Shirley Bishop Obituary

The Life and Adventures of Shirley May Barnes Frank Bishop

Shirley May Barnes was born at her home in Chicago on June 3rd, 1930, the second daughter of Merle and Katherine Barnes.

As a young girl, she loved to read books. Her dad took her to the library every Saturday where she took out as many as she was allowed. She learned how to swim in Lake Michigan. For several summers, she visited her grandparents at their farm in Missouri, a rustic rural place where she and her sister Gloria spent most of their time playing outside. They chowed down on corn on the cob.

A picky eater, she went through a time when she would only eat tomato soup which ended when she broke out in red blotches. When the doctor came to the house, he told Shirley's mother that Shirley had to eat other kinds of foods. Still, she loved to eat tomato soup all her life.

As a teenager, she belonged to a Methodist youth group, hanging out with a group of boys and girls, going to dances or just enjoying each others company. She worked during the summers as a secretary and after she graduated from high school at 16. She was still a teenager when she met Norman Frank who was the first great love of her life.

They were married in June of 1948 and celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1998, reaching 58 years before Norm's death in 2007. They had 2 children, Karen Gayle and Steven Michael, both of whom will be present at Shirley's memorial service.

While they started out very poor, living with Shirley's family for a few years after Karen, their first child was born, they soon moved to their own apartment, then their own house in Lake in the Hills, Illinois by the mid-1950s. They worked very hard, Shirley as a secretary at Barrington Trucking Company and Norm at NBC in Chicago. They also were fun-loving people who liked to go out with friends and loved to dance. They learned to ballroom dance and cha-cha, practicing fancy moves in the dining room of their home.

They began to travel more in the 1970s, although there had been a long adventure in the early 1960s in a VW camper van. Shirley, who didn't know much about camping, tried to dress up each day and cook full meals at night. She swore she would never go RV traveling again and did not.

Shirley and Norm moved to Stuart, Florida near Shirley's parents after Norm retired, although they both took jobs after they got here, Norm with Armellini's and Shirley with an insurance agent seeking to grow his company through technology. Since Shirley was an early adopter of both office and personal computers, she was able to help him expand rapidly until the company filled an entire building in Stuart.

Shirley traveled to dozens of countries in Europe, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. One of her favorite trips was one of the last trips she took when she and Bob, her second great love, visited both Australia and New Zealand.

Bob and Shirley actually met on a river cruise several years after Norm died. They met in Paris and got to know each other during the trip. They spent several months emailing each other and sharing their thoughts and life stories before they got together again in Florida in 2012.

Married in 2015, they began a second life of adventures for both of them, embarking on 19 cruises in 12 years, while also traveling extensively in the Eastern US.

While Shirley was a traveler, she also enjoyed her home. During her life, she tried her hand at many things, including knitting, sewing clothes for herself and her daughter, and she even learned how to crochet a hardanger, which is here today in the chapel. Above all, she was a curious person who was constantly learning new things through extensive reading and taking classes. She mastered the original Apple computer, introducing both her daughter and son to personal computers. She did extensive work on genealogy. She took Spanish lessons and memoir writing classes after Norm died. Until the last few weeks of her life, she continued to listen to audiobooks when she could no longer see well enough to read them.

Shirley died at home, which had been her desire. Her family is grateful to the caregivers who helped her for the last few months and to Treasure Coast Hospice.

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