Grace Mary Shry; Psychiatric Technician

Grace Mary Shry, a psychiatric technician for 25 years at the now-closed Camarillo State Hospital, died Friday at home in Camarillo. She was 91.

Shry was born in Woods County, Okla., on Sept. 15, 1905, and moved to Ventura County at the age of 35.

She and husband Eddie Shry, to whom she was married for 63 years, both worked at the mental hospital. She was a psychiatric technician and he was a cook.

“She always wanted to do more for her friends and family,” said Christean Hunnicutt, who said Shry took her in when she was 20 years old and acted as a mother to her. “She was wonderful. She’d always brag about me to everyone, especially at church.”

Shry was a 50-year member of the Order of Eastern Star in Oxnard and an active member of Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Camarillo since 1944. She also worked with the Evergreen Seniors and collected money and eyeglasses to send to missionaries in Haiti, Hunnicutt said.

Aside from Hunnicutt, Shry is survived by two sisters, Esther Hufford of Mercedes, Texas, and Ima Haltom of Alva, Okla.; and a brother, the Rev. Howard Beecher Lawrenceville, Ill.

Shry was preceded in death by her husband and seven siblings.

Visitation will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday at Pierce Brothers Griffin Mortuary, 1075 E. Daily Drive, in Camarillo. The funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Conejo Mountain Memorial Park.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to any charity or to the Pleasant Valley Baptist Church.

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Bennett, Evelyn Lowen, 89, of Camarillo, retired secretary for Rockwell International Corp. Pierce Brothers Griffin Mortuary, Thousand Oaks.