Shirley Holaway Troyer Elementary Education Scholarship

Shirley Holaway was the oldest of eight children raised by unconventional parents who encouraged the girls to exceed and succeed just as much as the boys. Her mother, Ella Mullet, had used an inheritance from an uncle to attend Goshen Academy in the early 1910’s. Her father, Clarence J., was a self-taught man with an entrepreneurial spirit, developing such various businesses as caponizing roosters and making and selling potato chips. In this family environment, Shirley learned to value education and determination. Shirley excelled at school, so that after her junior year of high school in 1934, she needed only one more credit to finish high school. She finished that credit during her first year at Goshen College, graduating with her high school class in Nappanee in 1935 and then graduating with her teaching license from GC in 1936.

She began her teaching career in country schools, teaching 20 to 40 students from first through eighth grades in one room. She loved teaching in these country schools because the teacher and students learned to know each other so well; one of her closest students from the Eight Square school later named her own daughter Shirley. During the summer recesses, she went to Asbury Park, New Jersey, and earned money waitressing in a large restaurant near the boardwalk. She also continued her education at GC and earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 1943.

While at GC, she met Francis C. Troyer, and they married in 1942 after dating for several years.  During World War II, they lived in North Carolina while Fran worked at Duke Hospital. They returned to Northern Indiana in 1945, where they both soon began teaching in the Elkhart schools.  While their four children were young, Shirley continued to teach, initially working as a substitute teacher, and later focusing on second grade, where she specialized in teaching reading. The family spent several summers as staff at the Little Eden camp, teaching crafts to the campers.

Starting in 1959, they spent the summers in Boulder, CO where Shirley and Fran attended the University of Colorado. Shirley earned a Masters in Education in 1963 and was just one class shy of a second degree in library science. Her last years of teaching before her retirement in 1979 were spent both as an elementary librarian and in the classroom. Since retiring, she has spent time volunteering at Oaklawn Psychiatric Center and tutoring children who are unable to attend school.   Even in her leisure time, she prefers to be productive, creating useful things by quilting, crocheting and gardening.

During her teaching career, she strove to always create an atmosphere of well-being in her classroom, where every child felt valued and where learning was a pleasure. Her teaching philosophy reflected her belief that no one is “dumb,” and that everyone is able to learn something.