LeRoy Edgar Shoemaker Sr's Obituary
Mr. LeRoy Edgar Shoemaker, Senior, age 87, of Culpeper Virginia, died Thursday, March 12, 2015 at the Culpeper Regional Hospital, after suffering a massive stroke early Sunday morning. He leaves behind a daughter, Kathy Price (Lee) of Culpeper; a son, LeRoy, Jr of Culpeper, a brother, George (Delores) of San Diego, CA; two grandchildren, David (Bonnie) Williams of Culpeper and Kristen Williams of Chesapeake, VA; two great-grandchildren, Nathan and Caleb of Culpeper, and numerous nieces and nephews across the country.
Born in Evansville, Indiana, on November 24, 1927, Mr. Shoemaker joined the Navy in May 1945 and attended Boot Camp in Great Lakes, IL. Five months later, he reported to the USS Goodrich in Portland ME for training. From Maine, the ship travelled through the Panama Canal, to San Diego, CA (where he celebrated his 18th birthday), and on to Japan. He was discharged from the Navy in August 1946, at which time he attended Evansville College for 2 years, and then re-enlisted in the Navy in September 1948. He attended Electronics School in Great Lakes, IL and was assigned to the USS Midway at the start of the Korean War. On September 28, 1949, he married Doris Simpson, of Evansville, IN and together they travelled extensively during his Navy career, including two years in Sasebo, Japan. In 1956, LeRoy was selected for Officer Candidate School in Newport, RI; in 1957, he attended the Naval Supply Corps School in Athens, GA; and in 1965, he attended the Navy Post Graduate School in Monterey, CA, after which he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Much of his early, enlisted military career was related to electronics intelligence and security. As a Supply Corps Officer, he focused on the business side of military logistics and auditing. Mr. Shoemaker retired from the Navy in 1971.
After retirement, LeRoy and Doris travelled the U.S as full-time RV-ers, spending summers in Virginia with their grandchildren and winters with his family in Southern California, sweeping the country with annual visits to Indiana to visit family members there and “snow-birding” in south Texas on the way back to Virginia. LeRoy and Doris became keenly interested in genealogy and used these trips to visit county records centers, cemeteries, and data repositories around the US to research and collect family history. This was before home computers and the internet, but they amassed thousands of authoritative data records which LeRoy and his daughter since added to Ancestry.com. LeRoy continued his interest in family history and photographs until the time of his death. In 1989, LeRoy and Doris settled in Culpeper to be near to their grandchildren. LeRoy became active in the community as an AARP Tax Aide and served briefly as an AARP Board Member.
In the 1990’s LeRoy and Doris began travelling abroad extensively, visiting all of the country in Western Europe many in Eastern Europe, Russia, India, China, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Argentina, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. Together, they traveled on the great trains of Europe including the Orient Express. They cruised the Mediterranean from Istanbul to Rome via the Greek Islands; and they cruised to and around Alaska. LeRoy and Doris especially enjoyed river cruising. They cruised the Mississippi, Ohio, and Columbia Rivers here in the United States; the Rhine, Main, Danube, Elbe Rivers of Europe; the Neva, Kovzha, and Volga Rivers in Russia; the Ganges River in India; the Nile River in Egypt; the Amazon and Negro Rivers in Brazil; and on the Yangtze in China, where they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.
Mr. Shoemaker will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery, with his wife, Doris, who preceded him in death. Friends and family can make a donation, in Mr. Shoemaker’s honor/memory to The Wounded Warrior Project.
Found and Son Funeral Chapel of Culpeper is handling the arrangements
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