Passionate, resourceful, Tillie Shaw

CLOVIS — After her first retirement only lasted four years, everybody who worked with Tillie Shaw assumed she'd never have a second one.

She never officially did.

The longtime chief executive officer for the Clovis Board of Realtors died Wednesday at 99.

She had been with the board for 37 years — first from 1975 until 2007. After she came out of retirement in 2011, she worked at least part-time for the board until a few months ago when her health deteriorated.

History will also remember her as the first female elected Curry County treasurer. That happened in 1964.

Born March 4, 1917, in Littlefield, Leora Olson was one of six children who grew up on the Olson farm outside of Melrose. Following her graduations from Floyd High School in 1936 and Clovis' Benson School of Commerce in 1939, she got her first job working at C.L. Tennison's grain elevator in Melrose. It was there she earned the nickname "Tillie the Toiler" for her work ethic, as she started at bookkeeper and rose to assistant general manager before leaving to work at Fred Dennis' law office.

She became Leora Shaw in 1954 following her marriage to Harold Shaw. The two moved to Albuquerque, where Harold died of a heart attack in 1960.

She returned to Clovis, and went to court to change her legal first name to Tillie.

She credited the legal move with providing name recognition — everyone knew her as Tillie, not Leora — to win the 1964 Democratic primary, 2,401 votes to 1,273 over Alex Wilkins.

That's when Gayle Telshaw first met Shaw. Telshaw was a teenager working for George Sasser's real estate company, and her errands often included runs to the county offices.

"Back then we would have to buy what was called a warranty," Telshaw said. "They were stamps you would put on deeds. She was always dressed just perfect, and always had really nice manners. Everybody that came in her office was treated with respect, and she was always willing to help. She loved her job, and she was very good at it."

Telshaw's life continued in real estate, as she helped Sasser's son Duffy build a model of an idea he had in 1959 called Colonial Park. When they brought the model to the Curry County Fairgrounds, "everybody laughed at us."

Telshaw stuck in real estate, and Shaw soon found her way into it. After serving as treasurer for 10 years, she was hired to serve as the office presence for the Clovis Board of Realtors in its little building on Mitchell Street. Its current location is 1321 Pile Street, in a building that was renamed in Shaw's honor 20 years ago.

"She always had the coffee pot going for whoever needed or wanted to come in," Telshaw said. "She would always give (everybody) the benefit of her knowledge and experience to help them with whatever they were working with. She was very resourceful, and had a wealth of knowledge about a lot of things."

Shaw never had children and never remarried, noting she was too busy and joked it was better to make everybody happy than make one person miserable.

"Her passion and her love were the Realtors; that was her family," said Gayla Brumfield, who met Shaw when she got into the business in her early 20s. "She adopted the Realtors. She was passionate about her job all of her life. She knew how to get things done."

But she was never afraid to tell somebody how it was, be they customer or coworker. Wes Graham remembered in the late '80s when he was board president, a customer filed a complaint against one of the members.

"We were dealing with it, and that person decided to withdraw the complaint," Graham said. "They said they had talked to God, and that's what God wanted them to do. Tillie told that customer, 'That might be OK with God, but you've got to (come to the office and) put it in writing.'"

The Realtors were often amazed with her work ethic, and how she so easily converted from bound books to computers for listings.

She once told a reporter her advice to youth was, "Work hard and do a little more than your part."

Many surmised that Shaw made the real estate business stronger through her work — but she would have done just fine if she'd tried to make a living selling her homemade peanut brittle.

Retired Realtor Fred Eichenberger said Tillie gave him and others the recipe, but nobody he knew could make it just right like she did.

"That's the way she would bribe people," Brumfield said. "She would take it to the state association of Realtors. Everybody would see Tillie coming, and they did whatever she wanted."

Kay VanSickel, a niece, said funeral services are still pending, but she is hoping they can be held early next month.

She said Shaw is survived by a brother and a stepson in addition to other relatives.