Lois (Van Giesen) Blystone Shioleno

Lois was born on October 3, 1925, near 23rd and Wayne streets in Erie, Pa. 

She was the second of seven children born to Jay Scott Van Giesen and Sophie Dorothy Karnat. Her family moved several times due to her father’s job as a signal maintainer for the New York Central Railroad; significantly to Angola, New York, where they lived on a farm. About 1939, her father was about to be transferred again, but his children protested the move back to the Erie, and he father subsequently found another assignment, working out of North East, PA. Lois attended North East High School until she graduated (3rd in her class), in 1943. Then she worked for a year for ECOMA (Erie County Milk Association) packing ice cream. She moved to Kansas City, KS and attended an airline school. After completing her schooling, she was hired by Trans World Airlines in Kansas City. A few years later, TWA’s headquarters moved to Wilmington, DE, and Lois moved with them. In 1949, her father became fatally ill, and she moved back to North East to help her mother. At that time she got a job as a secretary at Lord Corporation in Erie, and later started dating Rodney Blystone, Jr. of North East. They married in 1951 and subsequently had three children, Rodney III, Marsha Gail, and Lance Mitchell. After her children were all in school, she worked part-time for Blystone Buick-Pontiac-GMC for several years. In the mid-1960’s she was hired by North East School District as the secretary to the business manager. She spent 25 years in that job. In 1997, her first husband, Rodney, passed away. At a class reunion, she became reacquainted Lewis Shioleno, also a member of the NEHS class of 1943, and they started dating (Lewis’s first wife having passed away). They eventually married and lived in North East until Lewis’s passing in 2016. Lois has been in several assisted-living facilities over five years; lastly at Parkside, North East. 

She is survived by one brother Richard Van Giesen of Ripley, her three children and five grandsons.

Family and friends may call at the William D. Elkin Funeral Home, 65 South Lake Street, North East on Saturday from 3:00 p.m. until time of a funeral service at 7:00 p.m. at the funeral home. Officiating the service is Rev. Rick Maas. Private interment will be held at North East Cemetery. Please send condolences to elkinfh.com.

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