders recognize that there is no expiration date on the process, and parents should always feel comfortable remembering the special moments they shared with their kids.

“My daughter will always be 16 ½ because I have no more pictures. You go to work and you hear people talking about ‘Oh, my son’s birthday, my daughter’s birthday, Christmas,’ and you have that missing link. There’s always that missing chair in your life at all the holidays, everything,” Shipley-Cooper said. “Compassionate Friends allows you to have that safe place and share pictures, what pictures you have, and to tell that story and remember the good times because after you’ve lost a child, a lot of times people quit asking (and) quit bringing up their name.”

In the 39 ½ years she’s dedicated to TCF, Shipley-Cooper has spent countless late nights working on the monthly newsletter on a manual typewriter, planning meetings and arranging refreshments. But there’s not a doubt in her mind that the results have been worth the effort.

“Grief is like a river, and there’s stones. And you see those stones, and you want to make it to the other side to be healthy, a new normal because it’ll never be the normal you knew before,” she said. “So you start across those stepping stones, and all of a sudden the water’s splashing and it’s cold and you kind of question yourself and you want to go back where you came from… But then you look up, and here’s a hand stretched out. Here’s The Compassionate Friends to help you walk across those stepping stones to the other side of grief.”

Strength in numbers

As previously mentioned, TCF is no longer the only game in town when it comes to grief support groups — churches, funeral homes and Iowa River Hospice are all prime examples. But in those cases, Shipley-Cooper said, the sessions usually last about 6-8 weeks, whereas anyone who joins TCF can return until they no longer wish to do so.

Through her journey as a staunch supporter of anyone who is grieving, Shipley-Cooper has found a friend and a kindred spirit in Marty Mitchell, the owner-operator of Mitchell Family Funeral Homes in Marshalltown. For over a decade, she’s worked part-time for him as an aftercare specialist, and once a month, she leads his widow/widower breakfast and coffee group, which has 87 attendees scheduled for the next meeting on Monday, and lines up speakers for it.

“She deserves that recognition (from TCF). She has worked tirelessly for 41 years since she’s lost Teri. She does not do it for the recognition. She does it to offer people a support system,” Mitchell said. ”

Mitchell has known Shipley-Cooper for over half of his life as his aunt worked with her at Fisher, and the three of them even went on trips to places like Adventureland together during his younger years. Teresa, or Teri, as she was known, was only a few years older than Mitchell.

“Karen became an advocate for other people’s grief, and she was the founding member of The Compassionate Friends here in Marshalltown because there really was none, or very, very little support on that. People were almost abandoned on that,” he said. “So she was an advocate for people that were in the grieving process, and she felt that it was important to network and to have (like minded individuals) in the same room.”

Generally, about two weeks after a funeral, Mitchell enlists Shipley-Cooper to call the immediate family of the deceased without any advance knowledge of their financial status and offers her expertise and suggestions on handling the grieving process. He added that because of societal shifts away from organized religion, funeral homes have naturally come to fill the void if churches no longer can.

Shipley-Cooper is available 24-7 as a resource, and she’s also involved in several other civic endeavors — the city’s housing committee, the Marshalltown Area United Way and the boards of Quakerdale and the 20th Century Club, to name a few.

“I’ve dedicated myself to working for the community in memory of my daughter, but 39 ½ years, all volunteer, that’s quite a commitment,” she said. “It’s not the money. You do it because you love your child.”