Roofing contractor known fondly as 'Old Dad'

Not long after Edward 'Old Dad' Shook started his own roofing company, he took to the streets of Pittsburgh with a crew of his blonde-haired, blue-eyed children. In their hands were business cards.

'We'd say, 'This is our dad's business card ... our dad wants to fix your roof,' said Darlene Hoover, Mr. Shook's oldest daughter. 'I might have passed out cards to 500 houses in one day, and when I'd get home the phone would be ringing off the wall.

'People needed their roofs fixed. This was a man that was willing to do it.'

Edward F. Shook Sr., clever business promoter, father of 10 and a contract roofer for more than 45 years, died Saturday, Jan. 13, 2001, at Allegheny General Hospital from an aneurysm. He was 79 and a lifelong Dormont resident.

Born in 1921 to a poor family, Mr. Shook was a hard-working man who was proud that he could still climb atop roofs at age 79, said Valerie T. Shook, his youngest daughter.

'He was proud of the fact he grew up dirt poor and came from nothing to make a success of his life,' she said.

Mr. Shook was upset when he was denied the chance to serve in World War II because of a heart murmur.

Instead, he went to work 'bustin' rock' for the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal public works project set up during the Depression to promote conservation and build good citizens through hard labor.

He later applied for what he thought was a job as a gas station attendant.

Dressed in his nicest shirt and carrying some overalls in a brown paper bag, Mr. Shook soon realized it was actually an interview to run a small oil company in Steubenville, Ohio, his daughter Valerie said.

He got the job, along with his own secretary and office, without knowing what he was supposed to do.

'He picked each of those people's brains (in the company) one by one until he found out what it was that he was supposed to do,' she said.

But it was as a roofer that 'Old Dad' made his name with Ed Shook Sr. Contractors.

'He was a wonderful salesman,' daughter Valerie said. 'He had a wonderful personality.'

Mr. Shook would send mass mailings - about 2,000 at a time - to homeowners advertising his business. In the mailings he would slip a mention of a problem of his: he married a much younger woman and wanted advice, or he had a daughter he was trying to marry off.

'His letters were so humorous that his customers used to call him up to counsel him,' Hoover said. 'They'd call him up and tell him how to deal with his younger wife or how to marry off his daughter, then he'd go out and fix their roof.'

He was a giving man who donated money to the Shriners Hospital and acted as financial coordinator and senior adviser to the Guardian Angels. He became involved with the angels through his wife, Valerie P. Shook, a black belt in karate who was the group's self-defense instructor.

Once, when the Guardian Angels were labeled as vigilantes in the mid-1980s, he stood outside then-Mayor Richard Caligiuri's home and picketed, Hoover said.

He also gave through his business, often not charging customers who couldn't afford to pay.

Ray Mussill, 53, of Carnegie, said Mr. Shook came to fix the roof of his parents' hotel.

'She went to pay him and he wouldn't take any money,' Mussill said. 'He said 'No, us business owners have to stick together.''

Mr. Shook's wife estimated he gave about $10,000 to people who couldn't otherwise afford his services.

And no matter where he was, Mr. Shook liked to wear his trademark roofing outfit: an often tar-stained shirt, coat and hat all emblazoned with 'Old Dad.'

'His thing was to go into fancy restaurants this way. People would remind him, 'Ed, you can't go in there that way,'' his daughter, Valerie, said. 'He always carried a large sum of money with a gum band around it. He'd pull that out and say, 'This says I can.'

'He just never forgot where he came from.'

Mr. Shook is survived by his wife, Valerie P. Shook; his children, Darlene Hoover, Marlene Shook, Edward F. Shook Jr., John H. Shook, Joseph E. Shook, Valerie T. Shook, John Nickl and Kimberly Bopp. Preceding him in death were his first wife, Dorothy Campbell; two children, Shane Shook and Marylou Shook; his father, Edward J. Shook; his mother, Mary Valensky; and two brothers, Jack Shook and George Shook. He had 23 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

A funeral service will be at 10 a.m. today at L. Beinhauer & Son Co., 2630 W. Liberty Ave., Dormont. Burial will be in South Side Cemetery. Woodruff Family Services, LLP. Funeral arrangements are by Beinhauers, (412) 531-4000.

Erik Siemers can be reached at esiemers@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7997.