Author: merilyn shaw
Alternate names: merilyn lee cromer
Born: 28 September 1931
Died: 20 November 2011
Bio: **merilyn shaw** was born September 28, 1931, in Springfield, Missouri, during the Great Depression. She was a daughter of the late Ivan Lee and Zelma Anne Hurt Cromer. The first home she remembered was a three-room teacherage, only yards away from her two-room grade school in Dolberg, a poor rural community in dust-bowl Oklahoma. 
With both parents being teachers, what she remembered of her early years was an atmosphere redolent of blackboard and chalk, books and a woodstove, wood for cooking, and wood for heat. Her childhood environment was of rustic charm and rich in education. 
A proud graduate of the University of Oklahoma, **merilyn** pursued a career in radio broadcasting. She was in demand as a writer and radio voice at stations in New Mexico, Oregon, Oklahoma, and as far east as Pennsylvania. She was frequently called upon to speak at various civic clubs. 
**merilyn** finally retired from broadcasting when a talented and ambitious entrepreneur, her husband, enlisted her as a business partner. They eventually settled in South Carolina. There, with irrepressible creativity, she continued to write poetry and occasional newspaper and magazine articles, in addition to her first novel, *Sitting on Pillicock Hill*.