Biography

Barbershop quartet singer, chorus director, and music arranger who was a member of the Sweet Adelines. Collection includes photographs, newspaper clippings, and scrapbooks related to Sweet Adelines, and materials related to Shook’s personal life.

Biographical/Historical Note :

Doris Jean Wells was born March 15, 1928, in Springville, Iowa, to Hazel Grace Allen Wells and Claude Cheyenne Wells. She attended schools in Springville until the death of her parents in 1942, when she moved to Mt. Pleasant to live with her aunt and uncle Beulah and James Cornick. She studied music at Iowa Wesleyan College but did not receive a degree. Wells married Allen Duane Shook in 1947, and they had two daughters.

Shook began her involvement in music during her youth. Her father sang in a barbershop quartet, which would practice in the home. She was involved in concert band and vocal music while at school and sang in her church choir. Her affiliation with Sweet Adelines, an organization of women barbershop harmony and a cappella singers, began in 1956 when she joined a chorus in Fort Madison. From that chorus, the Pleasantaires , a women’s barbershop quartet, was formed consisting of Shook, Jean Riepe, Darline Taylor, and Shook’s sister Margaret Layer DeJaynes. The Pleasantaires won second place at the Sweet Adelines International Competition in 1958 and 1959. In 1959, Shook and DeJaynes, along with several others, founded a Sweet Adelines chorus in Mt. Pleasant. This chorus would eventually merge with the Fort Madison chorus to create the Cross-County Chapter in 1974, of which Shook was the director and music arranger.

In 1966, Shook and DeJaynes would join with Sharri Mertens and Anna Lee Scott to form the Gaytones quartet. In 1967, the group won first place in their regional competition, which qualified them to participate in the 1967 international competition, where they placed sixth. In 1968, they won first place at the international competition and were named that year’s “Queens of Harmony.” One of the group’s peak experiences was traveling overseas to Vietnam, Guam, and the Philippines as part of a USO tour in 1971 to sing for United States soldiers. In 1978, Shook’s daughter, Lynn Ellsworth, replaced Anna Lee Scott in the Gaytones. The group changed their name to the Galatones and performed until 1982, when the quartet retired.

In 1973, Shook was elected to the International Board of Directors for Sweet Adelines. She attended the 1977 31st International Convention & Competition in London as a member of the board and served as a competition judge. She served on the board until 1979.

Shook retired in 1986 from directing the Cross-County Chapter chorus. She continued to sing in various groups, including the Metro Mix Sweet Adelines chorus of Iowa City, Iowa, and an unaffiliated chorus named Acapella. She wrote and produced a musical called “Springtown” based on her childhood growing up in Springville. The musical was performed at Iowa Wesleyan College in 2007. Shook was acknowledged by her Sweet Adelines Region in 2011 for over fifty years of membership, leadership, and service to the organization.

Found in 1 Collection or Record: