Shirley Lima passed away on March 13th, 2026, after a short illness. She was a long-term resident of Parker Texas, before moving to a Dallas retirement community in June, 2015. She was born in Huntington County, Indiana on May 27, 1940, the youngest of five children.
Shirley graduated from Lancaster High School in 1958 where she was active in Band and 4H activities. Following her graduation, she attended Huntington University for two years, where she studied to become an elementary school teacher. She later changed her direction and attended International Business College in Fort Wayne, Indiana where she met her future husband, Verie Lima, a student at Indiana Institute of Technology. They met at a fraternity dance on May 5, 1961, the same day that Alan Shepard made the first U.S. sub-orbital space flight. They were married on November 24, 1961, at Pilcher's Chapel in Lancaster, the neighborhood church she attended as a child. After the wedding, they set out for Florida where her husband was employed at Honeywell. She was a stay-at-home mom during the children’s school years.
In 1978, Shirley joined the workforce, becoming a teacher's aide in the Head Start program. She was then employed by the Plano Public Library System for 21 years. While her marriage and raising a family had interrupted her education plans, she always had a secret ambition of furthering her education. She re-initiated her college goals in 1973 at Richland Junior College in Richardson, Texas, receiving an associate degree in general studies in 1976. Then, after 15 years of night school classes, she was awarded a bachelor's degree from Amberton University in 1992 at the age of 52.
Shirley retired from the library system in Plano in 2002. She occupied her time in retirement with her family and friends, traveling with her husband, honing her craft skills, reading novels, and assisting in researching genealogical ancestry. She mastered the art of building Nantucket Lightship baskets at one of her favorite vacation spots, the John Campbell School in North Carolina, eventually becoming an assistant instructor at the school.
She has made over eighty of these baskets in various shapes and sizes, with many of them passed on to her friends and family. In her later years, Shirley built a dulcimer. She and Verie began attending music workshops and participating in jamming sessions. She was a regular platelet donor for several years, donating over twenty-four gallons of blood, making the maximum or near maximum donations allowable each year.
Shirley is survived by her husband Verie; son, Richard and his wife Jeanie and their children Michael, Cody, Hayleigh, and Aubrey; son, Jeffrey; sister, Margaret Gall, brother DeWayne Glass, and many nieces and nephews and special friends Pam and Gilbert Lima and their family.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Walter, and Eva Glass; sister, Maxine Olson; brother, Robert Glass; and daughter, Tammy Lima.
The family will celebrate Shirley's life at a private memorial service at the gravesite.