When Janet E. Shaw first moved to Pittsburgh, she used to pronounce Isaly’s, the famous deli and ice cream spot, “I Sally’s.” Because she was from New Orleans, it was understandable and charming. Her grandfather, Albert Estopinal, was lieutenant governor of Louisiana from 1900 to 1904. But although she missed the weather and liked to visit, she never wanted to move back.

What brought her north was love, and it’s what kept her, as she flourished as a social worker, a publisher and a church activist. Mrs. Shaw died Saturday as a result of complications from pneumonia at Canonsburg Hospital. She was 90.

In 1945, Ms. Shaw earned a bachelor of arts degree from Newcomb College of Tulane University during a time when many women of her generation were more interested in getting married and starting a family.

She went on to earn a master’s degree in social work at Tulane in 1953. It was at Tulane that she met her first husband, Arthur Eugene Lauhghner of Monaca, who was at Tulane on the G.I. Bill. The couple moved to Pittsburgh in 1955, and she got a job with Catholic Social Services. She remained in Pittsburgh the rest of her life, even after Mr. Lauhghner’s untimely death a year later in 1956.

It was on a Unitarian Church ski trip to Seven Springs that she met newspaper publisher David Eugene Shaw of Mt. Lebanon, who was 11 years older than her. The couple married in 1959 and had two children, David Shaw of Washington, D.C., and Rachel Shaw Moninger of Canonsburg. He was an outdoorsman and she went along with him, but her son describes his mother more as “a porch person.”

“From New Orleans to Pittsburgh was really a surprising journey,” David Shaw said. “Along with pursuing an education, she had children late in life, which is not uncommon now but must have been somewhat risky and not very common at the time,” he added.

Mrs. Shaw joined her husband in the publishing business, giving up her social work career. He started “Outdoor People of Pennsylvania.”

“It was a very successful newspaper and was a leading advocate for strip mine reclamation,” her son recalled. “My mother did a lot of the editing and writing. She was a very good writer — they were a team.”

The couple lived through the evolution of the newspaper industry. “So my father at least saw the transition from linotype to online publishing. He died in 2006, but she saw it go from cold typesetting to online,” he said.

Mrs. Shaw was fearless when it came to the pursuit of knowledge and standing by what she believed in. “She made her own decisions as far as religion, too,” he said. “She was raised Roman Catholic and I think her first husband’s death shook her pretty strongly and she eventually ended up very active in the Episcopal church.”

Mrs. Shaw was a lay reader and senior warden at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Canonsburg. She had also been a senior warden of St. Matthew Episcopal Church in Homestead and was on the board of trustees of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

“She was advocating for ordaining women into the priesthood when it was first coming to the forefront in the early 1970s,” recalled her son.

Ms. Shaw was a member of Progressive Christianity and was an avid reader who was interested in theology and new ways of understanding the Gospel.

“I was very young, but I remember her giving a speech at an Episcopal church convention about ordination and calling the other side on the carpet,” he recalled. “It was back when Robert Appleyard was Pittsburgh’s Episcopal bishop. She was not a fundamentalist or a literalist. She saw the Bible as stories and metaphors for how God spoke to people at different times.” He said she believed church should be inclusive and welcoming, not a club.

In addition to her children, Ms. Shaw is survived by stepdaughter Madelaine Gray of Sarasota, Fla.; sisters Dorothy Ginn of Greenville, S.C., and Mildred Schindler of Fort Myers, Fla.; as well as five grandchildren.

A private graveside service was held Monday at Woodruff Memorial Park, Canonsburg.

Patricia Sheridan: psheridan@post-gazette.com and 412-263-2613.

First Published: April 26, 2016, 4:13 a.m.