First Lilac Queen remembered as ‘gracious lady’

“The lilac festival, a project of the Associated Garden clubs, reached its high peak at noon when pretty Miss Shannon Mahoney was crowned lilac queen at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

Miss Mahoney, in flowing gown of white satin and carrying a huge bouquet of purple lilacs, was crowned by Mayor Frank G. Sutherlin. Her attendants were Lilac Princesses Barbara Atwood, Margaret Monaghan, Maxine Clark and Dolores Ellison.”

– The Spokesman-Review, May 14, 1940

Pretty Miss Mahoney, a senior at North Central High School at the time, would grow up to become Shannon Mitchell, a wife, mother, artist, hard worker and lifelong learner.

She died Jan. 13 at the age of 85.

When Mahoney was crowned almost 70 years ago, no one could imagine the impact the Lilac Festival would have upon the community today.

The garden clubs in the area had been staging the parades since 1938, but the first queen was crowned in 1940. Many high school senior girls today vie for the chance to wear the purple cape and wear a sparkling crown.

“The first two years it was just a small deal to show off the lilacs,” Mahoney remembered in an interview with The Spokesman-Review three years ago. “I remember (in 1940), I helped plant a tree or something, and then everybody went their way.”

She helped establish a tradition that includes a year of service to the Lilac Association and awards scholarships to young women.

“She wasn’t real outgoing,” her daughter, Marsy Hellie recalled. “She was a good student.”

While at North Central, Mitchell took up golf. She didn’t like the pink bloomers the girls were required to wear in the regular physical education classes, so she played golf instead and became captain of the team. She was also an A student, class secretary and a lead actress in the school play.

Hellie said that the neighborhood teens would congregate at the Mahoney house when Mitchell was in high school. There was a ballroom on the second floor of the house on Northwest Boulevard, and many teens were welcome to come and be with their friends.

The same year Mitchell took the crown, she graduated from high school and took flying lessons at Felts Field.

In 1941, she married Maurice “Mitch” Mitchell, who was serving in the Army Air Corps at the time. He later worked for the Federal Aviation Administration which took their family to Madrid, Mexico City, Athens, Weisbaden, Germany; Oklahoma City and Washington, D.C.

Living in so many different countries taught the family many different languages. Mitchell could speak fluent Spanish, could get by in French and knew a little German and Greek.

Hellie said that while her mother was growing up in Spokane, she dreamed of traveling the world.

“I guess she married the right guy,” Hellie said.

While the couple were living all over the world, they never forgot the town where Shannon Mitchell grew up.

“Spokane was always home,” Hellie’s husband, Larry, said. When it came time for Mitch Mitchell to retire in 1972, the couple moved back to their home in Spokane.

Shannon Mitchell worked for many years as an executive secretary and translator for R.A. Hanson Co. Later in life, she would keep the books for the Fairway Village Homeowner’s Association, the retirement community where she lived in Vancouver.

She was comfortable around computers. Hellie said that every time Mitchell bought a new one, she knew exactly what to ask for at the store. She taught herself QuickBooks, and she was also keeping busy by learning the computer animation program, Flash.

“Her granddaughter was so proud of her using a computer,” Hellie said.

Mitchell also was an artist.

Several years ago, Hellie bought her mother a calligraphy set. Mitchell started trying out copying pages of Gregorian chants. From there, she moved on to creating miniature books of ancient texts in many languages, such as a Haggadah, “The Canterbury Tales” and a German children’s speller.

Making these books required her to study many different languages, such as Swedish, Indonesian, Maori, Hebrew, Polish, Japanese, Russian and more. She may not have been able to speak them, but she learned what every word meant when she put it into another book.

She sold the books – which were 2 ½ by 3 inches, leather-bound and included a brass or silver clasp – to collectors. Her books reside in many different private and public collections and have been included in museum displays.

Mitchell and her husband moved to Vancouver in 1990 to be close to her daughter and granddaughter, but the two still thought of Spokane as their home.

Before the move, Mitchell was involved in the Lilac Festival’s 50th anniversary celebration in 1988, and in 1999, she returned to Spokane just for the Lilac Festival.

Donna Aberasturi, a director with the Spokane Lilac Festival Association, said she picked up Mitchell from the airport in 1999 when she last participated in the event. During that trip back to Spokane, Mitchell spoke at the Lilac luncheon.

“I jazzed up my presentation,” she remembered in a story that ran in The Spokesman-Review three years ago. “I rearranged it because I was getting tired of saying the same things. I got a standing ovation.”

Aberasturi said the festival surprised Mitchell by putting her in the front of the second Lilac float.

“She was such a grand lady,” Aberasturi said. “She was the epitome of a gracious, gracious lady.”

Mitchell was preceded in death by her husband who died in 2004; a daughter, Michelle, who died in infancy in 1944; and a sister, June Mahoney Stouse.

She is survived by her daughter, Marsy Hellie, and her husband, Larry; a granddaughter, Lisa Linderman and her husband, Todd; a great-granddaughter, Genevieve Linderman; her sister’s children, Ginger Blair, Mark and Jack Stouse and their families; and several great-nieces and great-nephews on her husband’s side of the family.