Shirley Stonecipher, who, along with her late husband, Harland, co-founded Ada-based Pre-Paid Legal Services, died Thursday at her home.

She was 82.

Known affectionately as “the First Lady of Pre-Paid Legal Services,” Shirley and Harland created the company (now LegalShield) together in 1972 and worked for more than 40 years to build it up to what it has become.

Harland Stonecipher died in November 2014 at age 76.

Allen Stonecipher, Shirley’s eldest son, said his mother was devoted to her husband and her children. Shirley was of the belief that you should treat another person the way that you would want to be treated.

“That was my mom’s motto,” Allen said. “You just didn’t mistreat people. And (that was) my dad’s belief, too. That’s how we were raised.”

Family friend and former Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Turpen praised Shirley as well.

“To me, she was like a miracle worker,” Turpen said. “She helped Harland build one of the most successful companies in American history. And -- this is kind of a spiritual interpretation -- I believe she walked uprightly. She walked uprightly. And what that means in my church vernacular is she was honest, she was honorable, she was upright. And she always led by example. And that’s why I was so proud of her being the First Lady of Pre-Paid Legal Services.”

Shirley Stonecipher came from humble beginnings.

Born May 9, 1940, in Roff to Marvin Lee and Sallie Mae Seabolt Thompson, Shirley’s family moved often, picking crops. After living in several different states

in the Southwest, the family eventually returned to Oklahoma where Shirley attended high school in Tupelo and met Harland Stonecipher.

On Aug. 22, 1958, Harland and Shirley married in Stonewall. Together, the couple had two sons, Allen and Brent.

The idea for Pre-Paid Legal Services

Becoming the first person in his family to attend college, Harland Stonecipher graduated from East Central University in 1959 and became a teacher and debate coach at Chandler and Okmulgee high schools.

His six-year stint as a teacher taught him that working for other people was holding him back, he told The Ada News in 2013.

“I realized that as long as I was working for someone else, there would be a limit on how much I could earn,” he said. “No matter how well I did as a teacher, I was still limited. I wanted to make things happen and to be compensated based on how well I did.”

Following his realization, Stonecipher gave up teaching and started selling insurance. One day in 1969, he was going to a meeting in Shawnee when he was involved in a head-on collision just west of Ada.

Stonecipher’s car insurance would pay for his totaled car, and health insurance would cover his medical bills. But the other driver decided to sue Stonecipher, who had no money for legal fees.

He said finding a lawyer wasn’t difficult, but he had trouble coming up with the money to pay one.

“I thought surely there was insurance available to cover legal fees, but it didn’t exist,” he said. “I thought, ‘Well, that ought to be an easy thing to do.’”

Launching Pre-Paid

The accident and its aftermath prompted Stonecipher to launch Pre-Paid Legal Services in 1972.

Pre-Paid’s first product was designed to help middle-income Americans obtain quality legal assistance without having to check their finances first, according to the company’s website.

Allen Stonecipher said the building of Pre-Paid Legal Services to what it eventually became wasn’t an easy road.

There were years of hardship and struggle to keep the company alive, but the Stonecipher’s and a close-knit, dedicated staff did just that.

Allen indicated people sometimes think it was a straight line to the top, which it was not.

“It wasn’t just straight up,” he said. “If you were drawing a chart, there’s all these downs and ups and all this and that, you see that movement. People talk about it like it’s a straight line to the top, well, it doesn’t work like that. And my mom was there and kept my dad going. She just always believed.”

Allen said Shirley was never negative and always believed in his father and his father’s ideas.

“My mom just believed in my dad completely,” Allen said. “She just never wavered.”

Over the years, the Stonecipher’s and their staff grew the company from a single-room operation to it being listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 2011, the company sold for more than $650 million and changed its name to LegalShield

Tragedy

In 2005, the Stonecipher’s suffered unimaginable tragedy when their youngest son, Brent, daughter-in law, Tina, and only granddaughter, Nikki, died in a plane crash.

The grief the Stoneciphers experienced led to the building of a church and chapel just down the hill from LegalShield.

The Life Community Church and Memorial Chapel was built as a memorial for grieving parents who have experienced the death of a child.

The chapel adjoins the Life Community Church building by a glass atrium. The Stonecipher’s were members of the church’s congregation, and wanted the chapel to be attached to the building when it was created.

The Stoneciphers also honored their memory by establishing the Nikki Stonecipher Memorial Scholarship, which provides financial assistance to selected ECU students.

The scholarship has raised more than $1 million to help students attend ECU.

The couple also contributed $2 million toward the building of the Harland C. Stonecipher School of Business at ECU. The facility, which is housed in the Chickasaw Business and Conference Center at ECU, had its grand opening in August 2013.

Turpen described the company as “legal representation for working men and women all over North America.”

“But the company was built by Harland and Shirley from the very beginning.”

Turpen commented that both Harland and Shirley came from humble beginnings, and they never forgot that.

“They never lost the common touch,” Turpen Said. “Even though they made money along the way, it just didn’t matter to them at all. All that mattered to them was helping men and women -- Pre-Paid Legal, LegalShield -- associates be successful. What made them happy was to make another family successful and happy and prosperous along the way.”

Turpen ran for Oklahoma Attorney General in 1981 and served from 1983 to 1987. In 1986, he ran to become Oklahoma governor, but was unsuccessful.

He said the Stonecipher’s helped him through all of it.

“I won the attorney general’s job, I lost the governor’s job, but Harland and Shirley helped me in ‘82 and ‘86, all along the way,” Turpen said. “And I like to say they’re the kind of friends who stay hitched. That’s kind of a country term, they stay hitched. Through thick and thin, they’re your friends. Through up and down, they’re your friends. Win or lose, they’re your friends.”

Services for Shirley Stonecipher will be at 11 a.m. today (Tuesday) at Life Community Church. The Rev. Mickey Keith will officiate. Burial will follow at Centrahoma Cemetery.

She is survived by her son, Allen Stonecipher and wife, Karen; sister, Virginia Boulton, of Norman; and two grandsons, Greg and Zane.