HELLENBACH

Beloved wife of the late Otto F.; dear mother to Mark (Christine), Peggy (Scott) Grant, and Scott (Kristina Price); loving grandmother of Jessica, Matthew, and Kyle (Alice); great-grandmother of Adelaide and Orion; sister of the late Silvia (late Roseville) Hirtle; aunt to David R. (Krista) Hirtle and several nephews and nieces. Daughter of the late Harris W. (late Lavaughn J.) Lohnes of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; granddaughter to the late S. Dean (late Amanda) Lohnes and the late S. Robert (late Elizabeth Mary Ann) Lohnes. She was a proud graduate of the Lunenburg Academy Class of 1950. During her years at the Academy, she learned piano, her passion. She and her best friend, the late Janet (nee Zinck) Cluett accompanied the Beethoven Choral Society. Shirley was on the track team and was #13 on the Lunenburg Girls’ Basketball Team, the Team that won the 1948 Nova Scotia Intermediate Interscholastic Basketball Championship. During her youth, she was a member of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, the inspiration for her career in religious education. In 1954, she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Western Ontario – Waterloo College, London, Ontario. She also graduated from church educator courses at the Lutheran Deaconess School in Ruxton, Maryland. In 1954, she was hired as Director of Religious Education at Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Buffalo, New York. She met her husband Otto through the Church Bowling League; they married on November 7, 1964. After having children, she was hired as Youth Leader of Christian Education at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lancaster, New York. To help support her children’s university educations, she completed her career as a Retirement Counselor at M&T Bank. Her passions in life were the Lord, family, friends, the church, and playing piano. Throughout her life, she was kind, caring, and giving; she left the world a better place, especially for the lives she touched. She has been laid to rest in the Ten Commandments Section of Acacia Park Cemetery, North Tonawanda, New York.