Inducted: November 28, 1990
Dolores Shadd's roots were in the big city, but she became a strong advocate of the interests of farming and farm women soon after she married and moved to a Raleigh Township farm.
Mrs. Shadd was born in Detroit, and received her elementary and secondary education there. This was later augmented by University training.
Her involvement in the Associated Country Women of the World, the voice of farm women on a global scale, has taken her to other countries and meetings with women with shared interests. Representing Ontario as a Life Member of the Associated Country Women of the World, she has attended four world conferences: in Australia in 1974; in Kenya, East Africa in 1977; in Vancouver in 1983; and in Kansas City, Kansas in 1989. At the conference in Australia she had the additional honour of representing Canada and the National Farmers' Union.
Mrs. Shadd's interest in improving agriculture has been demonstrated in many other ways. As a member of the Ontario Farmers' Union, she worked on the unsuccessful campaign to save the Ontario sugar beet industry, and on the vote to establish a General Farm Organization.
Mrs. Shadd has served for three years as Women's Director (District 6) of the National Farmers' Union and as a member of the national Board of Directors for three years. She now represents Ontario as a member of the Women's Advisory Committee, acting in an advisory capacity to the N.F.U. President and to the Women's President.
She has also been deeply involved in community organizations, including the North Buxton Community Club, the Home and School Association, and the Chatham YMCA. In 1989, she became the first Chatham "Y" member to receive the International Medallion for Peace from the Canadian YMCA. She is on the International YMCA Committee. She has also been a Sunday School teacher for over thirty years.
Mrs. Shadd's strongest supporters in all her efforts are her husband, Edwin, a sixth generation Kent County farmer, and her three sons, Duane, Terence and Darrell, and their families.
A former associate said of her: "Dolores has a strong sense of purpose. When she works for anything, she goes all out, and that work has been for her family, her church, the community and farmers and farm women."