WARREN — Love brought Jackie Shannon to Warren. Losing that love brought her to the Trumbull County Historical Society.

Shannon, who is president of the historical society’s board, grew up in Cleveland, graduating from Regina High School in 1981 and going to Kent State University, where she met Patrick Shannon from Warren.

“We dated for a short time and then we broke up,” Shannon said. “One night, years later, I was talking to a mutual friend of ours, ‘I wonder whatever happened to Patrick Shannon,’ and she said, ‘Yeah, it was stupid for you to break up with him.'”

One night in 1990, she decided to call information and see if a Patrick Shannon was listed for Warren, even though she figured it was a long shot.

“When she (the operator) said the number, I dropped the phone and just screamed.”

She had to call back again to write down the number, and it took a couple more days to muster the courage to dial it. The phone was answered by a woman with a beautiful voice, which she feared was his wife, but she asked if Patrick was there.

“He picked up the phone and I said ‘Hey, this is Jackie Morgan.’ (He replied) ‘The only girl who ever broke my heart.'”

The woman who answered the phone turned out to be his mother. Within a couple of weeks of resuming their relationship, they started talking about marriage and said, “I do,” six months later.

They had two children — Patrick Jr., 28 and Ariana, 26 — and were together for 22 years until Patrick died at age 50 on their anniversary in 2013.

“He’d had pneumonia, but I think it might have been a blood clot,” she said. ‘He had been short of breath the night before, but I didn’t put two and two together. I came home the next day from work and he was on the floor. He was gone. It’s been 10 years.”

As her children got older and left for college, Shannon was looking for ways to fill the hours. She got an email from board member Jan Vaughn asking if she’d be interested in serving on the historical society’s board.

“I thought, ‘Wow, that is really interesting,'” she said. “At that point I was still trying to find things for myself to do. The kids had already moved away. I was a widow. I had nothing to do, so I started finding things for me to do, and the historical society was something that made me think, ‘I would like that. I know I’d like that.’

“When we got married, we went on the Ghost Walk all the time, and I just thought it was so fascinating what Trumbull County brings to history. It’s a lot. I thought this would be great. It’s right up my alley. I became a board member and last year became president.”

Her involvement with TCHS has increased her appreciation in the region’s contributions, from the homes that were stops on the Underground Railroad that escaped slaves depended upon to the Mahoning Valley’s ties to the steel and coal industries.

“I think I’m probably a lifer now,” Shannon said. “I see things growing and growing and growing, and Meghan (Reed, TCHS executive director) and her team are just phenomenal.”

Shannon works for the Cleveland Clinic as a certified cancer registrar, compiling the data hospitals need to present to be accredited by the Commission on Cancer American College of Surgeons.

She also returned to another former passion since she came to Trumbull County, frequently appearing in shows at Trumbull New Theatre in Niles. She got bit by the theater bug when she was cast as Dolly Levi in a production of “Hello, Dolly!” at Regina High School her senior year.

“Again, after I became a widow, I was just trying to find things to do,” she said. “My best friend dared me into doing something. She did ‘The Music Man’ at South Euclid, so I auditioned for ‘100 Lunches’ at TNT, and I just realized how much I loved it.”

The move from Cleveland to Warren was an adjustment, especially in 1990, when there was less going on than there is today.

“Everything closed down at 8, 9 o’clock,” Shannon said. “In Cleveland, they had clubs to go to, and after you clubbed all night long, you could go to breakfast. I cried a lot, especially in 1990, ’91. But I found things to do, I made new friends, and now those friends, it’s been 20, 30 years later. Now this is my home.”

To suggest a Saturday profile, contact Features Editor Burton Cole at bcole@tribtoday.com or Metro Editor Marly Reichert at mreichert@tribtoday.com.