Former Piece County District Count Judge, Elizabeth Shackleford, 93, died at Wesley Gardens in Des Moines on September 3, 1989. Born in Tacoma, she was educated in law by her father, the late Pierce County Superior Court Judge, John A. Shackleford. She was the only woman admitted to the Washington State Bar during 1922 and was a Tacoma attorney before serving on the bench, from which she retired in 1967. She resumed private law practice until her second retirement in 1974. In 1988 she was made an Honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Puget Sound, from which she graduated in 1918, and also had the Northwest Women's Law Center's Florence Merrick Award for furthering equal rights and opportunities for women through the law. Her affiliations included the Buniness and Professional Women's club, Tacoma Urban League, NAACP, League of Women Voters and Tacoma First United Methodist Church.In addition the same newspaper on the same day carried this article on page B4:She is survived by cousins, John H. Shackleford, of Seattle, and Dr. William L. Shackleford, of Seal Beach, California.
Visitation will be all day Thursday at the funeral home. Interment, Tacoma Cemetary. A graveside memorial service will be held at a later date. Family suggests rememberances be sent to the Shackleford Fund for Minority Students at UPS. Arrangements by Gaffney, Cassedy, Allen and Buckley-King.
Ex-judge, lawyer Elizabeth Shackleford diesElizabeth Shackleford, known for championing the causes of minorities and disadvantaged people as an attorney and a judge, died Sunday at the age of 94.
Her death was due to heart failure, family members said.
Shackleford was appointed a Pierce County justice court judge in 1954. The title of the job changed in 1963, and she served as a district court judge until 1967. She practiced law until 1981, retired at age 85.
Shackleford also was a justice of the peace from 1963 until 1967.
She was admitted to the Washington State Bar in 1922 without first going to law school. She learned enough in the law office of her father, the late Pierce County Superior Court Judge John Shackleford, to pass the state bar examination.
Last year, she received an honorary law degree from the University of Puget Sound. She had earned an undergraduate degree at the school in 1918 before going into law.
Shackleford stayed with her father's firm until he died in 1927. In those days, there were only five female lawyers in the area, and clients were scarce. So she took a job with the federal tax collection agency, which later became the Internal Revenue Service, while struggling to build her practice.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Shackleford was the only female attorney practicing in the area and one of the few to take on black clients.
She is credited with helping an association of black women and a group of black businessmen to establish clubhouses in Tacoma and with providing free legal assistance to blacks. She was active with the local League of Women Voters.
For her efforts, she was honered by black, Indian and religious groups in a special ceremony in 1981.
Shackleford, who never married, was born in Tacoma and lived in the city most of her life. But before her death, she had lived for several years in a Methodist retirement center in Des Moines.
She had two sisters, also professional women, family members said. She is survived only by cousins.
"She did so much for the black people and neglected people and the poor people," said Ethel Shackleford of Seattle, the widow of one of her cousins.