Mary Elizabeth Gregory Shaw 1932-2022 Mary Elizabeth Gregory Shaw, 89, died Sunday, February 27, 2022 at Bethany House in Auburn, Alabama. A native of Auburn, Mary Elizabeth graduated from Auburn High School, where she made many lifelong friendships. She attended Auburn University, where she was a member of Kappa Delta social sorority and majored in animal science. In 1953, she served as Alabama Maid of Cotton. After marrying her husband, Jerry Lee Shaw, in 1954, she accompanied him on a tour of Germany in the U.S. Army. After returning to the United States, she and Jerry lived for some years in Cowan, Tennessee, Albany and Cordele, Georgia before returning home to Auburn. Mary Elizabeth had a career as an assistant chemist at the Alabama State Pesticide Laboratory in Auburn, analyzing agricultural samples for contamination and pesticide residues. Mary Elizabeth also had a rich and varied life away from work. She loved poetry, literature, old movies, folklore, and history. She had a prodigious memory, for poems, songs, movie lines, and more. Even into her late 80s, she could recite the names of the kings and queens of England from Alfred the Great to Elizabeth II. She instilled her love for music in her sons, Jake and Larry, and she was tremendously proud of their talent. Most of all, her love for her granddaughters, Hannah, Emma Kate, and Reilly knew no bounds. She was baptized in the Presbyterian Church, and her final church home was Grace United Methodist Church. She enjoyed knitting and ceramics, and she was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She served on the board of the Auburn Heritage Association, she was a member of the Auburn Study Club, and she was recruited each year to make her delicious homemade biscuits for Pioneer Day at the Loachapoka Syrup Sopping Fair. A sweet, kind, and loving person with a sunny disposition, she was adored by all who knew her; she had friends of every generation, most especially among her sons' friends and classmates. With a seemingly endless supply of peanut butter sandwiches and homemade hamburgers, chocolate fudge and Fig Newtons, genuine interest and a great sense of fun, she made all of her friends, young and old, feel like family. Mary Elizabeth was preceded in death by her parents, William Henry Gregory, Jr., and Mary Kirk Armstrong Gregory; her sisters, Martha Frances Gregory and Ann Armstrong Gregory Baxter; her brother, William Henry Gregory, III; her brother-in-law, James Woods Baxter; her niece, Martha Kirk Baxter Hanson; her parents-in-law, Marvin O. Shaw and Mary Garner Shaw. She is survived by her husband, Jerry Lee Shaw; her sons and daughter-in-law, Jerry Lee "Jake" Shaw, William Lawrence "Larry" Shaw, and Anne Lawrence Tamblyn Shaw; her granddaughters, Hannah Elizabeth Shaw and her fiancé Gregory Whyte, Emma Kathleen Shaw, and Sarah Reilly Shaw, their mother, Kelly Riley Shaw, and a host of nieces, nephews, and treasured friends. A memorial service will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Auburn Heritage Association, P.O. Box 2248, Auburn AL 36831-2248, or the charity of your choice. Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all." . . . Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate. Proverbs 31: 28-31 (NIV)