Shirley Mae McIntyre Ferrell, of Wilmington, died Sunday, Oct. 18, 2015, at the age of 90.
An only child, Shirley was born in Charleston, West Virginia and graduated from Stonewall Jackson High School in 1942. She married Jim Ferrell, a WWII U.S. Army combat veteran, in 1946. Shirley spent most of the next 20 years raising her two sons in the Kanawha Valley before moving with her family to the Dayton, Ohio area in 1964. Following her husband’s retirement in 1980, she moved to the Lakengren community near Eaton, Ohio. She and Jim summered in Ohio and wintered in Bonita Springs, Florida until he died in 1993. Shirley moved to Wilmington in 2010.
Shirley loved “NCIS,” old movies with happy endings, big band dance music, Placido Domingo, sunny weather, interesting clouds and beautiful scenery. She never saw a yellow house she didn’t like, especially one trimmed in green. Shirley intensely loved a now long-departed Irish Setter named Molly O’Malley and more recently an 18-year-old cat named Pretty Boy, who survives her passing. She also enjoyed reminiscing about the summers of her youth spent on Coal River, family camping with friends and relatives, vacations spent at Lake Arrowhead near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and her later travels to the Pacific Northwest, Europe and Western Canada.
Shirley is survived by her sons, Dan Ferrell, of Wilmington and David Ferrell and daughter-in-law Mary, of Cedar Falls, Iowa; grandchildren, Christie, Amy, Jenny and Brian; two great-granddaughters; nieces, Sue Skaggs, of Charleston, West Virginia and Ellen Douglass, of Meadville, Pennsylvania; a number of grandnieces and grandnephews scattered throughout the United States; and best friends and high school classmates, Pat Shinn and Jackson Jones, of West Virginia.
A 20-year breast cancer survivor, Shirley will be laid to rest at the Resurrection Gardens of Bonita Springs Presbyterian Church in Florida beside her late husband.
Donations in Shirley’s memory can be made to United Way of the Cape Fear Area, a Meals on Wheels program or to any agency involved in breast cancer research.
Please leave online condolences for the family at Wilmington Funeral & Cremation.
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