Shelby Jean Dye Hare

Shelby Jean Dye Hare was born on Monday 22 February 1937 to Orville Seldon “Skeeter” Dye and Ruby Lee (née Lindler) Dye in Syvial, West Virginia. She died, age 87, on Saturday 14 September 2024 in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

Her childhood in the hills and hollows of West Virginia gave way to a lifetime in the flatlands and bayous of north Louisiana when her father’s job brought them to Bastrop, Louisiana, in the late 1940s. With her parents, she was an avid water-skier and met her future husband, Greg Hare, on a sand bar on the Ouachita River. They married on Friday 15 March 1957 and made their home in downtown Monroe. During this time, she worked as a secretary for Commercial Solvents in Sterlington, Louisiana, while Greg was a photographer for the Monroe News-Star/Morning World. In short order, they built a home in Swartz, Louisiana; Greg established his own firm, Hare Engraving Company, for which Shelby kept the books; and she bore the first of two sons, Kent (1961), followed by Michael (1965), becoming a stay at-at-home mother through their childhood years. She returned to the work force in the mid-1970s as early computerization slowly drove small photoengraving shops out of business and Greg returned to school, earned a biology degree, and became a park ranger for the US Army Corps of Engineers. From then until the early 1990s she worked as a secretary at Columbian Chemicals in Swartz. For the entirety of her time in Swartz, she was a member of Swartz First Baptist Church.

Her last years were spent in Natchitoches, Louisiana, at Natchitoches Assisted Living and Natchitoches Community Care Center, the staffs of both of which her sons would like to thank for their care of their “Momma.” She was a loving wife to their father through long years of heart disease and a caring mother to them, and she is missed.

Shelby was preceded in death by her parents, two infant sisters; and her husband of almost 47 years, Aubrey Gregory Hare. She is survived by two sons: Kent Gregory Hare, wife Anne, of Natchitoches, Louisiana; Michael Aubrey Hare, Sr., wife Pam, of Foley, Alabama; and three grandchildren: Tristan Gregory Hare, wife Dani, of Houston, Texas; Michael Aubrey Hare, Jr., of Foley, Alabama; and Magan Ashley Carambat, husband Tyler, of Mobile, Alabama; and two nephews through her marriage to Greg – Alan Love and Rick Love, with their families.

Services will be on Tuesday, September 17, 2024, in the chapel of Mulhearn Funeral Home in Monroe, Louisiana: Visitation at 1:00 P.M. with the Funeral Service at 2:00 P.M. Burial will follow at Loch Arbor Cemetery in Swartz, Louisiana.

Memorials may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, the American Heart Association, or the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home.