Obituary: Audrey Shirts
August 12, 1934 – August 12, 2024
Audrey Pearl Shirts, born August 12, 1934, quietly passed away August 12, 2024, on her 90th birthday. Her children, Len and Paula, and their spouses, Franziska and John, were with her.
Audrey’s early years were spent with her parents, Art and Sue Jones, and brothers Claude and Harry, in Bear Lake, Michigan. The family relocated to Southern California in 1939, and Audrey graduated from Redlands High in 1952.
In early 1953 a good friend, Len Nielsen, wrote Audrey that his friend, Gordon Shirts, would look her up on his way from Salt Lake City to San Diego. Audrey “washed her hair and put on a nice dress”, but Gordon failed to show. She complained, he sent a letter of apology, and a correspondence ensued, full of youthful and idealistic discussions of literature, politics, and hopes for the future. They were married by the end of summer.
After a year in Salt Lake City, during which Audrey attended business college, they moved to San Diego and Gordon continued college on the GI Bill. Len was born in 1956 and Paula in 1957, and in 1959 the family moved to South Lake Tahoe, where Gordon taught social studies at South Tahoe High School for the next 30 years. Their third child, Claude, was born in 1962.
As a young wife and mother new to Tahoe, Audrey found lasting friendships among the other ‘faculty wives’. Intellectual stimulation came from voracious reading and the local Great Books discussion group, creative expression from playing roles in Lake Tahoe Children’s Theater.
Audrey was a nurturing and involved parent, encouraging her children in creative pursuits, independent thinking, and ethical reasoning. She was a Cub Scout den mother, and the stellar leader of Girl Scout Troop 177 at Bijou Elementary. When her kids were older, she worked in several positions at both Lake Tahoe Community College and South Tahoe Intermediate School, putting her business college training to good use.
She and Gordon had a wonderful retirement. They took up birdwatching and acquired a popup tent trailer for birding trips. They stayed involved in local theater and discovered the card game Hand and Foot, which they taught to many friends and acquaintances. Audrey joined the cookie brigade that baked treats for AIDS task force clients. She belonged to several book groups.
Audrey loved solitary pursuits such as reading, writing poetry, wildflower walks, and swimming in the lake. She enjoyed time with friends playing pinochle, charades, or croquet, cooking breakfast at the beach, and in deep conversation. She had a keen mind and a caring heart full of both justice and compassion. Her most extraordinary talent was for finding joy in small things. She loved all the arts, loved nature, and loved her husband, family, friends, and community.
Gordon died in 2009, and after 9 more years spent in the house with the red shirts in Montgomery Estates, Audrey moved to San Francisco in 2018 to be close to her daughter Paula and son Claude. Sadly, Claude died in 2022. Audrey’s last years were quiet but filled with things she loved – old movies on tv, a creative writing class, audiobooks, flowers, online scrabble, reminiscing with her brothers, visits and facetime and texting with her children.
She is survived by son Len Shirts and wife Franziska Braegger, daughter Paula Foley and husband John, brother Claude Jones and wife Lilah, brother Harry Jones and wife Marilyn, and sister-in-law Linda Ferguson and husband John.
Her life was a rich and diverse tapestry with much love and many highlights, and she was grateful for it.
