WA - Stephanie Shea (née Brown), 83, of Clyde Hill, WA, died Thursday, Feb. 13 at Overlake Hospital immediately following a heart attack at home.

She was born on Nov. 3, 1941 in Lawrence, MA. She was the oldest of four children of the late William Hayes Brown, a longtime English instructor and founder of the crew at Phillips Academy, Andover, MA. and Lee Brooks Brown, an artist, both late of Bath, ME.

She shared her father's passion for literature and learning and the art of teaching, and her mother's artistic gift for painting. Like her three younger brothers, Stephanie spent many happy summers in her youth on MacMahan Island in Georgetown, ME and the island was for her, as for all of them, the site of stories of adventures and misadventures and undying memories. She will be laid to rest there near her parents' graves.

Stephanie was a 1959 graduate of St. Mary's in the Mountains in Littletom, NH, and of Cornell University in 1963, where she met her future husband, soon to be army officer William Lawrence Shea. The two of them would travel to Asia as part of his assignment in Okinawa in 1965-1969. Their son David was born in 1965 and Paul in 1967.

Once back stateside, Stephanie devoted herself to raising her two sons and playing and teaching tennis. In the early 1980's she returned to school for graduate study, earning a PhD in Education at the University of Washington in 1986.

Stephanie was afflicted with epilepsy at an early age and struggled through it all her days, and further physical challenges were to develop from that. She was confined to a wheelchair for her last 15 years, but this did not prevent her engaging with her community. She volunteered at the Seattle Humane Society, and most recently she had been very active with Eastside Neighbors Network, organizing book clubs, art clubs, and a meditation group that would most often convene at her home.

Her late husband Larry (1941-2007), was a polymath with wide interests ranging from geology, paleontology to astronomy and taught for a number of years in the late 1980's at Bellevue Community College. She is survived by her son David (Regina) and Paul. Stephanie leaves her beloved granddaughter Fiona Shea; her brothers Rufus (Thomasine), Judson (Sandy) and Paul (Charlotte); brother-in-law Tim Shea (Kathy); and cousins, David Brown, Rodney "Rusty" Brown, Sukey Heard (Roger); and numerous nieces and nephews. She also leaves her longtime caregiver and companion Ana Palanchuk.

A memorial service on MacMahan Island, Maine is anticipated this summer.