Nationality: American
Congregational Register No: 531
D.O.B. 24.05.1931
First Profession: 17.03.1958
Died: 25.05.1999 Aged: 68 years

Shirley (for a while, Sr. Martin de Porres) was from Lynn, Massachusetts, USA and entered in Winchester, MA, on 17 September 1955.

She trained as a registered nurse in Boston, then came to Ireland in 1963 to do midwifery.

Between 1964 and 1966 she staffed in the Clinica Moscati in Rome. MMM staffed this clinic for a short period in the 1960’s. She returned to the USA in 1967 and was infirmarian in Pope John XXIII Seminary in Weston, MA. In 1968 she moved to Chicago on promotion work and made many new friends there. She was known everywhere that she went for her sense of fun and good humour. She was never heard to speak ill of anyone.

Sr. Shirley spent three years in Taiwan, which not an easy mission because of the difficulty in learning the language. In 1981 Tanzania became her new home. She served in Makiungu and Arusha as formation directress. She also worked with the Masaai in Loolera, from where she returned very ill to Somerville, MA, USA, in August 1997.

Her long struggle with illness brought times of hope as well as of difficulty. Through it all her faith and deep love of God, which she so generously shared with others, helped sustain her.

In the words of her community in Somerville, ‘wherever she went her bright smile and inherent simplicity made her loved.’

Sr. Shirley died in Somerville and is buried in nearby Malden.