[1] The son of Allan Shoemaker and Alice Louetta Harkness, Shoemaker was educated at a one-room school in Grandview, and became a partner of Shoemaker-McGilvray Agencies in Neepawa, working in the fields of insurance, travel and real estate.
[2] He was easily elected to the Manitoba legislature in the 1958 provincial election for the rural riding of Gladstone,[1] ironically as the Liberals were voted out of office at the provincial level.
In the 1959 election, he defeated[1] Progressive Conservative challenger Earl Murray by only 149 votes.
He was returned by greater margins in the elections of 1962 and 1966,[1] and spent his entire legislative career on the opposition benches.
[3] He did not seek a return to the legislature after this time, and lived in Neepawa until his death.